In Defence of the Term and Concept of Traditional Music

Year 2021, Volume: 5 Issue: 1, 1 - 30, 30.06.2021

Ulrich Morgenstern

https://doi.org/10.33906/musicologist.913512

Cited By: 1

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.

Keywords

ethnomusicology, folkloristics, traditional music

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