6. Looking back, moving forward!

Folklore is the combination of traditions, customs and popular beliefs in a region, country or village, among which we find music.

This word comes from two English words: Folk: (people, village), Lore (science or wisdom), so the word literally means people’s wisdom.

Folklore or traditional music, regardless of the country or region it comes from has some common features: 

• Function: it always accompanies work and everyday activities, games or parties.
• Anonymous: its author is unknown.
• Oral transmission: it was common that these compositions were not written. They are known thanks to the oral transmission from generation to generation, with some changes. Some of them even got lost.

The most important thing about this music is that there are similarities between countries that are far away from each other like Ireland or Canada.

This is due to that oral transmission: when people started to emigrate, like Galicians, Irish or African, and they arrived at those new countries the music they brought got mixed with the one existing in that place. The result was that there were new styles but with similar characteristics.

For example, traditional African music and the American blues or music from the Caribbean.