| folk music | Usually music of unknown origin, orally transmitted.
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| hymn | A religious song, suitable for congregational singing.
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| alabado | A religious song of praise, belonging to Spanish and Mexican folk traditions.
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| ballad | A folk story-song, strophic in form.
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| broadside | A topical ballad, printed on a large sheet or on sets of sheets called songsters.
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| chantey | Sailors’ work song.
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| field hollers | Loud, rhythmically flexible, emotionally expressive chants or cries sung by a solitary voice, forming a kind of communication between slaves.
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| blue notes | Flexible tones derived from African scales.
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| shout, ring shout | A lively dance, performed at religious services with shuffling but rigorous steps by dancers in a ring, accompanied by the singing of a religious song.
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| work songs | Songs sung by groups of slaves to set the pace and synchronize the movements of rhythmic tasks performed in unison.
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| improvised | Simultaneously invented and performed.
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| banjo | A string instrument derived in America from West African instruments.
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| drone | A single tone, sounded continuously or repeated.
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