I am sometimes asked about the different terms used for "folk" or "traditional" music. Behind any explicit definitions of these terms, there are a lot of connotations that bring in, among other things, musicology, academic history, popular culture, corporate culture, and politics. I was originally going to write a single journal entry on this topic, but I decided to break it down into at least two. This one will be concerned with "folk music" and the second will be on "traditional music". These articles will be painted with a broad brush -…