Maybe this has been covered already, but I received an email recently alerting me that a tune I posted wasn't "traditional" because the person sending me the email composed it. This puzzled me because I've always thought the term applied more to a style rather than a status. There are tunes written by living composers that I would consider traditional based on the way they sound and the fact that they’re part of the body of tunes found in sessions around the world. So can anyone explain when a tune becomes "traditional" and why?
Interesting subject Jack.
It's about the style not the date composed.
People speak of 'tunes passing into the tradition' and I think what that means is that a tune is being regularily played at sessions without people going 'lets try this new tune'. Many will play it assuming it to be lost in the mists of time. Some new quirky tunes may be popular for a month or two or even a year but the really traditional ones will still be around in 5 years or more.
So it is also about the quality in that a new tune composed in the traditional idiom but lacks that extra Z-factor will probably get played but fail to pass into the tradition.
Mind you what is the accepted tradition in San Francisco may not be in New York or Ennis. But with the mobility of this music now I'm not so sure about that either.
This is a bit difficult to answer unless you give us a clue as to what sort of tune you're talking about, Jack. Do you mean the Road To Garrison? - the one you called the Godfather on your album? If so then I'd say it has to be part of the tradition because it's so commonly played wherever you go. I heard it at a session in Sydney only last night. I also heard it played last month in Canberra. Presumably you play it all the time in San Francisco (albeit under an erroneous title ), and I'm sure you'd hear it plenty in Ireland and the UK too, not that I've been for a while. I think a far less straightforward question is whether or not it's here to *stay*, but only time will tell. I think it's far more likely to stay than a lot of these new syncopated celtic-jazz-fusion so-called tunes I keep being subjected to in sessions. They're what I'd call "untradtional". Hopefully they'll go out of fashion and be forgotten about fairly soon
I think we may been confusing what is meant by traditional in terms of style verses what might be considered a "standard" within the traditional style. Analagous to say the "standard" jazz repetoir. A good tune will always be recognised and taken up by players of that style. Over time it may then pass into the "tradition" where tradition now has a temporal meaning rather than describing a style of music. Mmmm maybe I should have had only one Jaimeson before I started this....!!!
The usage that’s most familiar to me makes “traditional” almost equivalent to “anonymous composer”, with the connotation that the actual composer is lost in the mist of history (or is it the hiss of mystery?) and that the tune has survived aurally, rather than in any manuscript form.
"Some people confuse the terms "traditional" and "in the public domain". The former is, of course, open to debate. The latter is determined by statute." - GaryAMartin
I think the issue may be the latter. If I post a tune, I think I am under some obligation to research its source and give credit to the composer if he or she is known. Some composers (probably most) will freely allow their tunes to be shared, but would also like to be acknowledged as composers. I assume this is why Paddy Fahey doesn't name his tunes, so people will know that they are his tunes. A few composers will ask for a royalty fee under copyright.
So are tunes by the likes of Reavy, Lennon, Broderick and O'Brien traditional or not? There is not doubt who composed their tunes. Their tunes are not public domain, but their tunes are played, played a lot.
Well Dow's right (he follows the tunes forum closely) and the tune that prompted this thread was The Road to Garrison. I did understand the context that the composer was giving me i.e. the authorship of the tune was uncertain and the disclosure of the true composer and title meant it wasn't "traditional" in the sense that the term is used in liner notes for recordings, but it made me wonder about what constitutes a "traditional" tune in the context of the music. Does anyone know of any relevant terminology?
Often I will hear a new tune and have no idea if it's an old tune or composed recently. For me all these tunes are part of traditional music. Charlie Lennon writes what I would describe as "traditional tunes," and so does Fahey, Brady, O'Brien, Dwyer, Mulhaire, ect. ect. And when I'm playing their tunes I consider myself to be playing Irish traditional music. So these are traditional tunes then... right?
Now as Dow pointed out there are new composed tunes that drift away from the tradition that have syncopations and clever key changes and such, but who determines when they leave the tradition? Is the Galway Reel (Redican?) not a traditional tune? It has a clever dropped or added note thing happening.
So, if these tunes aren’t “traditional” – what are they?
A cynical response to the question might be that a tune becomes 'traditional' when it appears on somebody else's album listed as 'Trad. arr. The Kinnegad Slashers' (or whoever) - and I've seen this happen so many times.
