German Folk Music

One of the more diverse genres of music from this region is German folk music, which comprises a plethora of different musical traditions and dances. German folk songs, known as volkslieder, have been promoted for generations as an expression of pure German tradition. Children in both East and West Germany learned these songs at an early age, although the modern versions were extremely dilute and had very little relation to traditional German music. In particular, the communist regime of the former East Germany promoted German folk music as a way of connecting itself with German heritage. Although the genre has waned in popularity over the last century, due mainly to new developments in popular music and foreign culture, parents still teach their children to sing these classic German songs today.

German folk music has been written on a range of different topics, from the need to emigrate and leave one’s home behind, to work songs that can be sung while performing a day’s labor. In West Germany during the early 1950s, there were even folk songs written to praise the new democratic freedoms that the new Federal Republic afforded the German people. During the late 1960s, German folk songs began to follow in the tradition of American folk songs of the period, developing into songs of protest against political injustice, expressions of extreme happiness or sadness, and celebrations of devotion and passion. This trend did not take hold in East Germany until almost a decade later, when East German folk singers began writing German folk music with hidden or cryptic anti-establishment lyrics.

Within the umbrella of German folk music, a number of different subgenres have developed over the years. One of the most popular is Oom-pah, or umpapa, music, a type of folk music typically played by brass bands in beer halls. The title of the genre refers to the common sequence of sounds that makes up the backbone of Oom-pa songs: the basso oom of the tuba followed by the pah of the clarinet. Yodeling is another subgenre of German folk music, one that was extremely popular in Bavaria. A yodeler holds a single note out for an extended period of time, but rapidly varies the pitch, changing from the chest register to the head register, or falsetto, and back again. Swabian folk music features the hurdy-gurdy, a stringed instrument, and the guitar, while Danish-German folk music centers on the fiddle and the accordion. Each of these subgenres is an important part of German cultural heritage.