the.com/folk music

means Music made and passed along by ordinary people — traditional songs rooted in a community's everyday life, often simple enough to sing without training and old enough that no one remembers who wrote them first.

from From 'folk,' tracing back through Old English 'folc' meaning people or nation, a word with deep Germanic roots shared across languages. 'Folk music' as a set phrase sharpened in the 1800s–1900s when collectors and scholars went hunting for songs that belonged to no composer — tunes handed mouth to mouth, generation to generation — and needed a name for music that came from 'the folk' rather than the concert hall.