Abstract

When thinking about folk music in the United States, the sounds and images that tend to arise in one’s mind are of singers and instrumentalists who play simple, acoustic songs that pull at heartstrings and evoke nostalgia with their lyrics. However, folk doesn’t technically have a “sound”. The International Folk Music Council hastily agreed upon a definition of the genre in 1952, which describes folk as the result of oral transmission that also relies on a constant change of preferences in aesthetics. Today, this characterization is more relevant than ever. The progression of music technology has resulted in conveniences, from LPs to streaming services, that have allowed listeners a more constant access to music. This paper argues that this method of sharing is equivalent to what has been known in the past as oral transmission. Therefore, instances where modern musicians (who would be considered pop or rock artists, rather than folk, based on the sounds of their music) cover songs by other musicians from any and all genres, can be considered folk music. It does not matter if either artist lacks stereotypical folk sounds; through the passing of time and the musical torch they have become folk artists. This paper shows that “folk” is much more of a social construct rather than a musical genre, and that it relies on the phenomenology of humans performing music rather than the sound of the music itself.

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