@Steve Gardham
"all of the scholars I correspond with including those here know exactly what is meant by 'oral tradition'
"If I learn a song from a book and someone picks it up from me aurally and sings it themselves then that is an example of 'the oral tradition'.

I don't know what you mean 'oral tradition', because I have seen it used in different ways and your example doesn't help me understand it since you could equally say "that is an example of oral transmission"

Are not the individual steps in a chain of oral (or any other form of) transmission where interesting factors that could be researched come into play? Some of it hard stuff like, as in Jack Campin's example, political satire of a distant time, or requiring particular philological expertise.