While very few of the arguments in this thread seem to be new it is interesting to have them all in the one spot, so to speak. Almost like a seminar and well worth reading thoroughly. I find it interesting that the discussion has kept almost completely to English language (in its accepted variants) songs; there was one mention of Yugoslav cafe songs but everybody seems to have kept their distance from introducing notions about world music into the discussion.

In the thread on music traditions I raised the question of Aboriginal singers singing in their own and other nonBalanda language, as well as in English, and how one would categorise items of such material. Captain Birdseye was gracious enough to acknowledge the point but ducked it and came back to this discussion. I suspect that you'd have to understand different notions of "community" to fully grasp the sense of locality and consequent possession that seems to accompany 'tradition'.

I tried reading the postings and substituting "dance" for "song" in the thread and found most of the postings still made the same sense their authors appeared to intend. I particularly liked the "So and so over the mountain sings this but she gets it wrong" (or words to that effect) and apologise to the writer for not naming them properly. Some dances are particularly susceptible to local variations becoming entrenched. The Lancers and the First Set are well known among Australian collectors for such behaviour. Other quadrilles don't seem to be so 'vulnerable', for want of a better word.

Lots of folk dances dances have no known author and lots are regarded as traditional. There are strong traditions among the various Country Dance organisations and many promulgate dances by known authors. There are popular dances (Twist, eg) and idiosyncratic ones. I suspect that when we get into the throes of these discussions, it is the fact that we are extremely literate about words, less literate about music notation and (sometimes) illiterate about choreographic notation that encourages the discussion of songs to become enlivened. And that's just the footwork! Heaven help us if Azizi (or anyone else) develops a notation that satisfactorily describes multiple-partner handclapping chants done while skipping elastics. Once you start discussing the finer points of terminology with ten-year-olds we'd get into definitions even more abstruse than Maud Karpeles or Captain Birdseye could envisage.

Should be more of it!

Cheers, Rowan