110-550: The Edinburgh International Harp Festival is an annual harp festival held in Edinburgh , Scotland that includes concerts, workshops, and courses, as well as one of the world's largest exhibitions of harp-makers. Organized and promoted by The Clarsach Society, two staff members, and a team of volunteers, the festival is held in April of each year and attracts more than 500 harpists from more than 25 countries. Pilgrim Harps held
220-482: A chuigushou . Ensembles consisting of mouth organs ( sheng ), shawms ( suona ), flutes ( dizi ) and percussion instruments (especially yunluo gongs ) are popular in northern villages; their music is descended from the imperial temple music of Beijing, Xi'an , Wutai shan and Tianjin . Xi'an drum music, consisting of wind and percussive instruments, is popular around Xi'an, and has received some commercial popularity outside of China. Another important instrument
330-430: A melody , often with repeating sections , and usually played a number of times. A collection of tunes with structural similarities is known as a tune-family . America's Musical Landscape says "the most common form for tunes in folk music is AABB, also known as binary form ." In some traditions, tunes may be strung together in medleys or " sets ." Throughout most of human history, listening to recorded music
440-619: A pipa , as well as other traditional instruments. The music is generally sorrowful and typically deals with love-stricken people. Further south, in Shantou , Hakka and Chaozhou , zheng ensembles are popular. Sizhu ensembles use flutes and bowed or plucked string instruments to make harmonious and melodious music that has become popular in the West among some listeners. These are popular in Nanjing and Hangzhou , as well as elsewhere along
550-512: A "Traditional music" category that subsequently evolved into others. The term "folk", by the start of the 21st century, could cover singer-songwriters, such as Donovan from Scotland and American Bob Dylan , who emerged in the 1960s and much more. This completed a process to where "folk music" no longer meant only traditional folk music. Traditional folk music often includes sung words , although folk instrumental music occurs commonly in dance music traditions. Narrative verse looms large in
660-401: A class dynamic to popular understandings of American folk music. This was the final element of the foundation upon which the early folk music revivalists constructed their own view of Americanism. Sandburg's working-class Americans joined with the ethnically , racially , and regionally diverse citizens that other scholars, public intellectuals, and folklorists celebrated their own definitions of
770-419: A cultural dichotomy , the other side of which is found not only in the lower layers of feudal, capitalist and some oriental societies but also in 'primitive' societies and in parts of 'popular cultures'". One widely used definition is simply "Folk music is what the people sing." For Scholes, as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók , there was a sense of the music of the country as distinct from that of
880-423: A double-harp) with a third set of strings between them tuned to the missing chromatic notes. The strings are spaced sufficiently for the harpist to reach past the outer row and pluck an inner string when a chromatic note is needed. Some harps, rather than using pedal or lever devices, achieve chromaticity by simply adding additional strings to cover the notes outside their diatonic home scale. The Welsh triple harp
990-500: A feast; a third female is shown sitting on a chair holding a harp in her hands. This find indicates that the instrument in Armenia had its Armenian name in 4th century BCE. Tahmizyan also writes about this horn beaker in his book. This find is evidence that Armenians knew and even enjoyed playing the harp in 4th century BCE. On the famous Armenian Cilician silver beaker a man is painted surrounded with his wife and animals. Formerly
1100-587: A great body of English rural traditional song, music and dance, under the aegis of what became and remains the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS). Sharp campaigned with some success to have English traditional songs (in his own heavily edited and expurgated versions) to be taught to school children in hopes of reviving and prolonging the popularity of those songs. Throughout the 1960s and early to mid-1970s, American scholar Bertrand Harris Bronson published an exhaustive four-volume collection of
1210-520: A half step. In the 18th century, a link mechanism was developed connecting these hooks with pedals, leading to the invention of the single-action pedal harp. The first primitive form of pedal harps was developed in the Tyrol region of Austria. Jacob Hochbrucker was the next to design an improved pedal mechanism around 1720, followed in succession by Krumpholtz, Naderman, and the Erard company, who came up with
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#17327974095421320-465: A handful of times by major composers such as Mozart and Beethoven), and its use by Cesar Franck in his Symphony in D ;minor (1888) was described as "revolutionary" despite the harp having seen some prior use in orchestral music. In the 20th century, the pedal harp found use outside of classical music, entering musical comedy films in 1929 with Arthur "Harpo" Marx , jazz with Casper Reardon in 1934,
1430-524: A key consideration was some way to facilitate the quick changing of a string's pitch to be able to play more chromatic notes. By the Baroque period in Italy and Spain, more strings were added to allow for chromatic notes in more complex harps. In Germany in the second half of the 17th century, diatonic single-row harps were fitted with manually turned hooks that fretted individual strings to raise their pitch by
1540-399: A lower class" in culturally and socially stratified societies. In these terms, folk music may be seen as part of a "schema comprising four musical types: 'primitive' or 'tribal'; 'elite' or 'art'; 'folk'; and 'popular'." Music in this genre is also often called traditional music. Although the term is usually only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre. For example,
