Electric Folk - Definition

Definition

When English bands of the late 1960s and early 1970s defined themselves as 'electric folk' they were making a distinction with the already existing 'folk rock'. Folk rock was (to them) what they had already been producing: American or American style singer-songwriter material played on rock instruments, as undertaken by Dylan and the Byrds from 1965. They drew the distinction because they were focusing on indigenous (in this case English) songs and tunes. This is not to say that all the proponents of electric folk totally abandoned American material, or that it would not be represented in their own compositions, but their work would be characterised by the use of traditional English songs and tunes and the creation of new songs in that style, using the format and instruments of a rock band with the occasional addition of more traditional instruments.

The result of this hybridisation was an exchange of specific features drawn from Traditional music and Rock music. These have been defined as including:

Traditional music:

• Lyrics
• Tunes (including ornamentation)
• The drone (cf. bagpipes), but usually on a guitar or bass
• Use of some acoustic instruments
• Use of traditional rhythms; for example, an eight-beat rhythm of 3+3+2 with the stress on the first, fourth, and seventh beats, as in Led Zeppelin's "The Battle of Evermore", while not unusual precludes the standard rock backbeat.
• Blending of multiple songs in the traditional music style: often a short instrumental piece is inserted as an instrumental in a longer lyrical piece (i.e. a piece with vocals), both in traditional music and Electric folk

Rock music:

• Rhythm (specifically the backbeat)
• The hook
• Ostinati (plural of ostinato), a melodic and/or rhythmic figure that is persistently repeated throughout a piece or a section of a piece
• Use of some electric instrument
• The tempo of some songs may be altered well beyond the traditional boundaries
• Key changes may be added

Not all of these features are found in every song. For example, Electric folk groups, while predominantly using traditional material as their source for lyrics and tunes, occasionally write their own (much as traditional musicians do).