Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T19:39:29.291Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Idea of Tradition Examined in the Light of Two Australian Musical Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Extract

In this paper I wish to outline, very provisionally, a proposition for understanding more clearly the nature and operation of (mainly musical) tradition. It is, in essence, an argument concerning a fundamental social entity rather than an instrumental concept, the sort of discussion which Immanuel Wallerstein considers “always diffïcult“:

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 By The International Council for Traditional Music

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Abrahams, Roger D. 1977Toward an Enactment-centered Theory of Folklore.” In Frontiers of Folklore, ed. William Bascom, 79120. Colorado: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Aitken, Robert and Rast, David Steindl 1994 The Ground We Share. Liguori: Triumph Books.Google Scholar
Attwood, Bain, ed. 1996 In the Age of Mabo: History, Aborigines and Australia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Austin, Peter, Dixon, R.M.W., Dutton, Tom and White, Isobel, eds. 1990 Language and History: Essays in Honour of Luise A. Hercus. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics Series C116, Australian National University Press.Google Scholar
Austin-Broos, Diane J., ed. 1987 Creating Culture. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Bascom, William 1958The Main Problems of Stability and Change in Tradition.” International Folk Music Journal 11:712.Google Scholar
Ben-Amos, Dan 1984The Seven Strands of Tradition: Varieties in its Meaning in American Folklore Studies.” Journal of Folklore Research 21:97131.Google Scholar
Berger, P.L. and Luckmann, T. 1966 The Social Construction of Reality. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Bernasconi, Robert 1995‘You Don't Know What I'm Talking About': Alterity and the Hermeneutic Ideal.” In The Specter of Relativism: Truth, Dialogue, and Phronesis in Philosophical Hermeneutics, ed. Lawrence K. Schmidt, 178198. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Blacking, John and Kealinohomoku, J.W., eds. 1979 The Performing Arts: Music and Dance. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blum, Stephen, Bohlman, Philip V., and Neuman, Daniel M., eds. 1991 Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Bohlman, Philip V. 1980The Folk Songs of Charles Bannen: the Interaction of Music and History in Southwestern Wisconsin.” Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters 68:167187.Google Scholar
1988 The Study of Folk Music in the Modern World. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre 1977 Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowen, José A. 1993The History of Remembered Innovation, Tradition and Its Role in the Relationship Between Musical Works and Their Performances.” The Journal of Musicology 11(2):139168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Browne, Ray B., ed. 1970 Folksongs and Their Makers: Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Popular Press.Google Scholar
Bruns, Gerald L. 1991What Is Tradition?New Literary History 22:122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clifford, James and Marcus, George E., eds. 1986 Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Anne and Cohen, Norm 1973Tune Evolution as an Indicator of Traditional Music Norms.” Journal of American Folklore 86:3747.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, D.W. 1989The Undefining of Oral Tradition.” Ethnohistory 36(1):918.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Ira J. 1987Structuration Theory and Social Praxis.” In Social Theory Today, ed. Anthony Giddens and Jonathan H. Turner, 273308. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Coplan, David B. 1991The Meaning of Tradition.” In Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History, ed. Stephen Blum, Philip V. Bohlman and Daniel M. Neuman, 3548. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Copper, Bob 1975 A Song for Every Season. St. Albans: Paladin.Google Scholar
Crane, Diana, ed. 1994 The Sociology of Culture. Cambridge: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Creamer, Howard 1988Aboriginality in New South Wales: Beyond the Image of Cultureless Outcasts.” In The Past and the Present, ed. Jeremy Beckett, 4562. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.Google Scholar
Crespi, Franco 1992 Social Action & Power. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Dallmayr, Fred R. and McCarthy, Thomas A., eds. 1977 Understanding and Social Inquiry. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
D'Andrade, Roy G. 1984Cultural Meaning Systems.” In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion, ed. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. Le Vine, 88122. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Darcy, Anthony 1987Franz Boas and the Concept of Culture: A Genealogy.” In Creating Culture, ed. Diane J. Austin-Broos, 317. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Derné, Steve 1994Cultural Conceptions of Human Motivation and Their Significance For Culture Theory.” In The Sociology of Culture, ed. Diana Crane, 267287. Cambridge: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Durkheim, Emile 1982 The Rules of Sociological Method, and Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method, ed. Steven Lukes, trans. W.D. Halls. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisenstadt, S.N., ed. 1972 Post-Traditional Societies. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Eliade, Mircea 1973 Australian Religions: An Introduction. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Ellis, Catherine J. 1984Time Consciousness of Aboriginal Performers.” In Problems & Solutions, ed. Jamie C. Kassler and Jill Stubington, 228253. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger.Google Scholar
1985 Aboriginal Music: Education For Living. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press.Google Scholar
