Very nice, Shambles. Pete Seeger once described a good melody as a tree, capable of being used for a lot of different products. Woody knew that. Pete used Jim Waters' melody for his setting of the Turkish poet's song of the Hiroshima child (can't think of the title right now), not realizing that the tune was recently created and under copyright. He was quick to attribute the tune to Waters when he learned of its source.

Jerry: I do believe, actually, that a song ought to be altered by the process before it should be considered traditional. Bruno Nettl, outstanding academician, wrote that a true "folksong" is always in a state of flux, changing to some degree as it passes from person to person and from community to community. He was referring to the process that creates a traditional song. Some of your songs may well become part of an oral tradition, as have some of Utah Phillips' and Ewan MacColl's, among others. Let's consider your own "Handful of Songs." I thought I had learned it properly from you, without changes. When I taught it to Rick Fielding, I realized that he had made a few very minor changes from what I had sung for him. The same thing is happening to Bob Zentz's fine ecumenical hymn "When All Thy Names are One." People are altering the original, deliberately or accidentally, as the song passes through the continuing process.

Yes, I do think the process continues. I even coined the phrase "Continuing Tradition" to describe what we enthusiasts are doing, often inadvertently, as we learn and share songs with others like us. Remember, Gavin Greig entitled his turn of the century collection "Last Leaves of Aberdeenshire Ballads," thinking the oral tradition was moribund. Hamish Henderson, in his decades of work with the School of Scottish Studies recorded over a thousand hours of traditional ballads and songs from the region. And he did it half a century after Greig bemoaned the loss.

Damn! I've got to get to the post office and bank, and I don't think I've made my point at all well. I'll have to check the thread again later tonight.

Sandy