Traditional music is the term increasingly used (e.g. by the Grammy Award

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

s) for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article. Other organizations have made similar changes, although it remains common to refer to traditional music as "folk music

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

".
From a historical perspective, traditional music had these characteristics:

• It was transmitted through an oral tradition
  Oral tradition
  Oral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
  
  .

Before the twentieth century, ordinary farm workers and factory workers were illiterate.