Folk Music and the History of Music

Abstract

In this paper I would like to present a short summary of the general basic problems involved in the role played in the history of music by the kind of musical art generally referred to as folk music or musical folklore. The history of music is, first of all, the actual process of development of musical art since it first began, and secondly, it is the science devoted to the study of this process and the summing up of the various periods in its development. As for music itself - it is a type of human creative activity which is closely tied to the general history of mankind, reflects the progress of social ideas and effectively participates in this progress. We shall probably never know exactly when the art of music first began, but the first period in its development should be regarded as that phase of history in which there existed only musical folklore within the great complex of musics of the various tribes and peoples of the world, in the earlier phases of their emergence and development. This was, primarily, a period of unwritten traditional development of musical art. Originally it was connected with tribal society and the life of cattle-raising nomads or land-cultivating rural communities. During this period, musical art consisted chiefly of vocal music and included such genres as work-songs, ritual and ceremonial songs, songs of every-day life (lyrical songs, jokes, games, etc.), social songs (eulogy, satire, etc.) and historical songs (in the precise meaning of the term), as well as the epos - the ancient legendary history of diverse peoples. Besides the epos, some folk music cultures which had already reached a high level of development, produced compositions of a musical-narrative lyric and heroic character, in which the narration is in prose, while the monologues and dialogues are performed as songs. These are called dastans by the nationalities of the Middle East, Central Asia and Transcaucasia. Since in these types of musical folklore the music is interwoven with the text, they reflect every aspect of life, social relations and ideas of clan, tribal