We call musical folklore that branch of folklore which embraces the vocal and instrumental music, the song and instrumental creation of the working people, i.e. those musical creations which are the product of the immediate artistic activity of the public mind.
It is a mistake to think that musical folklore is limited to the works of folk music in the strict sense of the word, i.e. to vocal and instrumental melodies. A folk melody cannot be considered on its own, detached and isolated from the surrounding domestic environment and from the accompanying elements of other types of artistic activity.
Folk art is syncretic. In folklore, music does not appear as an independent art, but is almost always combined with other arts, with other types of artistic activity - poetry, dance,
acting, pantomime, etc. There are many folk-musical types, such as bayaniyas, soon-sayings, children's entertainments and lullabies, gravestone orders, etc., in which a strict line cannot be drawn between speech, and singing, between poetry and music. There is also a very close relationship between musical and dance folklore, between folk dance and folk song. Therefore, within the broad framework of the singing of musical folklore, one must include the musical as well as the verbal and dance creativity of the working people.
The term musical folklore
(mp3 download) is used alongside the term folk music, to which it is synonymous. In ordinary speech no distinction is made between these two terms.
Folk music is a special kind of art, the works of which are created by unknown authors on the basis of common artistic and stylistic traditions established in the process of historical development. They are characterised by collective creativity and performance and are transmitted orally (by ear) from one performer to another and from generation to generation.
The people, who are the main driving force in history, reflect the complex reality of their surroundings in folk songs, giving expression to their views, feelings and aspirations and evaluating various social and political events, life events, natural phenomena, etc.
The science of folk music, i.e. the science of musical folklore, is called musical
folkloristics.
The most important quality of folk music is that it is, as its very name indicates, folk music, i.e. it is closely connected with the everyday life and work of the people. It is folk in origin, in form and content, in ideology and subject matter; it is folk in the sense that it arises directly from the bowels of the people, reflects their views, their interests, desires and aspirations, their artistic taste.
And in this respect folk music, if it operates with less concrete images than, for example, folk poetry, responds no less than it does to all the historical events of the people's life, following closely the reality and quickly finding the corresponding rhythmic and melodic patterns that gradually form the style of the age.
Another main feature of folk music is its high artistic value. Gone are the days when it was looked down upon, when it was
regarded as an art of second and third quality. But the artistic value of folk music has been repeatedly emphasized by the greatest representatives of musical aesthetic thought. We do not have the opportunity here to quote the statements . of great artists such as Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Béla Bartók, etc... The artistic shaping of the work continues after its initial creation, it is completed, reworked, polished, and in this continuous creative process (a folk work never has a final revision) the artistic genius of the people is manifested through the participation of countless nameless artists. In this way, in folklore the individual is absorbed by the collective, the individual and the collective appear united, organically connected, inseparable ... The principle of collectivity in the creation and conceptual-artistic shaping of folklore appears to be its inalienable
distinction, the decisive criterion for the inclusion of one or another work in the folk ... creativity. This applies above all to traditional folklore, but it does not lose its significance for contemporary folklore."
Another characteristic feature of folk music is the obscurity of its origins. Text and melody germinate simultaneously and are inseparable, and the singers are not the authors but only the re-creators of the songs.
