In Defence of the Term and Concept of Traditional Music

Abstract

Regardless of Eric Hobsbawm’s negativistic understanding, ‘tradition’ is a powerful and dynamic (and in no way traditionalist) concept in academic folkloristics. The widespread scepticism against ‘traditional music’, both as a recognizable field of research and a matter of theoretical thought, is based on an insufficient and sometimes stereotypic understanding of a term and concept with a fascinating history. I argue that there is good reason to maintain a term which is intrinsically linked to core issues of ethnomusicology, among them community-based music, cultural innovation, oral/aural transmission, sonic orders, and stylistic pluralism.