WHAT IS A FOLK SONG?

     The International Folk Council (1955:23) provides the
     following definition:
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          Folk Music is the product of a musical tradition that 
     has been evolved through the process of oral transmission. 
     The factors that shape the tradition are: (i) continuity
     which links the present with the past; (ii) variation which
     springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the
     group and (iii) selection by the community which determines
     the form or forms in which the music survives.
          The term can be applied to music that has been evolved
     from rudimentary beginnings by a community uninfluenced by
     popular and art music and it can likewise be applied to
     music which has originated with an individual composer and
     has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten living
     tradition of a community.
          The term does not cover composed popular music that has
     been taken over ready-made by a community and remains
     unchanged, for it is the re-fashioning of the music by the
     community that gives it its folk character.