Traditional Music

Traditional music is the term increasingly used (e.g by the Grammy awards) for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of world music article. Other organizations have made similar changes, although it remains common to refer to traditional music as "folk music".

Apart from instrumental music that forms a part of traditional music, especially dance music traditions, much traditional music is vocal music, since the instrument that makes such music is usually handy. As such, most traditional music has meaningful lyrics.
narrative looms large in the traditional music of many cultures. This encompasses such forms as traditional epic poetry, much of which was meant originally for oral performance, sometimes accompanied by instruments. Many epic poems of various cultures were pieced together from shorter pieces of traditional narrative verse, which explains their episodic structure and often their in medias epic plot developments. Other forms of traditional narrative verse relate the outcomes of battles and other tragedies or natural diasters. Sometimes, as in the triumphant song of deborah found in the bibical books of judges, these songs celebrate victory. Laments for lost battles and wars, and the lives lost in them, are equally prominent in many traditions; these laments keep alive the cause for which the battle was fought. The narratives of traditional songs often also remember folk heros such as john henry to robin hood. Some traditional song narratives recall supernatural events or mysterious deaths.
hynms and other forms of religios music are often of traditional and unknown origin. Western musicial notationwas originally created to preserve the lines of grigorian chant , which before its invention was taught as an oral tradition in monastic communities. Traditional songs such as green groses of rushes,0 present religious lore in a mnemonic form. In the Western world, christmas calos and other traditional songs preserve religious lore in song form.
work songs  frequently feature call and responses structures, and are designed to enable the labourers who sing them to coordinate their efforts in accordance with the rhythms of the songs. They are frequently, but not invariably, composed. In the American armed forces, a lively tradition of jody calls ("Duckworth chants") are sung while soldiers are on the march. Professional sailors made use of a large body of sea shanties. love poetry, often of a tragic or regretful nature, prominently figures in many folk traditions. Nursery rhymes and nonsense verse  also are frequent subjects of traditional songs.