Editing Folk music (section)

=== Early folk music, fieldwork and scholarship ===
Much of what is known about folk music prior to the development of audio recording technology in the 19th century comes from [[Field research|fieldwork]] and writings of scholars, collectors and proponents.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Nettl |first1=Bruno |title=Folk Music |url=https://www.britannica.com/art/folk-music |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica, inc. |access-date=February 24, 2019}}</ref>

==== 19th-century Europe ====
Starting in the 19th century, academics and amateur scholars, taking note of the musical traditions being lost, initiated various efforts to preserve the music of the people.<ref>{{cite web |title=Folk Music Preservation |url=https://www.musicedmagic.com/music-history/folk-music-preservation.html |website=www.musicedmagic.com |access-date=12 October 2021 |archive-date=September 23, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210923112619/https://www.musicedmagic.com/music-history/folk-music-preservation.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> One such effort was the collection by [[Francis James Child]] in the late 19th century of the texts of over three hundred [[ballad]]s in the English and Scots traditions (called the [[Child Ballads]]), some of which predated the 16th century.<ref name="Donaldson, 2011 page 13" />

Contemporaneously with Child, the Reverend [[Sabine Baring-Gould]] and later [[Cecil Sharp]] worked to preserve 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).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pratt |first1=S. R. S. |title=The English Folk Dance and Song Society |journal=Journal of the Folklore Institute |date=1965 |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=294–299 |doi=10.2307/3814148 |jstor=3814148 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3814148 |access-date=12 October 2021 |issn=0015-5934}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web |title=Cecil James Sharp Collection (at English Folk Dance & Song Society, London) |url=https://www.vwml.org/archives-catalogue/cjs1 |website=Vwml |access-date=12 October 2021 |archive-date=October 24, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211024121511/https://www.vwml.org/archives-catalogue/CJS1 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=English Folk-Songs For Schools - online book - Contents Page |url=http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/english-folk-songs-schools/english-folksongs-schools.html |website=www.traditionalmusic.co.uk |access-date=12 October 2021}}</ref> Throughout the 1960s and early to mid-1970s, American scholar [[Bertrand Harris Bronson]] published an exhaustive four-volume collection of the then-known variations of both the texts and tunes associated with what came to be known as the Child Canon.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bronson |first1=Bertrand Harris |title=The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, Volume 4 |date=2015 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-6752-3 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/39629 |access-date=12 October 2021}}</ref> He also advanced some significant theories concerning the workings of oral-aural tradition.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Knighten |first1=Merrell Audy Jr. |title=Chaucer 's "Troilus and Criseyde": Some Implications of the Oral Mode. |date=1975 |publisher=Louisiana State University |pages=1, 115 |url=https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3875&context=gradschool_disstheses |access-date=12 October 2021}}</ref>

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 the texts of 217,996 Latvian folk songs, the ''Latvju dainas''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Letonika.lv. Enciklopēdijas - Latvijas kultūras kanons. Latvju dainas |url=https://www.letonika.lv/groups/default.aspx?title=LKK%20resurss/13 |website=www.letonika.lv |access-date=12 October 2021}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=AMBROSIN |first1=Marco |last2=RUSCHE |first2=Eva Maria |title=EDVARD GRIEG ALFEDANS |date=2021 |page=1 |url=https://booklets.idagio.com/886449093403.pdf}}</ref>

