Questions tagged [folk]
Folk music includes both traditional music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th century folk revival. The term originated in the 19th century but is often applied to music that is older than that. Some types of folk music are also called world music.
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Why does this major-key folk song sound sad?
This is an old Scottish folk song. Why does it sound so sad, even though it is in a major key, and doesn't use any of the typical tricks songwriters use to make major keys sound sad (i.e. IV-iv-I)?
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Help identifying this wind instrument [closed]
I was listening a traditional song "Oy u gayu pry Dunaju" (Oh, in the grove by the Danube) performed by a ukrainian band "Hurt Express" and I have noticed right from the beginning ...
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Can there be no melody in some Scandinavian folk music?
I have a set of basic questions regarding melody and I’m not formally trained in music but I want to expand my knowledge on this and other subjects in music. Please advise if any of my terminology can ...
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Why does this song sound sad even though it is uptempo-ish and in a major key?
"Rag Tag Army" by John Edmond
The song is uptempo-ish, and in C major without any mode mixture from C minor. There are A minor and E minor chords in it, yet none of them even end a phrase, ...
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How do folk musicians count repeats?
I am trained as a classical musician. I'm fast at reading standard notation, counting rests, all of that. Recently I played bass for a children's folk dance event. The music was mostly European ...
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How to determine key in a piece of Chinese folk music
When viewing a piece of music that is notated like this, how does one determine the key? A student sung it to me, and I was able to figure out that the numbers correspond to the scale degrees in a ...
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What is "modal minor"?
What is "modal minor"?
Context: Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Six Studies in English Folk Song" has a part called "1.Adagio ('Lovely on the Water') in E modal minor" (emphasis ...
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How is the starting pitch chosen/remembered for music sung in Abenaki culture?
I'm learning to sing and teach to children several Abenaki songs. I was careful to be authentic in sourcing them, and am working through a book and audio recordings prepared by a Penobscot elder and ...
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Questions on Chord progression in "Cocaine Blues"
In the song "Cocaine Blues" (in the style of Townes Van Zandt) the opening chord progression (transposed to C) is C - E7 - F. That is a I - III7 - IV or a V - VII7 - I, depending on what ...
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How appropriate or inappropriate is the word "papoose" in a Native America song? [closed]
I'm researching Native American songs to teach elementary students (approx. 8-9 years old) in a US public elementary school.
I found many songs that have the original lyrics presented phonetically, so ...
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How would one research standards for English tempo descriptions in BPM ca. 1900?
I am transcribing a songbook of Celtic folk tunes compiled in 1928 and generating MIDI from the transcription so that I can learn them by ear. The book is filled with tempos like:
Flowing and not too ...
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Is there a standardized way to write sheet music for musical spoons?
The spoons are a percussion instrument common in folk music around the world. Often, the spoons can create lines similar to a snare drum cadence, but with the addition of different body strikes and ...
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What is this very long pipe instrument?
In
at 15:25 there is a very long pipe instrument with no holes. It is supposedly a folk instrument from Argentina since the piece is Misa Criolla by Ramirez, which ...
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Where can I learn to write chord progressions like Bob Dylan?
Let me start off by saying that I have no folk background, and I am not aware of the rich tradition of folk or folk-rock. That being said, I understand that, similar to the blues tradition, there are ...
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Are there folk music families, analogous to language families?
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestral language or parental language, called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects ...
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