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MUSIC Art song A lyric song intended to be sung in recital, usually accompanied by a piano. Folk song A song belonging to the folk music of a people or area, often existing in several versions or with regional variations, a song composed in the style of traditional folk music. National song A national song is the national patriotic song of a country, ideally sung chorally by its citizens. Popular song Historically, any non-folk-music form that acquired mass popularity-from the songs of the medieval minstrels to those elements of fine art music originally intended for a small, elite audience but that became widely popular. After the Industrial Revolution, true folk music began to disappear, and the popular music of the Victorian era and the early 20th cent. Was that of the music hall and vaudeville, with its upper reaches dominated by waltz music and the operettas of J. Offenbach, V. Herbert, and others. In the U.S., minstrel shows performed the compositions of such songwriters as S. Foster. In the 1890s Tin Pan Alley emerged, and later the musical, which achieved great sophistication. Beginning with ragtime in the 1890s, black Americans had begun combining complex African rhythms with European harmonic structures