Around this time, composers of [[European classical music|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]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Percy Grainger Folk Song Collection |url=https://www.vwml.org/archives-catalogue/PG |website=www.vwml.org |access-date=12 October 2021}}</ref> and [[Ralph Vaughan Williams]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Ralph Vaughan Williams Folk Song Collection (at the British Library) |url=https://www.vwml.org/archives-catalogue/RVW2 |website=www.vwml.org |access-date=12 October 2021}}</ref> in England and [[Béla Bartók]]<ref>{{cite web |last1=Appold |first1=Juliette |title=Béla Bartók and the Importance of Folk Music {{!}} NLS Music Notes |url=https://blogs.loc.gov/nls-music-notes/2018/09/bla-bartk-and-the-importance-of-folk-music/ |website=blogs.loc.gov |access-date=12 October 2021 |date=20 September 2018}}</ref> in Hungary. These composers, like many of their predecessors, both made arrangements of folk songs and incorporated traditional material into original classical compositions.<ref>{{cite web |title=Nineteenth-Century Classical Music |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/amcm/hd_amcm.htm |website=www.metmuseum.org |date=October 2004 |access-date=12 October 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=How Do Classical Composers Use Folk Music? {{!}} WQXR Editorial |url=https://www.wqxr.org/story/what-kind-folk-music-pops-classical-music/ |website=WQXR |date=September 12, 2017 |access-date=12 October 2021 |language=en}}</ref>

==== <span class="anchor" id="North_America_anchor">North America</span> ====
[[File:Cecil-sharp-appalachia-map.png|thumb|upright=1.6|Locations in Southern and Central Appalachia visited by the British folklorist [[Cecil Sharp]] in 1916 (blue), 1917 (green), and 1918 (red). Sharp sought "old world" English and Scottish ballads passed down to the region's inhabitants from their British ancestors. He collected hundreds of such ballads, the most productive areas being the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky.]]

The advent of [[audio recording]] technology provided folklorists with a revolutionary tool to preserve vanishing musical forms.<ref>{{cite web |title=Outreach Ethnomusicology - The Effect of Record Production Techniques in Mediating Recordings of Traditional Irish Music |url=https://www.o-em.org/index.php/fieldwork/87-the-effect-of-record-production-techniques-in-mediating-recordings-of-traditional-irish-music |website=www.o-em.org |access-date=13 October 2021}}</ref> The earliest American folk music scholars were with the [[American Folklore Society]] (AFS), which emerged in the late 1800s.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bell |first1=Michael J. |title=William Wells Newell and the Foundation of American Folklore Scholarship |journal=Journal of the Folklore Institute |date=1973 |volume=10 |issue=1/2 |pages=7–21 |doi=10.2307/3813877 |jstor=3813877 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3813877 |access-date=13 October 2021 |issn=0015-5934}}</ref> Their studies expanded to include [[Indigenous music of North America|Native American music]], but still treated folk music as a historical item preserved in isolated societies as well.<ref>Donaldson, 2011, pp. 22–23</ref> In North America, during the 1930s and 1940s, the [[Library of Congress]] worked through the offices of traditional music collectors [[Robert Winslow Gordon]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Folk-songs of America the Robert Winslow Gordon collection, 1922-1932 |url=https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchCode=LCCN&searchArg=2006568287&searchType=1&permalink=y |website=LOC |access-date=13 October 2021}}</ref> [[Alan Lomax]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Alan Lomax Collection, Manuscripts, Ideas |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/afc2004004.ms090109/ |website=LOC |access-date=13 October 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Alan Lomax Collection, Manuscripts, General |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/afc2004004.ms180350/ |website=LOC |access-date=13 October 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=About this Collection {{!}} John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax Papers {{!}} Digital Collections {{!}} Library of Congress |url=https://www.loc.gov/collections/john-a-lomax-and-alan-lomax-papers/about-this-collection/ |newspaper=The Library of Congress |access-date=13 October 2021}}</ref> and others to capture as much North American field material as possible.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Frisbie |first1=Charlotte |last2=Cutting |first2=Jennifer |title=American Folk Music and Folklore Recordings: A Selected List 1989 (American Folklife Center, Library of Congress) |url=https://www.loc.gov/folklife/selectlst/selrec89.html |website=LOC |access-date=13 October 2021}}</ref> [[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''.<ref>Donaldson, 2011, pp. 24–26</ref> and 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.<ref>Donaldson, 2011 p. 20</ref> Campbell and Sharp are represented under other names by actors in the modern movie ''[[Songcatcher]]''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Williams |first1=Elizabeth |title=Songcatchers: Collecting "Lost" Ballads with Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil Sharp |url=https://mds.marshall.edu/asa_conference/2015/full/135/ |journal=ASA Annual Conference |access-date=13 October 2021 |date=29 March 2015}}</ref>

One strong theme amongst folk scholars in the early decades of the 20th century was [[Regionalism (art)|regionalism]],<ref>{{cite web |title= American Roots Music : Into the Classroom - Historical Background |url=http://www.pbs.org/americanrootsmusic/pbs_arm_itc_historical_background.html |website=PBS  |access-date=13 October 2021 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211023194653/http://www.pbs.org/americanrootsmusic/pbs_arm_itc_historical_background.html |archive-date=Oct 23, 2021 }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web |title=Regionalism on Purpose |url=https://www.lincolninst.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/regionalism-on-purpose-full.pdf |first1=Kathryn A. |last1=Foster |website=Lincoln Institute of Land Policy |access-date=13 October 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Regionalism|url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199827251/obo-9780199827251-0197.xml|access-date=13 October 2021|website=OxfordBibliographies|language=en}}</ref> Later, a dynamic of class and circumstances was added to this.<ref>Donaldson, 2011, pp. 32–37</ref> The most prominent regionalists were literary figures with a particular interest in folklore.<ref>{{cite web |title=Cultural Analysis, Volume 6, 2007: Burgundian Regionalism and French Republican Commercial Culture at the 1937 Paris International Exposition / Philip Whalen |url=https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~culturalanalysis/volume6/vol6_article2.html |website=Open Computing Facility at UC Berkeley}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Hufford |first1=Mary |title=Folklore 650 |url=https://www.sas.upenn.edu/folklore/faculty/mhufford/Folk650_syllabus.pdf |website=Sas.upenn |access-date=13 October 2021}}</ref> [[Carl Sandburg]] often traveled the U.S. as a writer and a poet.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Foundation |first1=Poetry |title=Carl Sandburg |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/carl-sandburg |website=Poetry Foundation |language=en |date=12 October 2021}}</ref> He also collected songs in his travels and, in 1927, published them in the book ''[[The American Songbag]]''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Digging the Depths of The American Songbag – Rare Book and Manuscript Library – U of I Library |url=https://www.library.illinois.edu/rbx/2020/08/03/digging-the-depths-of-the-american-songbag/ |website=www.library.illinois.edu |access-date=13 October 2021}}</ref> 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 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 [[Ethnic group|ethnically]], [[Race (human categorization)|racially]], and regionally diverse citizens that other scholars, public intellectuals, and folklorists celebrated their own definitions of the American folk, definitions that the folk revivalists used in constructing their own understanding of American folk music, and an overarching American identity".<ref>Donaldson, 2011, p. 37</ref>

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 the [[Great Depression]].<ref name="Donaldson, 2011, p 39-55">Donaldson, 2011, pp. 39–55</ref> 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.<ref name="Donaldson, 2011, p 39-55" /> Two related developments were the U.S. Communist Party's interest in folk music as a way to reach and influence Americans,<ref>Donaldson, 2011, pp. 72–74</ref> and politically active prominent folk musicians and scholars seeing communism as a possible better system, through the lens of the Great Depression.<ref>Donaldson, 2011, pp. 67–70</ref> [[Woody Guthrie]] exemplifies songwriters and artists with such an outlook.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Leonard |first1=Aaron |title=Woody Guthrie's Communism and "This Land Is Your Land" {{!}} History News Network |url=http://hnn.us/article/177412 |website=hnn.us |date=September 20, 2020 |access-date=13 October 2021}}</ref>

