Song and traditional music (1100–2026)

Alongside music written by known composers, there has always been a vast body of music in the oral tradition: lullabies, dance songs, sea shanties, laments, carols, fiddle tunes. They are learned by ear and each generation changes them a little, which is why the same tune often exists in several versions.

Many of these tunes are very old. Some Christmas carols go back to the Middle Ages, Renaissance dances became nursery tunes, and songs like “Au clair de la lune” have been known since the 18th century. As printing spread, collections fixed them on paper: that is how we know the Swedish folk dances gathered in the early 19th century, or the tunes of the Irish harper Turlough O’Carolan.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, collectors travelled the countryside to note down or record this music before it disappeared: Bartók in Central Europe, John and Alan Lomax in the United States. Art-music composers drew on it (Grieg, Dvořák, Bartók), and modern popular music, from blues to folk, grew directly out of it.

Musically, these tunes are often easy to remember: verse and chorus, short phrases, pentatonic or modal scales, dance rhythms. They are the best ground for beginners: singing while playing and learning to accompany with a few chords.