Anyone spot the goalposts just moving? I thought we were talking about passing songs on - i.e. what 'tradition' consists of - not arguing over compositional credits.

Can you seperate the two things? The flux and fuidity of Traditional Song from one singer to the next is part of its nature; be it the re-making of songs to suit, or the way a singer might sing a different version of a song each time - as Mrs Pearl Brewer did on the two occasions Max Hunter recorded her singing The Cruel Mother. Theorectically - and philosophically (depending on your parameters) - any given song exists in a different variant each time it's sung, any one of which can be passed on...

Look at the scope and range of the melodic and rhythmic variants to some well-known folk songs. The result of many individual interventions? Yes. Genius, every one? Stretching it. But all part of a process (not a 'process'), undoubtedly.

I don't think it's unreasonable to think of these variants as the product of a singers whim, or mastery of their craft, or even examples of it. If people are conversant with that 'tradition' then they'll be able to extemporise at will, for better or worse, as in The Legend of Knockgrafton, or people who will readily approximate a melody to suit. My grandmother could out-whistle Ronnie Ronalde and regularly amazed us by improvising in this way on any number of melodies. But only in the kitchen, mind.

No, most music is performed by 'musicians'.

Anyone who even dabbles is a musician; some dabblers will even become great musicians, but it all starts with the dabbling, or being moved to dabble in the first place. Like on that fateful day in June 1976 when the Sex Pistols played at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, thus moving many audience members, to go forth and dabble. Within three years many of them had rewritten the book, like Peter Hook, a non-musician hitherto, and now hailed as a crucial stylist on the bass guitar. He's still not a great musician - I saw him playing solo last year at The Lowry and it was pretty dire to be honest, despite being bigged up by Howard Marks as the greatest bassist of all time, which is quite beside the point because he made great music as part of his particular tradition.

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I feel a duet coming on...

I'm reminded of this which I'm sure no one else on Mudcat will find amusing in the slightest; it might even mave relevance to the discussion with respect of mondegreens & mishearings...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWsFWdqLmNM