Is there still being stuff freshly collected?

Yes.

Example: Spirituals. During slavery, according to contemporaneous accounts, a new song could spring up at the puff of a breeze, and often did. From there they passed among slaves at the plantation where created, and/or across plantations with slaves sold/traded, and/or via campmeetings, and/or in freedom via church and cultural diffusion.

Some of these thousands (millions?) of songs were lost-- discarded as newer songs burst out of day's feelings. Some were "collected" at the time via transcription (Allen). Some were passed along orally and collected later via transcription (several collectors). Some were passed along orally and then arranged for performance (Fisk, etc.)

These may or may not have been published; some were recorded and published or transcribed later (or not).

Choral arranging from ALL these sources continued, with various published versions said to be "definitive" (but they aren't).

The genre got to the opera stage, as African-American, operatically-trained performers included them in non-opera concerts (Robeson and others). Then there was Porgy and Bess.

Some of them swam into the deeper water-- Gospel. Black Gospel. Southern Gospel. Bluegrass Gospel. Other Gosepl.....


Alongside ALL of that mess going on (mess is good), some MORE original pieces (from slavery time) bubbled out of "the grandmothers'" oral tradition at various times, into more mainstream (commercial) culture. Some of them still do-- there are still "new" pieces popping out of memory with modern interpretation and perspective.

Then there's hiphop and rap.


A subgenre of Folk that defies "definitive" approaches and "the end of the material," for sure.

~Susan


~S~