1650-432: A mixed electrical signal. Hollow body instruments can also be played acoustically, while solid body instruments must be amplified. The late-20th century Gravikord is a modern purpose-built electric double harp made of stainless steel based on the traditional West African kora . Harps vary globally in many ways. In terms of size, many smaller harps can be played on the lap, whereas larger harps are quite heavy and rest on
1760-589: A narrowing spacing and lower tension than modern Western harps, and have a wide and deep soundbox that tapers to the top. The harp is also found in Argentina, though in Uruguay it was largely displaced in religious music by the organ by the end of the 18th century. The harp is historically found in Brazil, but mostly in the south of the country. The Andean harp (Spanish/ Quechua : arpa ), also known as
1870-485: A new type of harp which had gut strings and semitone mechanisms like a reduced version of a single-action pedal harp; it was small and curved like the historical cláirseach or Irish harp, but its strings were of gut and the soundbox was much lighter. In the 1890s a similar new harp was also developed in Scotland as part of the popular revival of Gaelic culture . In the mid-20th century Jord Cochevelou developed
1980-404: A particular interest in folklore. Carl Sandburg often traveled the U.S. as a writer and a poet. He also collected songs in his travels and, in 1927, published them in the book The American Songbag . Rachel Donaldson, a historian who worked for Vanderbilt, later stated this about The American Songbird in her analysis of the folk music revival. "In his collections of folk songs, Sandburg added
2090-401: A people's folklore , or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles . The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached
2200-695: A possible better system, through the lens of the Great Depression. Woody Guthrie exemplifies songwriters and artists with such an outlook. Folk music festivals proliferated during the 1930s. President Franklin Roosevelt was a fan of folk music, hosted folk concerts at the White House , and often patronized folk festivals. One prominent festival was Sarah Gertrude Knott 's National Folk Festival , established in St. Louis, Missouri in 1934. Under
2310-621: A reference to beautiful women, while in the past they were notorious for their erotic content. The village "mountain songs" ( shan'ge ) of Jiangsu province were also well known for their amorous themes. Other regional song traditions include the "strummed lyrics" ( tanci ) of the Lower Yangtze Delta, the Cantonese Wooden Fish tradition ( muyu or muk-yu ) and the Drum Songs ( guci ) of north China. In
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#17327974095422420-533: A researcher at Matenadaran, the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, Candidate in Arts. In her work pictures of the instrument can be found. In the first picture the man is playing the harp which is on his knees. In the second picture the harp is played by a man who has a crown on his head, from which we may conclude that the musician has royal status. His harp is bigger and leans on
2530-553: A revolutionary tool to preserve vanishing musical forms. The earliest American folk music scholars were with the American Folklore Society (AFS), which emerged in the late 1800s. Their studies expanded to include Native American music , but still treated folk music as a historical item preserved in isolated societies as well. In North America, during the 1930s and 1940s, the Library of Congress worked through
2640-567: A traditional song would undergo a process of improvement akin to biological natural selection : only those new variants that were the most appealing to ordinary singers would be picked up by others and transmitted onward in time. Thus, over time we would expect each traditional song to become more aesthetically appealing, due to incremental community improvement. Literary interest in the popular ballad form dates back at least to Thomas Percy and William Wordsworth . English Elizabethan and Stuart composers had often evolved their music from folk themes,
2750-434: A tragic or regretful nature, prominently figures in many folk traditions. Nursery rhymes , children's songs and nonsense verse used to amuse or quiet children also are frequent subjects of traditional songs. Music transmitted by word of mouth through a community, in time, develops many variants, since this transmission cannot produce word-for-word and note-for-note accuracy. In addition, folk singers may choose to modify
2860-487: A variant of the modern Celtic harp which he referred to as the "Breton Celtic harp"; his son Alan Stivell was to become the most influential Breton harper, and a strong influence in the broader world of the Celtic harp. A multi-course harp is a harp with more than one row of strings, as opposed to the more common "single course" harp. On a double-harp, the two rows generally run parallel to each other, one on either side of
2970-654: A vessel in Nor Aresh and now preserved in the Erebuni Fortress , depicts a harp. Information about early medieval Armenian musical instruments has been found in Armenian translations of the Bible. In the past, the harp was played in the royal residences, in the royal recreation rooms. Sometimes not only the royal musicians, but the kings themselves played the instrument. Of course, in the past, harps did not have
3080-464: A zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times, but the term folk music has typically not been applied to the new music created during those revivals. This type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock , folk metal , and others. While contemporary folk music
3190-507: Is a genre generally distinct from traditional folk music, in U.S. English it shares the same name, and it often shares the same performers and venues as traditional folk music. The terms folk music , folk song , and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions. They are extensions of the term folklore , which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe "the traditions, customs, and superstitions of
