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Folksongs Bridge
the Centuries |
“As the sanity of the individual
lies in the
continuity of his memories, so
the sanity of a group lies in
the continuity of
their traditions.”
- Will and Ariel Durant
The Lessons of History |
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WHAT IS A FOLKSONG?
Folksongs are oral history -- something passed from one person’s mouth to another person’s ear without a pencil and paper being involved.
Folksongs are ordinary songs made up by ordinary people - regular folks - just like you and me. Folksongs are history as seen through the eyes of ordinary people.
Folksongs are something we sing together. In many other forms of music the audience simply sits and listens, but with a folksong, we usually sing along.
Folksongs often tell us what happened and when it happened, but more importantly, they tell us how people felt about those happenings. They can capture an event in time or space while providing an invitation to explore whatever else is going on at that same time in history.
Folksongs tell us that history has been made primarily by ordinary people much like ourselves, and help us understand that all of us are an important part of history.
A folksong is a song that anyone can write, anyone can play, and anyone can sing. One’s desire to create a folksong is more important than one’s ability to sing or play an instrument.
Every country on earth has its own folksongs and folklore. All ethnic groups that make up our American population have their own special folksongs. Folksongs are an important part of our American heritage and culture and tradition.
A folksong is a song that has a life of its own -- independent of any commercial medium -- whether the song is played on radio or television, or whether the song is recorded.
A folksong is the product of an oral tradition. Each person who learns a song and passes it on to someone else makes some changes in the process – whether they are aware of it or not.
Folksongs are learned in the oral (and aural) tradition -– that is to say, by singing along. And folksongs are fun to hear and even more fun to sing. Especially, if everybody sings together!
(Inspired by the words of Bev and Jerry Praver and Sam Hinton )
Folksongs Bridge the Centuries
Once upon a time, an explorer, lost and wandering in the Kalahari Desert , escaped from a threatening sandstorm one evening, by going into a small cave.
As darkness fell, the explorer settled himself for the night, but found that the knife on his belt made it hard to find a comfortable position. He removed the knife, and, not wanting to lose it in the dust of the cave floor, felt along the rock wall until he found a crevice that would serve as a shelf. Placing his knife there, he went to sleep.
In the morning, he retrieved the knife, and found another one beside it – an ancient stone one. It had probably been left there, under similar circumstances, by a wandering hunter thousands of years before.
The explorer experienced a sudden bond with this other human being who had responded in a manner so similar to his own, and a warm feeling of kinship bridged the centuries between that moment and the Stone Age.
Folksongs can do this for us, too. They can speak across time and space, of men and women whose feelings have not been very different from our own.
( Sam Hinton’s liner notes from The Wandering Folksong1967, Folkways FA-2401)
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