Evolution Of Folk Music

Throughout the 20th century, various musical styles have developed greatly, and many genres have started to be part of the new "Popular Music". The new Popular Music is defined as music intended to be distributed in a wide manner. While the definition could also fit to older styles of art music, it is commonly used to describe current music.

Folk Music

The original term of Folk music, defined back in the 18th century by Johann Gottfried Herder was "music produced by communal composition and possessing dignity". However, the meaning of the term had changed later on, especially in the late 19th century, when folk became another word to describe a nation. Thus, the term of folk music now relates to rural musicians, performing their traditional

It has first appeared in the end of the 19th century, and began to dominate a big part of the popular music in the early 20th century.

The music is usually characterized by repetitive patterns such as call-and-response, in which two distinct phrases of chords corresponds one another, and chord progression, in which a phrase of chords is played with a similar change of pitch throughout it. Another important musical element appearing in Blues is the blue note – a note which pitch is noticeably different than the standard pitch defined in the song. The songs were often followed by lyrics with a simple narrative, usually repeating its lines multiple times in a single stanza.

Blues music has evolved greatly later on in the 20th century, and was a stylistic origin for nearly every popular music genre created in the first half of the century. Jazz

Another musical genre that went popular in the early 20th century was Jazz music. The genre took both the African-American Blues, and the European Classical music, and merged those into a vivid yet rather simple style, which is still very difficult to define in its

Hip Hop now attracts a wider audience, also including white people, and is very dominant in today's popular music. There are many popular Hip Hop artists as of today. Between them are Kanye West, Chris Brown, Drake, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, and Flo Rida.

Electronic music

Out of all popular genres today, Electronic music is perhaps the most expansive and complex one. It contains in it dozens of subgenres, that are divided in themselves to even more subgenres, so far as to have entire labels for a single one.

Electronic devices made in order to perform music have been developed already in the late 19th century. These devices were first shown and used during the beginning of the 20th century. From huge electronic devices composed of dozens functions, the instruments that are used in order to create Electronic music were reduced into simple computer programs.

The genre is often distinct into main subgenres, and from those, into more specific subgenres. These main subgenres are Industrial music, Synthpop, Techno, House, Trance, and Drum and bass. Each subgenre has its own elements, yet all of those are based on a similar, very broad