3300-419: Is a technologically advanced instrument, particularly distinguished by its use of pedals, foot-controlled levers which can alter the pitch of given strings, making it chromatic and thus able to play a wide body of classical repertoire. The pedal harp contains seven pedals that each affect the tuning of all strings of one pitch-class . The pedals, from left to right, are D, C, B on the left side and E, F, G, A on
3410-524: Is a type of lute. Some Samudragupta gold coins show of the mid-4th century CE show (presumably) the king Samudragupta himself playing the instrument. The ancient veena survives today in Burma, in the form of the saung harp still played there. The harp was popular in ancient China and neighboring regions, though harps are largely extinct in East Asia in the modern day. The Chinese konghou harp
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3520-408: Is an ancient folk song from India, a country of Asia, of Meiteis of Manipur , that is an example of Asian folk music, and how they put it into its own genre. Archaeological discoveries date Chinese folk music back 7000 years; it is largely based on the pentatonic scale . Han traditional weddings and funerals usually include a form of oboe called a suona , and apercussive ensembles called
3630-489: Is called Song of Vardavar : Evidence for the instrument’s Armenian origin is the horn beaker with a feasting scene, kept at the Erebuni Museum : The beaker was found buried inside a large container, in the district of Nor Aresh next to Erebuni Fortress in 1968 during construction work. The calf horn beaker has pictures of people depicted on it, including a harpist: It depicts a man and three women participating at
3740-611: Is documented as early as the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BCE), and became extinct during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 CE ). A similar harp, the Gonghu was played in ancient Korea, documented as early as the Goguryeo period (37 BCE – 686 CE ). While the angle and bow harps held popularity elsewhere, European harps favored the "pillar", a third structural member to support
3850-530: Is generally no "authoritative" version of song. Researchers in traditional songs have encountered countless versions of the Barbara Allen ballad throughout the English-speaking world, and these versions often differ greatly from each other. The original is not known; many versions can lay an equal claim to authenticity. Influential folklorist Cecil Sharp felt that these competing variants of
3960-416: Is one such instrument, and two other instruments employing this technique are the cross-strung harp and the inline chromatic harp . The cross-strung harp has one row of diatonic strings, and a separate row of chromatic notes, angled in an "X" shape so that the row which can be played by the right hand at the top may be played by the left hand at the bottom, and vice versa. This variant was first attested as
4070-402: Is the sheng , a type of Chinese pipe , an ancient instrument that is ancestor of all Western free reed instruments, such as the accordion . Parades led by Western-type brass bands are common, often competing in volume with a shawm/chuigushou band. In southern Fujian and Taiwan , Nanyin or Nanguan is a genre of traditional ballads. They are sung by a woman accompanied by a xiao and
4180-409: Is the harp, which was played not just at ceremonies. The instrument was performed by solo performers as well as with the accompaniment of other instruments. The Armenian translation of the Bible gives a lot of information about early medieval Armenian musical instruments. The translators of the Bible use the name harp among other quite popular musical instruments. In Armenian a verb has been formed from
4290-672: Is the provenance of the American Folklife Center" at the library of Congress. Africa is a vast continent and its regions and nations have distinct musical traditions. The music of North Africa for the most part has a different history from Sub-Saharan African music traditions . The music and dance forms of the African diaspora , including African American music and many Caribbean genres like soca , calypso and Zouk ; and Latin American music genres like
4400-467: The Grammy Award previously used the terms "traditional music" and "traditional folk" for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. Folk music may include most indigenous music . From a historical perspective, traditional folk music had these characteristics: As a side-effect, the following characteristics are sometimes present: In folk music, a tune is a short instrumental piece ,
4510-474: The Great Depression . Regionalism and cultural pluralism grew as influences and themes. During this time folk music began to become enmeshed with political and social activism themes and movements. Two related developments were the U.S. Communist Party's interest in folk music as a way to reach and influence Americans, and politically active prominent folk musicians and scholars seeing communism as
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4620-752: The PRC . Folk songs have been recorded since ancient times in China. The term Yuefu was used for a broad range of songs such as ballads, laments, folk songs, love songs, and songs performed at court. China is a vast country, with a multiplicity of linguistic and geographic regions. Folk songs are categorized by geographic region, language type, ethnicity, social function (e.g. work song, ritual song, courting song) and musical type. Modern anthologies collected by Chinese folklorists distinguish between traditional songs, revolutionary songs, and newly invented songs. The songs of northwest China are known as "flower songs" ( hua'er ),
4730-481: The Traditional 18 Dances display the dancing of birds and animals. For example: Musical types include: The classical Sinhalese orchestra consists of five categories of instruments, but among the percussion instruments, the drum is essential for dance. The vibrant beat of the rhythm of the drums form the basic of the dance. The dancers' feet bounce off the floor and they leap and swirl in patterns that reflect
