I just acquired an eleven minute video made from old black and white film of Helen Creighton driving dirt back roads of Nova Scotia collecting songs from old people. I realize that I sing a version of All Round My Hat that are words from England, but a melody that Helen Creighton collected. I would not have that melody if she had not used new technology, a reel to reel tape recorder, in a creative new way. It is even possible that Farewell to Nova Scotia would have been lost without her work. From a CD of Newfoundland music I learned a version of Hank Williams', I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, altered by the oral tradition. Now I sing some cross between the original and the Newfoundland version. The oral tradition goes on and it is good to use it; but most of the ways of documenting music, except for notation, are recent in human history. Now we are less apt to lose songs that were only recorded in someone's brain. I believe in using everything we can!