Beginners’ Guides:
English Instrumental Folk Music

Introduction

This resource is a guide to the rich array of instrumental music that is currently understood as English folk music. It is part of a global family of musics that are shared from person to person over generations, often referred to using terms such as ‘folk’, ‘traditional’, ‘roots’, ‘heritage’ and ‘old music’.

Musical connections

There are many regional traditions of English instrumental folk music and they have differences in style, form, purpose and instrumentation.

English folk music also has links to:

• music from other parts of Britain and Ireland, with strong similarities in form, structure and style,
• music from other parts of Europe
• the music of places such as North America and Australia, where large numbers of English people moved (for varied and complex reasons including colonialism, the transportation of prisoners and economic migration).

Celtic folk music from countries such as Ireland, Scotland and Wales is generally more well-known in England than English Folk music. However, in recent decades, various revivals have introduced English folk music to a wider range of people.

Where it is played

Anyone can play English instrumental folk music. It has always been a social music, and it does not need to be studied for years before you can play it with others. Historically, it was not performed on stage as a listening music in its own right, but since the mid-20th century this has changed.

Today you can hear folk music being played:

• at social dances like ceilidhs (pronounced ‘kay-lee’, a word of Gaelic origin which is now widely used for social folk dancing of English, Irish and Scottish origins where people dance to the instructions given to them by a ‘caller’).
• to accompany performance dance (such as morris, rapper sword, clog, molly dancing).
• at informal ‘sessions’ (social musical jams where people gather in pubs or other places to play tunes).
• on stage as a listening music
• at folk festivals
• at community events and celebrations
• at workplaces
• in homes
• in videos and recordings online.

How it is learnt

English instrumental folk music is what is known as an oral (or aural) tradition – music that is passed on from one generation to another through listening and playing, rather than learnt from written sources. However, tunes have been notated in musicians’ tune books and published music collections over the last 500 years, and many people nowadays learn them from written sources such as books and websites, as well as from recordings.

Collectors

At various times, English folk music has also been a focus for ‘collectors’ who have transcribed and recorded it in order to preserve it. One of the largest periods of collecting was the early 20th century, a time when many oral traditions were dying out.

The wealth of material gathered then has become a great musical and historical resource (much of which can be found in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library online archives). However, it also means that this constantly evolving music became recorded in fixed versions, which can often be looked back to as being ‘original’ or ‘authentic’, when really they are just a snapshot of one moment in a journey.

How it is played

Like many folk musics in the world, most English instrumental folk music evolved to accompany dancing, which often informs the way it is played. Traditionally, there is usually some degree of off-beat emphasis, with a slightly lesser emphasis on beat 1. Many forms of folk dance in England involve steps where you are hopping on the offbeat, so these emphases add lift to the dancers when they are in the air. However, this does vary depending on the context the music is being played in, and a musician’s own interpretation.

There are also common styles of harmonisation, counter melody, chords or ornamentation (musical decoration), but these are also ultimately the creative choice of the musician playing the music.

An evolving tradition

The main traditional element of an English folk tune is the melody line (a single line of tune). There is rarely one ‘true’ version of a tune as these tunes have been shared from person to person over many years and have changed during this process, as communities have changed over time. The knowledge of who first wrote or played a tune has often been lost and the music has lived on through being played and appreciated by people over the decades and centuries.

This tradition is still being added to with contemporary English folk tunes - new pieces of music where the composers are often known and may still be living. Contemporary folk tunes may use the styles, forms and structures of traditional material for inspiration, as well as being influenced by other types of music.

Resource Credits

Written by Hazel Askew, 2025.

Original version by Frances Watt and Gavin Davenport, produced by the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), June 2014.

Copyright © English Folk Dance and Song Society, 2025
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Permission is granted to make copies of this material for non-commercial educational purposes.
Permission must be sought from EFDSS for any other use of this material.