A more reasoned response would be to suggest that a tune becomes 'traditional' when it enters the repertoire of other musicians and they neither know nor are concerned about its source.
"Traditional" has different meanings in different contexts. In liner notes, it usually is shorthand for "I don't know who wrote this and I don't think anybody does, but if you do know, tell me and I'll change the notes in the next pressing." I wouldn't read anything more into that usage. It would be a truly strange thing if musicians all spent days wrestling with the questions "Is this traditional?" and "What do I really mean by 'traditional'?" when writing their liner notes. Instead, they ask "Who should I credit?"
The examples given (Reavy, Lennon, Broderick, O'Brien, Fahey, Redican, etc.) are traditional in other contexts in which the term is used, but not when writing liner notes. Usually it means something like "passed down from one generation to another."
I'd personally argue that while the medium of transmission - oral, aural, written, recorded, internet, etc. - is not really important, there should be intent on the part of the older generation to pass their culture on and there should be continuity. If younger musicians learn from Paddy O'Brien's (Offaly) teaching tapes or from one of the Sean Ryan tunebooks, that's traditional. If someone digs up an obscure tune from O'Neill's that nobody plays anymore, it doesn't become traditional again until they pass it on to the next generation.
I'd also argue that generations change pretty quickly. I'd say that the teenage students of a musician in his/her late 20s are already the next generation. On Saturday, I heard some 16 or 17 year old fiddlers, students of Hanneke Cassel, playing tunes by John McCusker, Jerry Holland, etc. To me, those tunes have more of a claim to the term "traditional" than if I dug up a long-neglected gan ainm from O'Neill's. That would just be antiquarian unless it caught on and lasted long enough for these kids to teach it to their students a decade from now.
I think Gary has it about right. In my personal usage, when I’m talking about The Music, I refer to it as Irish traditional music, but when I’m talking about a specific tune, I don’t call it traditional if, to my knowledge, the composer is known.
But, as Gary pointed out, it’s really about context. The tunes mentioned above are in the tradition of tune playing, but to refer to one of them as simply a traditional tune would probably be misleading to a lot of people.
The question of what is "traditional" is like the question of what is "folk music." It will be debated forever with no real answer.
What is important as part of the "tradition" is knowing something about the source of these tunes and the people (including composers) behind them. Ignoring this information, or not taking the trouble to find out, is doing a disservice to the tradition. That is part of the history that should be passed on.
Well, I’ve been avoiding definition and trying to deal more with connotation and common usage. Part of the rub is that there’s an established usage in the world of music citation: If a tune is cited as “traditional” with no further qualification, that’s widely taken to mean that the composer is unknown and the tune has been passed down through successive generations within an ethnic culture. But this is *usage*, not definition.
A stricter application of the definition of “traditional” would not require an anonymous composer, but because of common usage, it could be misleading.
So it may be traditional to play Morrison’s Jig in a session, but to cite the tune itself as simply “traditional” wouldn’t be quite right.
This is all about researching the tunes and finding out what and who's behind them. The point is that so many tunes are considered "traditional" and then they lose that distinction when we discover who the composer is -- especially if they're living. That feels odd to me.
Jack, it's only odd because you are insisting on one meaning for a word that has two distinct meanings in two different contexts. In liner notes "traditional" (usually it's just "trad", not even the whole word) is a very convenient, well-understood shorthand. There's no reason to expect it to stand up to academic scrutiny. It's like worrying about the fact that we still say that we dial a phone number.
Sorry to even go there...but the wikipedia entry starts with a succinct etymology that offers a very clear defenition:
"The word tradition, comes from the Latin word traditio which means "to hand down" or "to hand over." It is used in a number of ways in the English language."
This is exactly the thought of an earlier post above, and I don't see why it's not equally valid if the composer is recent or still kicking. If the tune is passed along, within the context of the tradition (sessions, ceilis, kitchens, road crossings, websites, CD's...?), then it's part of that tradition.
Liner notes that indicate only that a tune is traditional, when the composer may be know to others, and may even be alive, may still be true, if incomplete.
The chance to be part of a living tradition is something unique and exciting about ITM.
Hey Slainte,
I also understand that Jack Coen is alive and well in the Bronx. I had a good chuckle reading your comment about Paddy Fahy. As a senior I find comments about the demise of folks to be without merit.
"’The word tradition, comes from the Latin word traditio which means "to hand down" or "to hand over." It is used in a number of ways in the English language.’
