Even the music of individual towns can be identified by indigenous quirks. Because travel between towns was limited, people had little exposure to music from other regions. This led to the development of highly stylized, very clean, musical segmentation. Storytelling is another vital part of the folk tradition. Ballads have long been the most popular vehicle for retelling stories about unrequited love, war, famine, shipwrecks, and other tragedies.
Many folk songs are very practical.
Teaching songs explain things while working songs help laborers work. The Woodcutter's Song tells you what type of wood to burn in your fireplace, while Saltpetre Shanty helped sailors maintain their rhythm while hauling up sails on a tall ship. Folk music is unique because it relies heavily on an aural tradition to keep it alive. Even today, in spite of the fact that there are hundreds of collections of songs and tunes available, most folk musicians still rely on the tradition of learning songs by ear, from other singers, rather than by reading manuscripts. In the last thirty years, songwriters have begun writing contemporary folk songs about modern issues and using more modern language.