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What is American folk music?
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The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as traditional music, traditional folk music, contemporary folk music, vernacular music, or roots music. Many traditional songs have been sung within the same family or folk group for generations, and sometimes trace back to such origins as the British Isles ...
folk music, type of traditional and generally rural music that originally was passed down through families and other small social groups. Typically, folk music, like folk literature, lives in oral tradition; it is learned through hearing rather than reading.
- National Museum of American History American Folk Fiddle.
- National Portrait Gallery Bob Dylan.
- National Museum of American History American Five-String Fretless Banjo.
- National Museum of American History Doc Watson and Merle Watson.
Apr 25, 2018 · From the onset of American history, folk music has shown up at times when the people needed it most. The earliest folk songs rose from slave fields as spirituals such as “Down by the Riverside” and “We Shall Overcome.” These are songs about struggle and hardship but are also full of hope.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, American folk music collectors wrote down the words and melodies to a variety of traditional expressions including Native American. ritual songs, African American spirituals and work songs, Anglo American ballads and fiddle tunes, and western cowboy songs.
Explore a selection of articles, blog posts, and artist biographies shared by Smithsonian museums, cultural centers, and research centers on the topic of American folk music.
The folk music of the Americas consists of the encounter and union of three main musical types: European traditional music, traditional music of the American natives, and tribal African music that arrived with slaves from that continent.