4840-725: The arpa de dos órdenes ("two-row harp") in Spain and Portugal, in the 17th century. The inline chromatic harp is generally a single-course harp with all 12 notes of the chromatic scale appearing in a single row. Single course inline chromatic harps have been produced at least since 1902, when Karl Weigel of Hanover patented a model of inline chromatic harp. Amplified (electro-acoustic) hollow body and solid body electric lever harps are produced by many harp makers, including Lyon & Healy , Salvi , and Camac . They generally use individual piezo-electric sensors for each string, often in combination with small internal microphones to produce
4950-432: The contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival . Some types of folk music may be called world music . Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with
5060-439: The samba , Cuban rumba , salsa ; and other clave (rhythm) -based genres, were founded to varying degrees on the music of enslaved Africans , which has in turn influenced African popular music . Many Asian civilizations distinguish between art /court/classical styles and "folk" music. For example, the late Alam Lohar is an example of a South Asian singer who was classified as a folk singer. Khunung Eshei/Khuland Eshei
5170-432: The American folk, definitions that the folk revivalists used in constructing their own understanding of American folk music, and an overarching American identity". Prior to the 1930s, the study of folk music was primarily the province of scholars and collectors. The 1930s saw the beginnings of larger scale themes, commonalities, and linkages in folk music developing in the populace and practitioners as well, often related to
5280-949: The Americas where it was a popular folk tradition in some areas. Distinct designs also emerged from the African continent. Harps have symbolic political traditions and are often used in logos, including in Ireland . Historically, strings were made of sinew (animal tendons). Other materials have included gut (animal intestines), plant fiber, braided hemp, cotton cord, silk, nylon, and wire. In pedal harp scores, double flats and double sharps should be avoided whenever possible. Harps have been known since antiquity in Asia, Africa, and Europe, dating back at least as early as 3000 BCE . The instrument had great popularity in Europe during
5390-579: The Andean harp was Juan Cayambe ( Pimampiro Canton , Imbabura Province , Ecuador ) The arpa jarocha is typically played while standing. In southern Mexico (Chiapas), there is a very different indigenous style of harp music. The harp arrived in Venezuela with Spanish colonists. There are two distinct traditions: the arpa llanera ('harp of the Llanos ’, or plains) and the arpa central ('of
5500-575: The Association for Cultural Equity, is "distinct from the thousands of earlier recordings on acetate and aluminum discs he made from 1933 to 1942 under the auspices of the Library of Congress. This earlier collection—which includes the famous Jelly Roll Morton, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Muddy Waters sessions, as well as Lomax's prodigious collections made in Haiti and Eastern Kentucky (1937) —
5610-550: The Beatles 1967 single " She's Leaving Home ", and several works by Björk which featured harpist Zeena Parkins . In the early 1980s, Swiss harpist Andreas Vollenweider exposed the concert harp to large new audiences with his popular new age/jazz albums and concert performances. In the modern era, there is a family of mid-size harps, generally with nylon strings, and optionally with partial or full levers but without pedals. They range from two to six octaves, and are plucked with
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#17327974095425720-556: The Edinburgh branch in turn handed the festival over to their parent body, The Clarsach Society. The festival has been held every year since its founding, but was held virtually in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic . In 2022, the festival will return in a hybrid format, offering both virtual and in-person events, and move after 20 years in its old location at Merchiston Castle School to George Watson's College . In 2002,
5830-630: The Hellenistic world, were cherished in the Sasanian court. In the last century of the Sasanian period, angular harps were redesigned to make them as light as possible ("light, vertical, angular harps"); while they became more elegant, they lost their structural rigidity. At the height of the Persian tradition of illustrated book production (1300–1600 CE), such light harps were still frequently depicted, although their use as musical instruments
5940-677: The Middle Ages and Renaissance, where it evolved into a wide range of variants with new technologies, and was disseminated to Europe's colonies, finding particular popularity in Latin America. Although some ancient members of the harp family died out in the Near East and South Asia, descendants of early harps are still played in Myanmar and parts of Africa; other variants defunct in Europe and Asia have been used by folk musicians in
6050-621: The Peruvian harp, or indigenous harp, is widespread among peoples living in the highlands of the Andes : Quechua and Aymara , mainly in Peru , and also in Bolivia and Ecuador . It is relatively large, with a significantly increased volume of the resonator box, which gives basses a special richness. It usually accompanies love dances and songs, such as huayno . One of the most famous performers on
6160-469: The West African kora and Mauritanian ardin are sometimes labeled as "spike harp", "bridge harp", or harp lute since their construction includes a bridge which holds the strings laterally, vice vertically entering the soundboard. In Armenia , the harp has been used since the fourth century BCE. Common usages included weddings and funerals. The "horn beaker with a feast acene", found inside
