Shambles, thanks for refreshing this venerable thread. Among its other good qualities, it serves to remind me how much I miss reading the thoughts of Frank Hamilton.

I too love to hear unaccompanied singing. I'm especially fond of the Appalachian style that Hazel Dickins has mastered but also love the old field recordings, the polyphonic singing of Georgia—the country not the US state—the African tradition and the Byzantine chant we use in church.

I live in a part of the U.S. where a piano is the traditional accompanymant for fiddle playing as far as the regional music is concerned so I guess the guitar isn't traditional here. An uncle by marriage and his brother used to play banjo and fiddle together as a local “band” back in the late twenties and early thirties. It depends on what one thinks of as tradition. I regularly read articles that discuss “traditional” techniques for software development—meaning any technique more than two years old.

Certainly the first blues weren't played on a guitar and neither were the first country dances. Dick and others have pointed out that the guitar is a relatively recent instrument in the Americas.

I think the guitar is traditionally used in flemenco and Spanish music. I'm not sure that it is truly traditional in other genre.

      - Mark