traditional uk folk music is pretty damn cool actually

for the past half year i've been in university which has been a lot to get used to. honestly i still wouldn't say i'm that comfortable in the environment and don't have any close friends however i have got pretty into the folk scene thanks to the university ceilidh band and so have some people i enjoy making music with throughout the week.

i got an accordion last summer since it's essentially been a dream instrument of mine for a while. there's very likely a love letter to the instrument coming soon so i won't elaborate too much here but once i got the hang of it and could play the song of storms and kass's theme to my heart's content i was struggling to find some further repertoire which i truly enjoyed.

and then along came the fresher's fair where there was a stall advertising the ceilidh band - i'd never really engaged in the culture before but was eager to have some fun playing stuff. plus rehearsals have free biscuits and sessions have free pints :p

i was hooked as soon as i'd been to the first rehearsal

i think what draws me to folk music is that it's not performative. the goal is to have fun making music together with other people rather than to simply serve someone else's entertainment. if played in ceilidhs then the music serves to complement the dancing which also is just a fun group activity where nobody cares about mistakes.

folk instruments include whistles, fiddles, guitars, recorders, flutes and accordions mostly. therefore music tends to be melodies accompanied by chords which compared to classical is quite simple. however this limitation has produced so many tunes which are catchy as hell and super fun to play (which is the aim). it's actually quite similar to retro videogame soundtracks which were limited by hardware soundchips - it forced composers to write melodies which were actually good, not hide it behind effects. this approach has produced some of my favourite osts such as those of ocarina of time and undertale.

i think the best representation of what makes folk fun is sessions. a session is essentially a get-together in a pub or park where people just play or sing folk music. if you know the tune you can join in and otherwise you can accompany or pick up parts by ear. they're always a great time and often go hand in hand with drinks and chat.

people will normally play tunes in sets - essentially medleys of tunes which go well with each other. this often entails those in the same key, an adjacent key in the circle of fifths or in a relative minor/major key. the tunes may also be from the same region but nobody really cares too much about that. they'll also normally be the same type of tune too - uk folk has a few different types.

there's reels (fast tunes in 4/4), jigs (fast tunes in 6/8), slipjigs (fast tunes in 9/8), strathspeys (slow tunes in 4/4), waltzes (slow tunes in 3/4) and hornpipes (swung tunes in 4/4) to name a few. of course these are loose categories and there are plenty of slow jigs and cheeky 7/8 tunes which i'm quite fond of too. since folk is now being composed by newer generations there's way more experimentation and refinement of what came before.

unfortunately some of that fun stuff isn't great to dance to at ceilidhs. i've done quite a few gigs where we play for dancers and danced a bit myself too! it's definitely fun but i much prefer playing the music than dancing to it. plus we get free food at a lot of our gigs :p