6270-505: The central area'). By the 2020s, three types of harps are typically found: A number of types of harps are found in Africa, predominantly not of the three-sided frame-harp type found in Europe. A number of these, referred to generically as African harps , are bow or angle harps, which lack forepillars joining the neck to the body. A number of harp-like instruments in Africa are not easily classified with European categories. Instruments like
6380-759: The centre of world class harping." Harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard ; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or concerts. Its most common form is triangular in shape and made of wood. Some have multiple rows of strings and pedal attachments. Ancient depictions of harps were recorded in Mesopotamia (now Iraq ), Persia (now Iran ) and Egypt , and later in India and China . By medieval times harps had spread across Europe. Harps were found across
6490-465: The classical suite was based upon stylised folk-dances, and Joseph Haydn 's use of folk melodies is noted. But the emergence of the term "folk" coincided with an "outburst of national feeling all over Europe" that was particularly strong at the edges of Europe, where national identity was most asserted. Nationalist composers emerged in Central Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, Spain and Britain:
6600-472: The double mechanism, in which a second row of hooks was installed along the neck, capable of raising the pitch of a string by either one or two half steps. While one course of European harps led to greater complexity, resulting largely in the modern pedal harp, other harping traditions maintained simpler diatonic instruments which survived and evolved into modern traditions. In the Americas, harps are widely but sparsely distributed, except in certain regions where
6710-546: The elements of nature, and have been enjoyed and developed in the Buddhist environment. The music is of several types and uses only a few types of instruments. The folk songs and poems were used in social gatherings to work together. The Indian influenced classical music has grown to be unique. The traditional drama, music and songs of Sinhala Light Music are typically Sri Lankan. The temple paintings and carvings feature birds, elephants, wild animals, flowers, and trees, and
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#17327974095426820-481: The end of the 1930s these and others had turned American folk music into a social movement. Sometimes folk musicians became scholars and advocates themselves. For example, Jean Ritchie (1922–2015) was the youngest child of a large family from Viper, Kentucky that had preserved many of the old Appalachian traditional songs. Ritchie, living in a time when the Appalachians had opened up to outside influence,
6930-549: The far ends of the arch and soundbox. A harp with a triangular three-part frame is depicted on 8th-century Pictish stones in Scotland and in manuscripts (e.g. the Utrecht Psalter ) from early 9th-century France. The curve of the harp's neck is a result of the proportional shortening of the basic triangular form to keep the strings equidistant; if the strings were proportionately distant they would be farther apart. As European harps evolved to play more complex music,
7040-797: The festival changed its name to the Edinburgh International Harp Festival to recognize the increasing numbers of international performers and participants drawn to the event. In 2006, the festival set what was then the Guinness World Record for "largest harp ensemble" by having a group of 201 harpists play together. Selected performers and teachers from recent festivals include: As of 2021, festival organizers include Mary Scott (Festival Co-ordinator), Isobel Mieras MBE (Artistic Advisor), Patsy Seddon (Artistic Advisor), Mary Macmaster (Stage Management), and Rachel Hair (Press and Media). Each year,
7150-511: The festival includes three main elements: In recent years, the festival has often included performances of pieces newly commissioned by the festival as well as performances by young, up-and-coming harp players and groups of school-aged harpists. Festival Artistic Advisor Isobel Mieras has stated that one of the festival's goals is to "encourage young talent" in addition to showcasing established musicians. In 2018, The Edinburgh Reporter described that year's festival lineup as putting "Edinburgh at
7260-433: The fingers, largely using the same techniques used for playing orchestral harps. Though these harps evoke ties to historical European harps, their specifics are modern, and they are frequently referred to broadly as " Celtic harps " due to their region of revival and popular association, or more generically as " folk harps " due to their use in non-classical music, or as " lever harps " to contrast their modifying mechanism with
7370-563: The first iteration of the festival, then called the Celtic Harp Festival, in 1982 to coincide with the now-defunct Edinburgh Folk Festival . After two years, the quick growth of what had become the Edinburgh Harp Festival necessitated additional funds and assistance to run it, and Pilgrim Harps continued to support the festival but handed the reins over to the Edinburgh branch of The Clarsach Society. In 1991,
7480-404: The floor. Different harps may use strings of catgut , nylon , metal , or some combination. All harps have a neck , resonator , and strings , frame harps or triangular harps have a pillar at their long end to support the strings, while open harps , such as arch harps and bow harps , do not. Folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and
7590-499: The floor. Not only did Armenians play the instrument but also they created songs about it. Kh. Avetisyan and V. Harutyunyan wrote a song called My Sweet Harp which was quite popular. This analysis and researches with the historical and archaeological evidence leads to the conclusion that the harp existed and was widely used in Armenians’ everyday lives, including royal families. The instrument’s popularity has grown during
7700-557: The harp traditions are very strong. Such important centeres include Mexico , the Andean region, Venezuela , and Paraguay . They are derived from the Baroque harps that were brought from Spain during the colonial period. Detailed features vary from place to place. The Paraguayan harp is that country's national instrument , and has gained a worldwide reputation, with international influences alongside folk traditions. They have around 36 strings, are played with fingernails, and with
7810-452: The harp was played in royal castles. Sometimes not only musicians but also kings played the instrument. Of course, in the past harps did not have the sound range they have today but it is a fact that Armenians had the harp. Pictures of the harp can be found in People and Everyday Life ( Yerevan (1978) harvtxt error: no target: CITEREFYerevan1978 ( help ) ) scientific work of Astghik Gevorgyan,
7920-594: The hunter's bow, without the pillar that we find in modern harps. The Chang flourished in Persia in many forms from its introduction, about 4000 BCE, until the 17th century CE . Around 1900 BCE, arched harps in the Iraq-Iran region were replaced by angular harps with vertical or horizontal sound boxes. By the start of the Common Era, "robust, vertical, angular harps", which had become predominant in
8030-531: The instrument used by wandering minstrels for accompaniment. Iconographic evidence of the yaal appears in temple statues dated as early as 600 BCE. One of the Sangam works, the Kallaadam recounts how the first yaaḻ harp was inspired by an archer's bow, when he heard the musical sound of its twang. Another early South Asian harp was the ancient veena , not to be confused with the modern Indian veena which
8140-399: The laborers who sing them to coordinate their efforts in accordance with the rhythms of the songs. They are frequently, but not invariably, composed. In the American armed forces , a lively oral tradition preserves jody calls ("Duckworth chants") which are sung while soldiers are on the march. Professional sailors made similar use of a large body of sea shanties . Love poetry , often of
8250-511: The larger pedal harp. The modern Celtic harp began to appear in the early 19th century in Ireland, shortly after all the last generation of harpers had all died-out, breaking the continuity of musical training between the earlier native Gaelic harping tradition and the revival of Celtic harp playing as part of the later Celtic revival . John Egan , a pedal harp maker in Dublin, developed
8360-563: The last 20 years of his life working on an Interactive Multimedia educational computer project he called the Global Jukebox , which included 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 videotapes , and 5,000 photographs. As of March 2012, this has been accomplished. Approximately 17,400 of Lomax's recordings from 1946 and later have been made available free online. This material from Alan Lomax's independent archive, begun in 1946, which has been digitized and offered by
8470-408: The loss of traditional music is slowed in nations or regions where traditional folk music is a badge of cultural or national identity. Much of what is known about folk music prior to the development of audio recording technology in the 19th century comes from fieldwork and writings of scholars, collectors and proponents. Starting in the 19th century, academics and amateur scholars, taking note of
8580-496: The modern era, particularly Myanmar 's saung -gauk , which is considered the national instrument in that country. Though the ancient Chinese konghou has not been directly resurrected, the name has been revived and applied to a modern newly invented instrument based on the Western classical harp, but with the strings doubled back to form two notes per string, allowing advanced techniques such as note-bending. The concert harp
8690-565: The modern era. The earliest harps and lyres were found in Sumer , 3500 BCE, and several harps were excavated from burial pits and royal tombs in Ur . The oldest depictions of harps without a forepillar can be seen in the wall paintings of ancient Egyptian tombs in the Nile Valley , which date from as early as 3000 BCE. These murals show an arched harp , an instrument that closely resembles
8800-457: The modern movie Songcatcher . One strong theme amongst folk scholars in the early decades of the 20th century was regionalism , the analysis of the diversity of folk music (and related cultures) based on regions of the US rather than based on a given song's historical roots. Later, a dynamic of class and circumstances was added to this. The most prominent regionalists were literary figures with
8910-567: The music of Dvořák , Smetana , Grieg , Rimsky-Korsakov , Brahms , Liszt , de Falla , Wagner , Sibelius , Vaughan Williams , Bartók , and many others drew upon folk melodies. While the loss of traditional folk music in the face of the rise of popular music is a worldwide phenomenon, it is not one occurring at a uniform rate throughout the world. The process is most advanced "where industrialization and commercialisation of culture are most advanced" but also occurs more gradually even in settings of lower technological advancement. However,
9020-591: The musical traditions being lost, initiated various efforts to preserve the music of the people. One such effort was the collection by Francis James Child in the late 19th century of the texts of over three hundred ballads in the English and Scots traditions (called the Child Ballads ), some of which predated the 16th century. Contemporaneously with Child, the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould and later Cecil Sharp worked to preserve
9130-523: The name of the instrument: տաւղել which means to play the harp. The word has two meanings the second of which is stringed musical instrument which has the form of a triangular frame and this corresponds to the description of the musical instrument in Genesis 4:21 where it states Other uses of the word can be found in one of the songs of Grigor Narekatsi, a 10th century Armenian monk, medieval writer, and founder of Armenian Renaissance literature. The song
9240-528: The neck, and are usually both diatonic (sometimes with levers) with identical notes. The triple harp originated in Italy in the 16th century, and arrived in Wales in the late 17th century where it established itself in the local tradition as the Welsh harp ( telyn deires , "three-row harp"). The triple harp's string set consists of two identical outer rows of standard diatonicly tuned strings (same as
