Traditional - the passing of custom and belief down the generations.

Well, at least one dictionary says it in that way, (suspect an American one, I am using an iMac after all...)

An interesting question would be "Where does something begin in order to be passed down in the tradition?"

I gave my sons many of my old albums, so as my custom was to wear denim and go to Black Sabbath concerts, buying their albums, then when I took my eldest to watch Ozzie in concert then gave him my Sabbath Bloody Sabbath album, (signed by the band many years ago) then I was starting a tradition. Hence Black Sabbath performed traditional music?

I reckon we are yet again confusing style with process. There seems to be a consensus that to be a traditional singer as opposed to singer of traditional songs, you have to tell people your Grandfather learned this from a wandering gypsy in the bleak high fells. Whereas it was traditional for me that on Xmas Eve, my stepfather sat in his chair when we got home from the welfare, a glass of whisky in his hand and sat there crooning out "Old Shep." To which I used to cry out, taking the piss, "Oh no! Not the gun!"

Just as traditional for me.

But not for you.

Or indeed for Walter Pardon who wouldn't know about my Stepfather or indeed the local miners' welfare.

Methinks the thought police may think that it has to be in the folk "style" to be traditional, and that is one hell of a different discussion.... (And a moot one too. If I sing a song I wrote about my community and heritage, I am a traditional singer. If I sing a song about reed cutting in Norfolk, I am a singer of traditional song. QED.)