This is exactly the thought of an earlier post above, and I don't see why it's not equally valid if the composer is recent or still kicking. If the tune is passed along, within the context of the tradition (sessions, ceilis, kitchens, road crossings, websites, CD's...?), then it's part of that tradition.”
Valid, yes. But, the point is that it’s misleading because of well-established common usage in music citation. As your reference says, “It is used in a number of ways in the English language.” There is not a fixed, universally acccepted definition, but in the context of academic and commercial music citation, there is fairly solid agreement that a tune is not to be cited as “traditional” if the composer is known.
Carolan’s tunes are definitely part of the tradition, but if you put one on your latest CD release and attribute it to “traditional”, you’ll get flamed from all over the world.
Part of the problem has also gotta be the number of places on the internet that attribute the same tune to a variety of sources, or none at all. Also the fact that tunes that people (eg Gow) have collected subsequently get attributed to the collector and the true origin of the tune is confused.
Perhaps a tune which is not attributed to one person with a reasonable degree of consensus could be considered trad? I suppose from a strictly legal point of view (in the UK) a tune could be considered trad 75 years after the composer's death when the copyright expires. Personally, I'd differentiate between traditional (i.e. on the album notes) and Traditional (i.e. any ITM/STM etc etc) music, which for me includes recent compositions as well - i.e. if a tune like "Trip to Windsor" isn't traditional music (even though it is of a known composer) then what is it??
Point taken Bob; that is certainly true about liner notes and other writing about tunes.
I think, going back to PB's original post, he posits style and getting played in sessions as criteria. I guess I agree with that.
The legal status of authorship, copyright, etc., while not unimportant (and someone later suggests that all of the lore of attribution and origin is also part of the tradition), is not really a litmus test of whether a tune has become part of the ITM tradition. Of course, as others have suggested above, time will tell.
To me a tune is traditional if I can find no other way to describe it, regardless of whether or not the composer is known/livingdead/whatever. Some of these new syncopated tunes I prefer to describe as jazzy pseudo-trad. Their melody lines are less structured and they sound almost improvised. The way they are harmonized seems to be almost as important as the melody itself. Ornamentation, rhythms and phrasing not associated with the Irish tradition is incorporated into the sound from jazz and music from other traditions. The people who play it tend to keep themselves separate from people who only play trad, and they have their own sessions that are wall-to-wall this type of tune... that is, unless they feel in the mood to go to a full-on trad session, in which case they'd go and play traditional tunes. Of course there are overlaps and blurred boundaries, but it's usually pretty obvious what the intended style of composition is. It's about the style, not who wrote it. And it's about the extent to which the tune is picked up and passed on by players of Irish traditional music, not just how old the tune is or is presumed to be. Regardless of whether you know the composer and proper name of Maurice Lennon's Road To Garrison, it *is* traditional because it was written in the style of other traditional tunes, and as such it has been quickly incorporated into the repertoire by players of Irish traditional music and played out in sessions worldwide.
No I didn't actually have her in mind. The Liz Carroll tunes I play don't have syncopated bits in them and are written in what I would call a more traditional style. She might have written jazzy ones too. Did she?
You'e talking about 2 different things. "Traditional" when written on a sheet of dots or as an author credit, means something very specific-- it's an old, anonymous tune (that you don't have to pay to use.....)
In the looser sense it's anything that was written within the accepted musical style of that type of music--ie it's trad if it sounds trad, and fits the repertoire. I don't know anyone who doesn't think of "Dark Isle" or "Slockit Licht" as trad, but they were both written within the last 50 years.
In this sense it's very much more about respecting the style, contributing to it and sympathetically enhancing the repertoire than any rigid rule of "when it was written." All tunes were new once.
I have to say when I began my musical journey, a painfully long time ago, nobody ever talked about "traditional music." They did talk about "Folk Music" and "Pop Music" hell even "Classical Music" but never "Traditional Music." That was just the music you played down the pub on a Wednesday and a Friday, or the music you played and danced to at ceilidhs, or, frankly, what you heard coming out of windows any time you took a walk down an ordinary street in the town I grew up in. It's like air.....Doesn't need a special name. (In fact if it was called anything it was called "heedrum hodrum" music, often by those who were attempting to adopt anglified airs to enhance their apparent social position....)