9350-408: The offices of traditional music collectors Robert Winslow Gordon , Alan Lomax and others to capture as much North American field material as possible. John Lomax (the father of Alan Lomax) was the first prominent scholar to study distinctly American folk music such as that of cowboys and southern blacks. His first major published work was in 1911, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads . and
9460-705: The other. In the proliferation of popular music genres, some traditional folk music became also referred to as " World music " or "Roots music". The English term " folklore ", to describe traditional folk music and dance, entered the vocabulary of many continental European nations, each of which had its folk-song collectors and revivalists. The distinction between "authentic" folk and national and popular song in general has always been loose, particularly in America and Germany – for example, popular songwriters such as Stephen Foster could be termed "folk" in America. The International Folk Music Council definition allows that
9570-805: The outcomes of battles or lament tragedies or natural disasters . Sometimes, as in the triumphant Song of Deborah found in the Biblical Book of Judges , these songs celebrate victory. Laments for lost battles and wars, and the lives lost in them, are equally prominent in many traditions; these laments keep alive the cause for which the battle was fought. The narratives of traditional songs often also remember folk heroes such as John Henry or Robin Hood . Some traditional song narratives recall supernatural events or mysterious deaths. Hymns and other forms of religious music are often of traditional and unknown origin. Western musical notation
9680-449: The pace of many activities such as planting , weeding , reaping , threshing , weaving , and milling . In leisure time , singing and playing musical instruments were common forms of entertainment and history-telling—even more common than today when electrically enabled technologies and widespread literacy make other forms of entertainment and information-sharing competitive. Some believe that folk music originated as art music that
9790-400: The preservation of songs as artifacts of deceased cultures. "Functional" folklorists (e.g. Botkin and Alan Lomax) maintained that songs only retain relevance when used by those cultures which retain the traditions which birthed those songs. "Left-wing" folk revivalists (e.g. Charles Seeger and Lawrence Gellert) emphasized music's role "in 'people's' struggles for social and political rights". By
9900-404: The right. Pedals were first introduced in 1697 by Jakob Hochbrucker of Bavaria. In 1811 these were upgraded to the "double action" pedal system patented by Sébastien Erard. The addition of pedals broadened the harp's abilities, allowing its gradual entry into the classical orchestra, largely beginning in the 19th century. The harp played little or no role in early classical music (being used only
10010-471: The songs they hear. For example, around 1970 the song Mullā Mohammed Jān spread from Herat to the rest of Afghanistan , and Iran where it was recorded. Due to its repetitive refrain and the predictability of the second half of each verse, it allowed for both its popularization, and for each singer to create their own version of the song without being overly-concerned for a melody or restrictive poetic rhythm. Because variants proliferate naturally, there
10120-429: The sound capabilities that they have today, but the evidence that Armenians had a harp is well established. Armenians have had the instrument of harp since ancient times. This proves that Armenians loved the harp and used it in their everyday life, at weddings and burials. According to YSC professor, scholar of Middle Ages, doctor of Arts N. Tahmizyan, many musical instruments kept their pre-Christian form; among them
10230-497: The southern Yangtze area. Jiangnan Sizhu (silk and bamboo music from Jiangnan ) is a style of instrumental music, often played by amateur musicians in tea houses in Shanghai. Guangdong Music or Cantonese Music is instrumental music from Guangzhou and surrounding areas. The music from this region influenced Yueju (Cantonese Opera) music, which would later grow popular during the self-described "Golden Age" of China under
10340-643: The sponsorship of the Washington Post , the festival was held in Washington, DC at Constitution Hall from 1937 to 1942. The folk music movement, festivals, and the wartime effort were seen as forces for social goods such as democracy, cultural pluralism, and the removal of culture and race-based barriers. The American folk music revivalists of the 1930s approached folk music in different ways. Three primary schools of thought emerged: "Traditionalists" (e.g. Sarah Gertrude Knott and John Lomax ) emphasized
10450-565: The term "folk music": newly composed songs, fixed in form and by known authors, which imitated some form of traditional music. The popularity of "contemporary folk" recordings caused the appearance of the category "Folk" in the Grammy Awards of 1959; in 1970 the term was dropped in favor of "Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording (including Traditional Blues)", while 1987 brought a distinction between "Best Traditional Folk Recording" and "Best Contemporary Folk Recording". After that, they had
10560-490: The term can also apply to music that, "...has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten, living tradition of a community. But the term does not cover a song, dance, or tune that has been taken over ready-made and remains unchanged." The post– World War II folk revival in America and in Britain started a new genre, Contemporary Folk Music , and brought an additional meaning to
10670-602: The term folk music should be used. Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of "old songs, with no known composers," another is that of music that has been submitted to an evolutionary "process of oral transmission ... the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character." Such definitions depend upon "(cultural) processes rather than abstract musical types...", upon " continuity and oral transmission ...seen as characterizing one side of