Folk music festivals proliferated during the 1930s.<ref>Donaldson, 2011, pp. 44–52</ref> [[President Franklin Roosevelt]] was a fan of folk music, hosted folk concerts at the [[White House]], and often patronized folk festivals.<ref>Donaldson, 2011, pp. 42–43</ref> One prominent festival was [[Sarah Gertrude Knott]]'s [[National Folk Festival (United States)|National Folk Festival]], established in St. Louis, Missouri in 1934.<ref>Michael Ann Williams, ''Staging Tradition: John Lair and Sarah Gertrude Knott'' (University of Illinois Press, 2006) p. 13</ref> Under the sponsorship of [[the Washington Post]], the festival was held in Washington, DC at Constitution Hall from 1937 to 1942.<ref>Donaldson, 2011, pp. 103–04</ref> 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.<ref>Donaldson, 2011, pp. 105–07</ref>

{{Listen
| type         = music
| filename     = Ada Jones und Len Spencer, Return of the Arkansas Traveler, Indestructible Record 3108, 1910.mp3
| title        = Return of the Arkansas Traveler
| description  = ''[[Arkansas Traveler (folklore)|Return of the Arkansas Traveler]]'' performed by [[Ada Jones]] and [[Len Spencer]] (1910)
}}

The American folk music revivalists of the 1930s approached folk music in different ways.<ref name="Donaldson87" /> Three primary schools of thought emerged: "Traditionalists" (e.g. Sarah Gertrude Knott and [[John Lomax]]) emphasized 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".<ref name="Donaldson87">Donaldson, 2011, p. 87</ref> By the end of the 1930s these and others had turned American folk music into a social movement.<ref name="Donaldson87" />

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 [[Appalachia]]n traditional songs.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Fox |first1=Margalit |title=Jean Ritchie, Lyrical Voice of Appalachia, Dies at 92 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/arts/music/jean-ritchie-who-revived-appalachian-folk-songs-dies-at-92.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220101/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/arts/music/jean-ritchie-who-revived-appalachian-folk-songs-dies-at-92.html |archive-date=2022-01-01 |url-access=limited |access-date=13 October 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=2 June 2015}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Ritchie, living in a time when the [[Appalachian Mountains|Appalachians]] had opened up to outside influence, 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.<ref>{{cite web |title=Folk Songs Of The Southern Appalachians As Sung By Jean Ritchie (PDF) eBOOK |url=https://handleybaptist.com/reading/folk-songs-of-the-southern-appalachians-as-sung-by-jean-ritchie/ |website=Handleybaptist |access-date=13 October 2021 |archive-date=October 26, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211026232040/https://handleybaptist.com/reading/folk-songs-of-the-southern-appalachians-as-sung-by-jean-ritchie/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

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 the last 20 years of his life working on an [[Interactive Multimedia]] educational computer project he called the [[Cantometrics#Cantometrics as an educational tool|Global Jukebox]], which included 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 [[videotape]]s, and 5,000 photographs.<ref>[http://www.thetakeaway.org/2012/jan/31/the-global-jukeboxs-premiere/ "The Premiere of the Global Jukebox".] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120202124514/http://www.thetakeaway.org/2012/jan/31/the-global-jukeboxs-premiere/ |date=February 2, 2012 }} Radio interview with Don Fleming by [[John Hockenberry]] on [[Public Radio International|PRI]]'s [[The Takeaway]].</ref> 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.<ref name="ACEmusic">{{cite web|url=https://archive.culturalequity.org/collections/field-work |title=Association for Cultural Equity's main overview and search page for Lomax's 1946-on recordings |publisher=archive.culturalequity.org |access-date=September 8, 2021}}</ref><ref name="NPR17000">{{cite news|url=https://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/03/28/148915022/alan-lomaxs-massive-archive-goes-online |title=Alan Lomax's Massive Archive Goes Online : The Record |newspaper=NPR.org |publisher=NPR |date=March 28, 2012 |access-date=December 29, 2012}}</ref> This material from Alan Lomax's independent archive, begun in 1946, which has been digitized and offered by 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)&nbsp;— is the provenance of the American Folklife Center"<ref name = ACEmusic /> at the library of Congress.