I do appreciate that in places furth of the western fringes of Europe, in modern cities with perhaps less links to the past (which may not be a bad thing,) cultural definitions become important. And I do realise that if you are trying to set up a session to play one type of music in a place where there are many types, you have to use these definitions to keep things on track. Nobody wants the damn guitar player to break out a 12-bar when you're there to play straight jigs and reels, after all. But in the places where the music you're talking about originated, such issues simply didn't exist, so don't get hung up, just play it.
Dow, I was thinking of Liz Carrol's most recent with John Doyle, In Play. The first track, for example, her own compositions, would seem to demand some pretty acrobatic playing; though I wouldn't exactly say they are jazzed. And surely there are demanding tunes well within the "tradition." Of course, she also has composed some really sweet and simple tunes as well...
This is an extract taken from the Irish Traditional Music Archive's website!
"It is music of a living popular tradition. While it incorporates a large body of material inherited from the past, this does not form a static repertory, but is constantly changing through the shedding of material, the reintroduction of neglected items, the composition of new material, and the creative altering in performance of the established repertory."
A tune is traditional if it meets at least one criterion: I know it! It becomes seriously traditional if I can play it. And it is officially traditional if a traditional musician held in high regard plays it . . . regardless!
I'm new here, I just came across this discussion while searching for some useful informations about this topic.
Well, I'm still not exactly sure about this. ;)
The point is: Sometimes the term "traditional" is handled quite casual within the folk music scene. Also, many musicians/composors of tunes seem to not care too much sometimes (to not care if their tunes are played and/or recorded by other people).
This is quite honourable in my opinion. The problem is: Not all the composers think this way. ;)
The "problem" I'm facing sometimes:
You find out about a tune... can be anywhere: In the internet, during a session, you learn it from a friend, ect.
Often, tunes in the internet are declared as "trad". Or sometimes it says "composer unknown". Same for sessions... sometimes people play a tune, but the don't know where it comes from/who wrote it or they think it's trad.
So you're going to play such tunes. And record them on an album...
And then somewhen and somehow you suddendly have to find out: "Ups, this or that particular tune was not at all traditional!".
For example when you get contacted by its (angry ;)) composer, who wants to know why you don't pay him royalties.
This is quite an awkward situation (and it can become much more than just awkward... at the latest when the composer decides to sue you). And I'd like to avoid this.
So, can anybody help me here?
Is there something like an universally valid definition about WHEN a tune becomes traditional?
And can anyone here give me a clue about how to make sure to not use a "non-traditional" tune? How is it possible to really find out if a tune is trad or not?
Thanks very much in advance! Advices are appreciated a lot.
When is a tune considered "traditional"?
When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Maybe this has been covered already, but I received an email recently alerting me that a tune I posted wasn't "traditional" because the person sending me the email composed it. This puzzled me because I've always thought the term applied more to a style rather than a status. There are tunes written by living composers that I would consider traditional based on the way they sound and the fact that they’re part of the body of tunes found in sessions around the world. So can anyone explain when a tune becomes "traditional" and why?
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Phantom Button
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Interesting subject Jack.
It's about the style not the date composed.
People speak of 'tunes passing into the tradition' and I think what that means is that a tune is being regularily played at sessions without people going 'lets try this new tune'. Many will play it assuming it to be lost in the mists of time. Some new quirky tunes may be popular for a month or two or even a year but the really traditional ones will still be around in 5 years or more.
So it is also about the quality in that a new tune composed in the traditional idiom but lacks that extra Z-factor will probably get played but fail to pass into the tradition.
Mind you what is the accepted tradition in San Francisco may not be in New York or Ennis. But with the mobility of this music now I'm not so sure about that either.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Donough
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
This is a bit difficult to answer unless you give us a clue as to what sort of tune you're talking about, Jack. Do you mean the Road To Garrison? - the one you called the Godfather on your album? If so then I'd say it has to be part of the tradition because it's so commonly played wherever you go. I heard it at a session in Sydney only last night. I also heard it played last month in Canberra. Presumably you play it all the time in San Francisco (albeit under an erroneous title
), and I'm sure you'd hear it plenty in Ireland and the UK too, not that I've been for a while. I think a far less straightforward question is whether or not it's here to *stay*, but only time will tell. I think it's far more likely to stay than a lot of these new syncopated celtic-jazz-fusion so-called tunes I keep being subjected to in sessions. They're what I'd call "untradtional". Hopefully they'll go out of fashion and be forgotten about fairly soon 
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Dr. Dow
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Some people confuse the terms "traditional" and "in the public domain". The former is, of course, open to debate. The latter is determined by statute.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by GaryAMartin
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Concensus.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by five
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Is it when the person who wrote it is dead, but the tune is still being played?
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by AlBrown
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
I heard Paddy Fahy is still alive somewhere in East Galway. Is this really true?
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by slainte
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
I think we may been confusing what is meant by traditional in terms of style verses what might be considered a "standard" within the traditional style. Analagous to say the "standard" jazz repetoir. A good tune will always be recognised and taken up by players of that style. Over time it may then pass into the "tradition" where tradition now has a temporal meaning rather than describing a style of music. Mmmm maybe I should have had only one Jaimeson before I started this....!!!
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Toeprobe
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
The usage that’s most familiar to me makes “traditional” almost equivalent to “anonymous composer”, with the connotation that the actual composer is lost in the mist of history (or is it the hiss of mystery?) and that the tune has survived aurally, rather than in any manuscript form.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Bob himself
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
So "traditional" equals "gain ainm?"
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by AlBrown
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
I meant "gan ainm" of course.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by AlBrown
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
"Some people confuse the terms "traditional" and "in the public domain". The former is, of course, open to debate. The latter is determined by statute." - GaryAMartin
I think the issue may be the latter. If I post a tune, I think I am under some obligation to research its source and give credit to the composer if he or she is known. Some composers (probably most) will freely allow their tunes to be shared, but would also like to be acknowledged as composers. I assume this is why Paddy Fahey doesn't name his tunes, so people will know that they are his tunes. A few composers will ask for a royalty fee under copyright.
Aside from the legal consideration, I think it is only common courtesy to acknowledge the author. I recently wrote a column about this in the Victory Music Review (April, 2006)
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/hend/VictoryMusic/April2006Review.html
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Stewart
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
So are tunes by the likes of Reavy, Lennon, Broderick and O'Brien traditional or not? There is not doubt who composed their tunes. Their tunes are not public domain, but their tunes are played, played a lot.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by RogueFiddler
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Well Dow's right (he follows the tunes forum closely) and the tune that prompted this thread was The Road to Garrison. I did understand the context that the composer was giving me i.e. the authorship of the tune was uncertain and the disclosure of the true composer and title meant it wasn't "traditional" in the sense that the term is used in liner notes for recordings, but it made me wonder about what constitutes a "traditional" tune in the context of the music. Does anyone know of any relevant terminology?
Often I will hear a new tune and have no idea if it's an old tune or composed recently. For me all these tunes are part of traditional music. Charlie Lennon writes what I would describe as "traditional tunes," and so does Fahey, Brady, O'Brien, Dwyer, Mulhaire, ect. ect. And when I'm playing their tunes I consider myself to be playing Irish traditional music. So these are traditional tunes then... right?
Now as Dow pointed out there are new composed tunes that drift away from the tradition that have syncopations and clever key changes and such, but who determines when they leave the tradition? Is the Galway Reel (Redican?) not a traditional tune? It has a clever dropped or added note thing happening.
So, if these tunes aren’t “traditional” – what are they?
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Phantom Button
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Hahahaha... cross-post with FiddleMeThis who asked the same question, but more succinctly.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Phantom Button
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Re: So "traditional" equals "gan ainm?" -- Al Brown
In Scotland and Cape Breton, any nameless tune, including possibly a very recent composition, is labelled "traditional" instead of "Gin Ainm."
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by slainte
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Maybe the best we can do for now is to say they are “in the style of Irish traditional music.” Maybe ITM should stand for Irish Trad-style Music.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Bob himself
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
A cynical response to the question might be that a tune becomes 'traditional' when it appears on somebody else's album listed as 'Trad. arr. The Kinnegad Slashers' (or whoever) - and I've seen this happen so many times.
A more reasoned response would be to suggest that a tune becomes 'traditional' when it enters the repertoire of other musicians and they neither know nor are concerned about its source.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by MacCruiskeen
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
"Traditional" has different meanings in different contexts. In liner notes, it usually is shorthand for "I don't know who wrote this and I don't think anybody does, but if you do know, tell me and I'll change the notes in the next pressing." I wouldn't read anything more into that usage. It would be a truly strange thing if musicians all spent days wrestling with the questions "Is this traditional?" and "What do I really mean by 'traditional'?" when writing their liner notes. Instead, they ask "Who should I credit?"