10780-947: The texts of 217,996 Latvian folk songs, the Latvju dainas . In Norway the work of collectors such as Ludvig Mathias Lindeman was extensively used by Edvard Grieg in his Lyric Pieces for piano and in other works, which became immensely popular. Around this time, composers of classical music developed a strong interest in collecting traditional songs, and a number of composers carried out their own field work on traditional music. These included Percy Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams in England and Béla Bartók in Hungary. These composers, like many of their predecessors, both made arrangements of folk songs and incorporated traditional material into original classical compositions. The advent of audio recording technology provided folklorists with
10890-530: The then-known variations of both the texts and tunes associated with what came to be known as the Child Canon. He also advanced some significant theories concerning the workings of oral-aural tradition. Similar activity was also under way in other countries. One of the most extensive was perhaps the work done in Riga by Krisjanis Barons , who between the years 1894 and 1915 published six volumes that included
11000-484: The town. Folk music was already, "...seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear (or in some cases, to be preserved or somehow revived)," particularly in "a community uninfluenced by art music" and by commercial and printed song. Lloyd rejected this in favor of a simple distinction of economic class yet for him, true folk music was, in Charles Seeger 's words, "associated with
11110-478: The traditional folk music of many cultures. This encompasses such forms as traditional epic poetry , much of which was meant originally for oral performance, sometimes accompanied by instruments. Many epic poems of various cultures were pieced together from shorter pieces of traditional narrative verse, which explains their episodic structure, repetitive elements, and their frequent in medias res plot developments. Other forms of traditional narrative verse relate
11220-658: The twenty-first century many cherished Chinese folk songs have been inscribed in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity . In the process, songs once seen as vulgar are now being reconstructed as romantic courtship songs. Regional song competitions, popular in many communities, have promoted professional folk singing as a career, with some individual folk singers having gained national prominence. The art, music and dance of Sri Lanka derive from
11330-526: The uncultured classes". The term further derives from the German expression Volk , in the sense of "the people as a whole" as applied to popular and national music by Johann Gottfried Herder and the German Romantics over half a century earlier. Though it is understood that folk music is the music of the people, observers find a more precise definition to be elusive. Some do not even agree that
11440-571: The years and the harp has become an instrument that represents the emotional inner world of the Armenians. In India, the B in-Baia harp survives about the Padhar people of Madhya Pradesh . The Kafir harp has been part of Nuristani musical tradition for many years. The harp largely became extinct in East Asia by the 17th century; around the year 1000, harps like the vajra began to replace prior harps. A few examples survived to
11550-538: Was arguably the most prominent US folk music scholar of his time, notably during the beginnings of the folk music revival in the 1930s and early 1940s. Cecil Sharp also worked in America, recording the traditional songs of the Appalachian Mountains in 1916–1918 in collaboration with Maud Karpeles and Olive Dame Campbell and is considered the first major scholar covering American folk music. Campbell and Sharp are represented under other names by actors in
11660-424: Was changed and probably debased by oral transmission while reflecting the character of the society that produced it. In many societies, especially preliterate ones, the cultural transmission of folk music requires learning by ear , although notation has evolved in some cultures. Different cultures may have different notions concerning a division between "folk" music on the one hand and of "art" and "court" music on
11770-405: Was not possible. Music was made by common people during both their work and leisure, as well as during religious activities. The work of economic production was often manual and communal. Manual labor often included singing by the workers, which served several practical purposes. It reduced the boredom of repetitive tasks, it kept the rhythm during synchronized pushes and pulls, and it set
11880-411: Was originally created to preserve the lines of Gregorian chant , which before its invention was taught as an oral tradition in monastic communities. Traditional songs such as Green grow the rushes, O present religious lore in a mnemonic form, as do Western Christmas carols and similar traditional songs. Work songs frequently feature call and response structures and are designed to enable
11990-587: Was reaching its end. Marble sculptures of seated figures playing harps are known from the Cycladic civilization dating from 2800-2700 BCE. Mesolithic era paintings from Bhimbetka show harp playing. An arched harp made of wooden brackets and metal strings is depicted on an Indus seal . The works of the Tamil Sangam literature describe the harp and its variants, as early as 200 BCE. Variants were described ranging from 14 to 17 strings, and
12100-499: Was university educated and ultimately moved to New York City, where she made a number of classic recordings of the family repertoire and published an important compilation of these songs. In January 2012, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress , with the Association for Cultural Equity, announced that they would release Lomax's vast archive of 1946 and later recording in digital form. Lomax spent
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