Don Firth's post of 3:04 yesterday got me thinking about "imitation" of traditional singers.

One of my greatest musical interests is the blues in all its traditional and modern forms, and one of my greatest pet peeves is to witness a performer who presents his/her rendition of old-style folk blues by dropping a beat or two at the exact same point in a given song, or (worse) at the exact same point in every verse, every time they play it.

For many many years, I found it virtually impossible ever to stray from a strict four-beats-to-the-bar, tweleve-bars-to-the-verse format. Only recently, after 40+ years experience, have I loosened up enough to occasionally allow myself a "hiccup" and throw in a 3=beat or 5-beat measure when it feels right ~ and it does NOT feel right to do so at the same point in the verse every time around.

These little variations are evidence of a certain looseness in one's approach to performance, and when they are real rather than imitation, they are not "built into" a repetitive arrangement, they occur at different and seemingly random times and places, or not at all, according to the performer's whim.

Those who slavishly follow a "classic" old recording in order to produce a note-for-note duplication are missing the point, especially in regard to these rhythmic irregularities that occur in so many folk/blues artsits' work. Those old original guys did NOT perform their songs the exact same way every time ~ at least, that is my firm belief. Any given recording is just a sample of how that person sang the song on ONE random occasion.

I've seen many examples of folk-music sheet music where single measures in 5/4 or 3/4 time appear in a song most of which is transacribed in 4/4. In a few cases (as when the irregular rhythm occurs in a repeated chorus), the bit of eccentric time is actually part of the song. However, quite often, it's a transcription of a