The examples given (Reavy, Lennon, Broderick, O'Brien, Fahey, Redican, etc.) are traditional in other contexts in which the term is used, but not when writing liner notes. Usually it means something like "passed down from one generation to another."
I'd personally argue that while the medium of transmission - oral, aural, written, recorded, internet, etc. - is not really important, there should be intent on the part of the older generation to pass their culture on and there should be continuity. If younger musicians learn from Paddy O'Brien's (Offaly) teaching tapes or from one of the Sean Ryan tunebooks, that's traditional. If someone digs up an obscure tune from O'Neill's that nobody plays anymore, it doesn't become traditional again until they pass it on to the next generation.
I'd also argue that generations change pretty quickly. I'd say that the teenage students of a musician in his/her late 20s are already the next generation. On Saturday, I heard some 16 or 17 year old fiddlers, students of Hanneke Cassel, playing tunes by John McCusker, Jerry Holland, etc. To me, those tunes have more of a claim to the term "traditional" than if I dug up a long-neglected gan ainm from O'Neill's. That would just be antiquarian unless it caught on and lasted long enough for these kids to teach it to their students a decade from now.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by GaryAMartin
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
I think Gary has it about right. In my personal usage, when I’m talking about The Music, I refer to it as Irish traditional music, but when I’m talking about a specific tune, I don’t call it traditional if, to my knowledge, the composer is known.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Bob himself
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
But, as Gary pointed out, it’s really about context. The tunes mentioned above are in the tradition of tune playing, but to refer to one of them as simply a traditional tune would probably be misleading to a lot of people.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Bob himself
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
My feeling is that all the tunes are traditional but with the distinction of either having the composer identified or being anonymous.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Phantom Button
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
The question of what is "traditional" is like the question of what is "folk music." It will be debated forever with no real answer.
What is important as part of the "tradition" is knowing something about the source of these tunes and the people (including composers) behind them. Ignoring this information, or not taking the trouble to find out, is doing a disservice to the tradition. That is part of the history that should be passed on.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Stewart
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Well, I’ve been avoiding definition and trying to deal more with connotation and common usage. Part of the rub is that there’s an established usage in the world of music citation: If a tune is cited as “traditional” with no further qualification, that’s widely taken to mean that the composer is unknown and the tune has been passed down through successive generations within an ethnic culture. But this is *usage*, not definition.
A stricter application of the definition of “traditional” would not require an anonymous composer, but because of common usage, it could be misleading.
So it may be traditional to play Morrison’s Jig in a session, but to cite the tune itself as simply “traditional” wouldn’t be quite right.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Bob himself
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
This is all about researching the tunes and finding out what and who's behind them. The point is that so many tunes are considered "traditional" and then they lose that distinction when we discover who the composer is -- especially if they're living. That feels odd to me.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Phantom Button
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Cross-post. Amen to Stewart.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Bob himself
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Jack, it's only odd because you are insisting on one meaning for a word that has two distinct meanings in two different contexts. In liner notes "traditional" (usually it's just "trad", not even the whole word) is a very convenient, well-understood shorthand. There's no reason to expect it to stand up to academic scrutiny. It's like worrying about the fact that we still say that we dial a phone number.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by GaryAMartin
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Sorry to even go there...but the wikipedia entry starts with a succinct etymology that offers a very clear defenition:
"The word tradition, comes from the Latin word traditio which means "to hand down" or "to hand over." It is used in a number of ways in the English language."
This is exactly the thought of an earlier post above, and I don't see why it's not equally valid if the composer is recent or still kicking. If the tune is passed along, within the context of the tradition (sessions, ceilis, kitchens, road crossings, websites, CD's...?), then it's part of that tradition.
Liner notes that indicate only that a tune is traditional, when the composer may be know to others, and may even be alive, may still be true, if incomplete.
The chance to be part of a living tradition is something unique and exciting about ITM.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by Keith Dubinsky
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Hey Slainte,
I also understand that Jack Coen is alive and well in the Bronx. I had a good chuckle reading your comment about Paddy Fahy. As a senior I find comments about the demise of folks to be without merit.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by wvwhistler
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Or at least premature.
# Posted on May 1st 2006 by wvwhistler
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
"’The word tradition, comes from the Latin word traditio which means "to hand down" or "to hand over." It is used in a number of ways in the English language.’
