In the XX century, many new musical genres arose, which continue to develop to this day. One of these genres was the musical direction of folk.
Instruction manual
1
The word "folk" comes from English folk, which means people, a certain group of people and people. Hence, folk music is simply folk music. In Russian, "folk" is also an abbreviation for the broader concept of "folklore." In the modern world of music, folklore refers to very different subgenres of music, which, in fact, are very different from each other. However, several signs are characteristic of all folk music: the presence of acoustic, folk instruments, specific singing and folk roots. The set of instruments depends on the region in which the music is played. And, although the term “folk” arose in the 19th century, music composed long before that belongs to this genre.
2
There are concepts of pure folk music and the direction of commercial and classical styles. The difference between pure folk music is that there is a lot of primitivism in it, there is no clear rhythm, and it also has enough melody for which one string is used on some unusual exotic instrument. An example is the throat singing of Tuvans, cowboy banjo motifs, and Armenian duduk tunes.
3
In the middle of the 20th century, both researchers and musicians became interested in what was played and performed in villages and small settlements. So, the genre of folk music began to form new forms that now seem familiar. In modern terms, folk was popularized. Now it can be attributed to both Bob Dylan (Bob Dylan), and Ravi Shankar (Ravi Shankar), and Dzhivan Gasparyan (Djivan Gasparyan).
4
The direction of the folk is very diverse. Most often, it is classified according to the territorial basis: Irish, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Balkan, etc. In addition, there were such genres as: folk rock, pop folk, ethno-jazz, neo-folk and even folk punk. In Europe and the USA, folk performers include those who compose songs and sing them to the guitar themselves. In Russia, such musicians are called bards, and they are very far from the folk genre. Such minstrels in the West have their own name - "singer-songwriter". It is also customary to add "folk" to this. And the guy with the guitar from Brooklyn is already a folk musician, but Bulat Okudzhava is not.
5
For simplicity, folk can be divided into traditional folk (traditional folk) and contemporary (contemporary folk). The traditional is that of the village and nature. If the music sounds beautiful and is, as it were, cleaned up, then this is modern folk. For example, the ingenious folk singer of our time Loreena McKennitt is modern folk, and the Chukchi-Eskimo ensemble Ergyron is naturally traditional.
6
The following musicians and their groups can be cited as examples of foreign folk artists: Blackmore's Night, Leonard Cohen, Dropkick Murphys, Garmarna and others. Domestic performers of folk music: Mill, Pelagia, The Darzt, Kalinov Most and others.
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