The first things that I think of when I think of Folk music are the people that created it, how they did it and the culture. Folk music was something that came so natural to our people while back in Africa. Whenever they would work in the fields or in water, they sang. Music was apart of their daily life. They sang in order to pass the time when they were doing work. Even people working alone sang. Folk music is mostly played with acoustic instruments and have simple time signatures such as 3/4 or 4/4/. The most familiar part about folk music to me is Call and Response. Growing up when I played outside with my sister and neighbors, we played a lot of call and response games like Miss Mary Mack and Little Sally Walker. We also used our hands and feet to make beats on certain parts of the song.
After listening to Lead Belly sing Goodnight Irene, it brought to my attention that I have not heard this type of music before. It sounded as if they were really sad and somewhat suicidal because he says “If Irene turns her back on me, i’m going to take morphine and die “. He also tells the audience “Lets mourn it together”. This is something that I will most definitely not forget. They turned their pain into music.
Other Important folk artist are Leonard Cohen, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Bob Dylan. Although Folk music was how black people expressed themselves and sung it to get their work done, I don’t think I would find myself listening to it because it always just seems so sad.