This is exactly the thought of an earlier post above, and I don't see why it's not equally valid if the composer is recent or still kicking. If the tune is passed along, within the context of the tradition (sessions, ceilis, kitchens, road crossings, websites, CD's...?), then it's part of that tradition.”
Valid, yes. But, the point is that it’s misleading because of well-established common usage in music citation. As your reference says, “It is used in a number of ways in the English language.” There is not a fixed, universally acccepted definition, but in the context of academic and commercial music citation, there is fairly solid agreement that a tune is not to be cited as “traditional” if the composer is known.
Carolan’s tunes are definitely part of the tradition, but if you put one on your latest CD release and attribute it to “traditional”, you’ll get flamed from all over the world.
# Posted on May 2nd 2006 by Bob himself
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Part of the problem has also gotta be the number of places on the internet that attribute the same tune to a variety of sources, or none at all. Also the fact that tunes that people (eg Gow) have collected subsequently get attributed to the collector and the true origin of the tune is confused.
Perhaps a tune which is not attributed to one person with a reasonable degree of consensus could be considered trad? I suppose from a strictly legal point of view (in the UK) a tune could be considered trad 75 years after the composer's death when the copyright expires. Personally, I'd differentiate between traditional (i.e. on the album notes) and Traditional (i.e. any ITM/STM etc etc) music, which for me includes recent compositions as well - i.e. if a tune like "Trip to Windsor" isn't traditional music (even though it is of a known composer) then what is it??
# Posted on May 2nd 2006 by Andy V
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
I think this article written by Fintan Vallely makes very interesting reading about a lot of what has been discussued!!
# Posted on May 2nd 2006 by Shtrum
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Oops!! Forgot to post the link!
http://www.musicandcopyright.org/vallely.html
# Posted on May 2nd 2006 by Shtrum
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Point taken Bob; that is certainly true about liner notes and other writing about tunes.
I think, going back to PB's original post, he posits style and getting played in sessions as criteria. I guess I agree with that.
The legal status of authorship, copyright, etc., while not unimportant (and someone later suggests that all of the lore of attribution and origin is also part of the tradition), is not really a litmus test of whether a tune has become part of the ITM tradition. Of course, as others have suggested above, time will tell.
# Posted on May 2nd 2006 by Keith Dubinsky
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Great link Shtrum, thanks. This issue has a real mobius strip quality about it...
# Posted on May 2nd 2006 by Keith Dubinsky
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
To me a tune is traditional if I can find no other way to describe it, regardless of whether or not the composer is known/livingdead/whatever. Some of these new syncopated tunes I prefer to describe as jazzy pseudo-trad. Their melody lines are less structured and they sound almost improvised. The way they are harmonized seems to be almost as important as the melody itself. Ornamentation, rhythms and phrasing not associated with the Irish tradition is incorporated into the sound from jazz and music from other traditions. The people who play it tend to keep themselves separate from people who only play trad, and they have their own sessions that are wall-to-wall this type of tune... that is, unless they feel in the mood to go to a full-on trad session, in which case they'd go and play traditional tunes. Of course there are overlaps and blurred boundaries, but it's usually pretty obvious what the intended style of composition is. It's about the style, not who wrote it. And it's about the extent to which the tune is picked up and passed on by players of Irish traditional music, not just how old the tune is or is presumed to be. Regardless of whether you know the composer and proper name of Maurice Lennon's Road To Garrison, it *is* traditional because it was written in the style of other traditional tunes, and as such it has been quickly incorporated into the repertoire by players of Irish traditional music and played out in sessions worldwide.
# Posted on May 2nd 2006 by Dr. Dow
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Haha "livingdead" was supposed to have a forward slash in it. Anyone know any zombie composers?
# Posted on May 2nd 2006 by Dr. Dow
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Dow, what kind of jazzy pseudo-trad tunes are you thinking of? Just curious...would this be like some recent tunes by Liz Carroll?
# Posted on May 2nd 2006 by Keith Dubinsky
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
No I didn't actually have her in mind. The Liz Carroll tunes I play don't have syncopated bits in them and are written in what I would call a more traditional style. She might have written jazzy ones too. Did she?
# Posted on May 2nd 2006 by Dr. Dow
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
You'e talking about 2 different things. "Traditional" when written on a sheet of dots or as an author credit, means something very specific-- it's an old, anonymous tune (that you don't have to pay to use.....)
