The History of Folk Music

The history of folk Music

A long time ago, melodies were thought of people of the folk, who didn’t know the notation of musical notes. But these folk composers did know how to amuse, interest or affect people. From the Middle Ages until the 19th century the bounds between groups of people were more important than bounds between countries. These differences affected the music; every group of people had their own kind of music, strictly separated from each other. In the 19th century the nationalism grew. Each folk was creating their own national music, which had to make their identity stronger. If there was no national music, people composed their own national music. The differences between city music and countryside music became bigger and bigger. People in the past live far apart from each other and the local music was the only thing which was played by everybody. Now music is mostly played by different countries and cultures from all over the world.

What is Folk music ?

Folk music is music that is passed along by singing and playing for generations from father to son, from mother to daughter, in family and at village celebrations. Folk music contains songs, music to listen to and dances that characterize the identity of people. It’s music which is the property of the people. Everyone knows it and can sing it. Folk music often has a social function within a community and at ritual moments in life such as wedding funerals and seasonal moments such as midwinter and sheep shearing. Folk music is music which is part of a country because of it’s unique sounds. Folk music isn’t a real music style, because there is not one type of folk music, but hundreds. Every country has it’s own style of folk music. Also it often happens there are differences between folk music in the country and in the city

Dutch folk music.

The Dutch folk music is because of the position of the Netherlands as a trading nation, the great rivers, and the North-Sea, greatly influenced by music from overseas county’s like the UK. If Dutch people speak about folk music they often refer to their own folk music. There are also a few instruments typical to Dutch folk music: Violin, flute, bagpipe, folk guitar, drums and especially accordion. Of course not all of the instruments are in every song but there are at least a few present.

The song that our class will sing is called: “Al die willen te kaap’ren varen” It is a sea shanty sung in the Netherlands a long time ago. The Dutch folk song that will be sung by another involved country is called: “Kortjakje”

Leek Lindenborg class 3v