https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o :) en-us 2021-09-21 11:54:54 UTC 2021-09-24 11:51:51 UTC hello@padlet.com nathanielkenny https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1758819886 Tracking the origins of American folk is much more vague than other things - especially since so much can be traced back to folk itself. The main inspiration, however, were work songs, largely born of slavery in America, as well as sea shanties and other communal songs. They were meant to keep rhythm in the work, but as slavery dissolved and as sailors came to shore, they just kept going, probably because people thought they just sounded nice. As was the case for the work-song medium, everything continued to be passed down orally.

There are certainly European influences as well, especially since it was a time when the country was so young. Ballads, akin to medieval bard sort of stuff, can be intertwined with folk, in the sense of telling of a story and its actual structure.

Much of its popularity (our modern definition of it) spread post-WWI, but it was a very poignant part of frontier living in the mid to late 1800s, in places that were a little farther away from the east coast.

]]> 2021-09-22 02:24:30 UTC https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1758819886 nathanielkenny https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1758826353 https://youtu.be/gSLIc9h5l2k

This was recorded in the 1920s-30s era, but is still essentially what you would have heard in the 1880s.]]> 2021-09-22 02:28:23 UTC https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1758826353 nathanielkenny https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1759768420 The sort of real origin is very much of the traditional songs brought over from Britain when the U.S. was still just the Colonies. From then on, American folk music was near identical to that of English folk music or Scottish folk music.

However, it was the combination of work music, spread after the fall of slavery in the U.S., that made it what it is we might hear and consider truly American folk music.]]> 2021-09-22 11:54:10 UTC https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1759768420 nathanielkenny https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1759792384 As was the case for most normal people in the 1800s, nearly all of their knowledge was gained by word of mouth, whether it be gossip, cooking recipes, or how to play a certain song. Oral history was how folk music spread through the country, as these songs were passed down through generations and taught to anyone who was willing to learn.

This created a culture that can only really exist in a time period such as this. There may have been songs that everyone knew, but it was likely that everyone had their own version of it. The lyrics for "I've Been Working on the Railroad" (a song that is very blatantly tied to the genre's origins of work music) may have been different with nearly everyone you meet. It was not necessarily out of creativity, like people just wanting to put their own spin on a certain song (although that happened all the time too) - it was likely how it was taught, and it was likely how they think it's supposed to be played. There wasn't a benchmark version of a song, because there was nothing that it could reliably spread through. Even if records and gramophones were a thing, they were rarely pressed with folk music, and not many could afford such a device.]]> 2021-09-22 12:06:18 UTC https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1759792384 nathanielkenny https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1759795604 https://youtu.be/ahnYw3KmX74

Has some really great examples of folk recorded in the 1800s, as well as shows just how oral history can change songs as the years go by, and how loose things were at the time. People heard a song and without a second thought wrote their own verse, or changed the structure, or maybe wrote a whole new song and just kept the title. The word "intellectual property" meant literally nothing, and that was kinda cool.]]> 2021-09-22 12:07:43 UTC https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1759795604 nathanielkenny https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1759810735 2021-09-22 12:14:32 UTC https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1759810735 nathanielkenny https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1762712473 The AFS, founded in 1888, was part of an effort to collect and record all these different songs and styles of folk. Because there were so many different variations and so many different people to talk to, their work was cut out for them.]]> 2021-09-23 11:38:21 UTC https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1762712473 nathanielkenny https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1762720863 The two kings of American folk were not people - the banjo and the guitar ruled over this style, and still does with modern iterations. Of course, there are others, like the harmonica and the violin, but those two kind of similar instruments are a folk singers choice. A lot of Americans during that period - late 1800s to early 1900s - wandered, or at least walked a whole lot more than we do now, so instruments had to be portable. A guitar or a banjo could be strapped to your back - a tambourine could hang off your belt - a harmonica could just sit in your pocket.]]> 2021-09-23 11:43:13 UTC https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1762720863 nathanielkenny https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1762726330 American folk songs, with its relationship to ballads, were almost always about telling a story. The recurring topic of "the guy whose down on his luck" can be seen over and over again, and not to say their isn't variation, it shared a lot with the blues (sonically as well) in the sense that you were usually singing about something that was bringing you down, or someone who is being brought down.

As is the name, folk music ties with folklore. The genre was also a vessel for that American folklore, talking about things they might have believed back then. ]]> 2021-09-23 11:46:23 UTC https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1762726330 nathanielkenny https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1762734380 Folk still hangs around today, but it has certainly changed from being the music for the "wanderer with a heavy heart". That was in part to what many call the Folk Music Revival, which began in the 1940s. It inserted folk music into the blossoming music industry, and started to grow into one of the most popular genres.

You can't talk about folk in the more modern age without mention Bob Dylan, who was likely the greatest reason for folk's popularity at its height in the '60s. Most of his music was just him and his guitar, at least early on in his career.

Folk has changed, even if the music itself has stayed fairly similar. I would argue the most interesting parts have changed - the oral history, the wandering from town to town, etc. Now, and in the '60s, it has become sort of just another genre.]]> 2021-09-23 11:50:56 UTC https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1762734380 nathanielkenny https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1762743258 American folk, though its revival, went on to influence artists from just about every nationality, as music grew more accessible across the world. It's hard to find a folk singer, or really any artist, today who you can't track their influence back to Bob Dylan.

In 2021, we have subgenres, like indie-folk, where people have taken the Dylan-esque style and applied it to modern music making, as well as modern problems. Almost all the same instruments are still used, with some more thrown in.]]> 2021-09-23 11:55:55 UTC https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1762743258 nathanielkenny https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1762746786 2021-09-23 11:57:50 UTC https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1762746786 nathanielkenny https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1762775982 "Since 1928 the Library of Congress has been preserving America's folk cultural heritage by collecting sound recordings, manuscripts, motion pictures, and photographs; and for the last fifty years the Library has published a series of phonograph records and audiocassettes that provide highlights from the collections in the Archive of Folk Culture..."]]> 2021-09-23 12:12:58 UTC https://padlet.com/nathanielkenny/urnsz8oec86ueq2o/wish/1762775982