The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #77892 Message #1397482
Posted By: Ferrara
03-Feb-05 - 12:45 AM
Thread Name: Are hymns also folk music hmmmmm?
Subject: RE: Are hymns also folk music hmmmmm?
Jerry, I loved your comment about the advantage that "folks" have over folk singers in not being bound by, or caring about, definitions. They just sing what they like, and sing it how they like.
Some of the songs I learned from my mother's singing were hymns. That doesn't make them folk songs, but if some hymns are songs that folks learned, liked, and kept on singing out of context because they felt good when they sang them, to me that's a powerful argument that they can be considered to fall in the category of folk music.
Ummm... Bill D, I also loved your comment about hymns often being "examples of what 'folk' do, feel, sing, share and pass down from generation to generation, whether they know the author and have a book or not." That's the essence of folk music for me.
(I have to admit though, I don't care much about the precise definition. I tend to duck and run when people, including my husband the aforementioned Bill D, start in on the ever-fascinating subject of What Is Folk Music.)
Rita