Ten Reasons to Learn Traditional Folk Music: Reason 1

For many people, the term “folk music” conjures up only quaint images of geriatric fiddlers or country bumpkins square dancing at the town fair, but folk music can be rewarding in many ways for musicians of any age and from any region, whether rural or urban. Traditional folk music is the enormous body of tunes and songs that have been around long enough to enter the public domain, often of unknown authorship. These songs have stood the test of time, and many popular artists have incorporated them into their repertoires, from Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton, to Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Young and Bob Dylan, to Dropkick Murphys and Metallica. In fact, the 1960s saw a revival of folk music that pushed it into the mainstream, and that revival continues today, albeit less prominently.

What follows are ten good reasons to consider learning some traditional folk music, reasons I learned over ten years as a performing singer-songwriter and as a recording artist, both for albums and for YouTube (www.youtube.com/bardofcornwall). My experience is mostly in folk music from the United Kingdom and North America, but these points also apply to many other traditions.

Reason 1. Huge Variety:

Those who would dismiss folk music as irrelevant to modern listeners generally haven’t experienced even a fraction of the traditional songs that we know of. There are so many to choose from, and so many moods created by them, that there would be some song to suit any musical taste. When it comes to traditional folk music, modern musicians are really spoiled for choice: you could listen for a lifetime and still discover new gems, from comic songs to love ballads to laments for the dead.

 

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