Folk Music, is a traditional form of music and sub-genres that evolved from it during the
20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that.
In the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Other smaller revival of folk music would be the culmination of folk music and other genres, more precisely folk metal, folk rock and neo folk. While contemporary folk music is a genre generally distinct from traditional folk music, in U.S. English it shares the same name, and it often shares the same performers and venues as traditional folk music.
The origins of Rock music, however, dates back to 1940s to 1950s when rock n roll emerged taking inspiration from blues, jazz, country and RnB music during the period of 60s “classic rock” Rock music also drew strongly from a number of other genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical styles. Musically, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass, drums, and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a 4/4 time signature using a verse–chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political.
In the 60s more hybrid form of rock music emerged like blues rock, jazz rock, folk rock, country rock, southern rock, raga rock and psychedelic rock. Other genres that evolved in the later decades were progressive rock, which extended the artistic elements, glam rock focused on showmanship, and finally the diverse sound of heavy metal by 70s.
But how did the idea of distortion came in rock n roll and how is it different from folk
music? The crunchy electric guitar sound was already prominent in other forms of music like jazz, blues, rnb and country but these genres sounded more clean since they were not that amplified like rock n roll was. By the emergence of rock bands and rock stars like The Beatles, Elvis Presley, The Who the electric sound of electric guitars were more amplified. And, towards the emergence of Punk rock, the sound of rock music was becoming more noisy and aggressive, which gave rise to heavy metal and contrary to popular belief the first band to use the term heavy metal would be Steppenwolf in their song “Born to be wild” but the credibility of the sound however goes to Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. The rock music is not much different from folk music, but folk music is performed by normal people who are not professional but keeps a traditional norms and makes use of folk instruments. But, modern folk genres makes use of modern instruments that could be seen in modern forms of music, be it jazz, blues, rnb or pop or rock music. Also, folk music is now been fused with other forms of music like synth wave, pop, rock and metal. So both goes hand in hand.
One of the most prominent example of Rock-folk fusion would be the fusion genre of metal, that is folk metal itself and Avant-grade that makes use of folk instruments like Trombone, Mandola, Violine, Hurdy-Gurdy, harp, Flute and whistles.
Folk music have also found its place in pop, modern rnb and Hip Hop or rap, where folk elements could be found more often like folk styled instrumentation and vocal performance and limited amount of electric instrumentation.
So we cannot compare both these genres in larger scale nor can we ignore one and go with the other. Both folk and rock needs to go hand in hand at some point. Both genres has its uniqueness and authenticity but when the both genres are fused into one it can create a magic to the ears.
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