In the looser sense it's anything that was written within the accepted musical style of that type of music--ie it's trad if it sounds trad, and fits the repertoire. I don't know anyone who doesn't think of "Dark Isle" or "Slockit Licht" as trad, but they were both written within the last 50 years.
In this sense it's very much more about respecting the style, contributing to it and sympathetically enhancing the repertoire than any rigid rule of "when it was written." All tunes were new once.
I have to say when I began my musical journey, a painfully long time ago, nobody ever talked about "traditional music." They did talk about "Folk Music" and "Pop Music" hell even "Classical Music" but never "Traditional Music." That was just the music you played down the pub on a Wednesday and a Friday, or the music you played and danced to at ceilidhs, or, frankly, what you heard coming out of windows any time you took a walk down an ordinary street in the town I grew up in. It's like air.....Doesn't need a special name. (In fact if it was called anything it was called "heedrum hodrum" music, often by those who were attempting to adopt anglified airs to enhance their apparent social position....)
I do appreciate that in places furth of the western fringes of Europe, in modern cities with perhaps less links to the past (which may not be a bad thing,) cultural definitions become important. And I do realise that if you are trying to set up a session to play one type of music in a place where there are many types, you have to use these definitions to keep things on track. Nobody wants the damn guitar player to break out a 12-bar when you're there to play straight jigs and reels, after all. But in the places where the music you're talking about originated, such issues simply didn't exist, so don't get hung up, just play it.
# Posted on May 2nd 2006 by RuairidhMor
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Dow, I was thinking of Liz Carrol's most recent with John Doyle, In Play. The first track, for example, her own compositions, would seem to demand some pretty acrobatic playing; though I wouldn't exactly say they are jazzed. And surely there are demanding tunes well within the "tradition." Of course, she also has composed some really sweet and simple tunes as well...
Good point RM...I'll go practice now...
# Posted on May 3rd 2006 by Keith Dubinsky
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
that's a great question and a half . . .
'time' i guess may answer it, but not necessarily
# Posted on May 6th 2006 by lisaniska
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
More food for thought!!
This is an extract taken from the Irish Traditional Music Archive's website!
"It is music of a living popular tradition. While it incorporates a large body of material inherited from the past, this does not form a static repertory, but is constantly changing through the shedding of material, the reintroduction of neglected items, the composition of new material, and the creative altering in performance of the established repertory."
http://www.itma.ie/home/leaf1a.htm
# Posted on May 10th 2006 by Shtrum
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
A tune is traditional if it meets at least one criterion: I know it! It becomes seriously traditional if I can play it. And it is officially traditional if a traditional musician held in high regard plays it . . . regardless!
# Posted on May 14th 2006 by stonecrusher
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Thanks for that link, Shtrum, that addresses nearly all the issues regarding traditional music that come up in this forum.
# Posted on May 14th 2006 by Phantom Button
Re: When is a tune considered "traditional"?
Hey everybody
I'm new here, I just came across this discussion while searching for some useful informations about this topic.
Well, I'm still not exactly sure about this. ;)
The point is: Sometimes the term "traditional" is handled quite casual within the folk music scene. Also, many musicians/composors of tunes seem to not care too much sometimes (to not care if their tunes are played and/or recorded by other people).
This is quite honourable in my opinion. The problem is: Not all the composers think this way. ;)
The "problem" I'm facing sometimes:
You find out about a tune... can be anywhere: In the internet, during a session, you learn it from a friend, ect.
Often, tunes in the internet are declared as "trad". Or sometimes it says "composer unknown". Same for sessions... sometimes people play a tune, but the don't know where it comes from/who wrote it or they think it's trad.
So you're going to play such tunes. And record them on an album...
And then somewhen and somehow you suddendly have to find out: "Ups, this or that particular tune was not at all traditional!".
For example when you get contacted by its (angry ;)) composer, who wants to know why you don't pay him royalties.
This is quite an awkward situation (and it can become much more than just awkward... at the latest when the composer decides to sue you). And I'd like to avoid this.
So, can anybody help me here?
Is there something like an universally valid definition about WHEN a tune becomes traditional?
And can anyone here give me a clue about how to make sure to not use a "non-traditional" tune? How is it possible to really find out if a tune is trad or not?
Thanks very much in advance! Advices are appreciated a lot.
Cheers
# Posted on June 7th 2010 by folkwhore