1994Powerful Songs: Their Placement in Aboriginal Thought.” In “Power-Laden Australian Aboriginal Songs: Who Should Control The Research?”, ed. C.J. Ellis. The World of Music 36(1):320.Google Scholar
Ellis, Catherine J., Barwick, Linda and Morais, Megan 1990Overlapping Time Structures in a Central Australian Women's Ceremony.” In Language and History: Essays in Honour of Luise A. Hercus, ed. Peter Austin, R.M.W. Dixon, Tom Dutton and Isobel White, 101136. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics Series C116, Australian National University Press.Google Scholar
Falck, Robert and Rice, Timothy, eds. 1982 Cross-cultural Perspectives on Music. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Figal, Günter 1995 “Phronesis as Understanding: Situating Philosophical Hermeneutics.” In The Specter of Relativism: Truth, Dialogue, and Phronesis in Philosophical Hermeneutics, ed. Lawrence K. Schmidt, 236247. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Finnegan, Ruth 1991Tradition, but What Tradition, and Tradition for Whom?Oral Tradition 6.Google Scholar
1992 Oral Traditions and the Verbal Arts. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fox, Matthew 1988 The Coming of the Cosmic Christ. San Francisco: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Gailey, A. 1989The Nature of Tradition.” Folklore 100(ii):143161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddens, Anthony 1979 Central Problems in Social Theory. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1987a Social Theory and Modern Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
1995 The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony and Turner, Jonathan H., eds. 1987 Social Theory Today. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Glassie, Henry 1995Tradition.” Journal of American Folklore 108(430):395412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving 1983The Interaction Order.” American Sociological Review 48(1):117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golomb, Jacob 1995 In Search of Authenticity: From Kierkegaard to Camus. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Goodman, Robert F. and Fisher, Walter R., eds. 1995 Rethinking Knowledge. Reflections Across the Disciplines. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Gross, D. 1992 The Past in Ruins. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Handler, Richard and Linnekin, Jocelyn S. 1984Tradition, Genuine or Spurious.” Journal of American Folklore 97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hannerz, Ulf 1994Mediations in the Global Ecumene.” In Beyond Boundaries: Understanding, Translation and Anthropological Discourse, ed. Gísli Pálsson, 4157. Providence: Berg.Google Scholar
Harré, Rom, ed. 1988 The Social Construction of Emotions. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
1993a Social Being. 2nd ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
1993bSolving and Dissolving: Patrolling the Boundaries of Language.” In Linguistics and Philosophy: the Controversial Interface, ed. Rom Harre and Roy Harris, 109124. Oxford: Pergamon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harré, Rom and Harris, Roy, eds. 1993 Linguistics and Philosophy: the Controversial Interface. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Heelas, Paul 1988Emotion Talk Across Cultures.” In The Social Construction of Emotions, ed. Rom Harré, 234266. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric 1983aInventing Traditions.” In The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, 114. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
1983bMass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870-1914.” In The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, 114. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence, eds. 1983 The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Holbek, Bengt 1983On the Analytical Value of the Concept of Tradition.” Studia Fennica, 27.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Pandora 1976Individual Choice and the Control of Musical Change.” Journal of American Folklore 89:449462.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, Rosemary 1996Aboriginal Histories, Australian Histories, and the Law.” In In the Age of Mabo: History, Aborigines and Australia, ed. Bain Attwood, 116. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Janson, S. and Macintyre, S., eds. 1990 Through White Eyes. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Ingold, Tim 1994The Art of Translation in a Continuous World.” In Beyond Boundaries: Understanding, Translation and Anthropological Discourse, ed. Gísli Pálson, 210230. Providence: Berg.Google Scholar
Karpeles, Maud 1973 An Introduction to English Folk Song. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
1952Some Reflections On Authenticity In Folk Music.” International Folk Music Journal 3:1014.Google Scholar
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara 1995Theorizing Heritage.” Ethnomusicology 39(3):367380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knapp, A.B., ed. 1992 Archaeology, Annales, and Ethnohistory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layder, Derek 1994 Understanding Social Theory. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Levin, David Michael 1985 The Body's Recollection of Being: Phenomenological Psychology and the Deconstruction of Nihilism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Levy, Robert I. 1984Emotion, Knowing, and Culture.” In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion, ed. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. Le Vine, 214237. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Linnekin, Jocelyn S. 1983Defining Tradition: Variations on the Hawaiian Identity.” American Ethnologist 10(2):241252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, A.L. 1975 Folk Song in England. St. Albans: Paladin.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair 1990 Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Mackinlay, Elizabeth 1995‘Same But Different': Musical Behaviour, Gender Roles and the Transference of Power in Yanyuwa Society.” Paper presented to the Northern Chapter Conference of the Musicological Society of Australia, University of New England, September 1995.Google Scholar
McDonald, Barry 1994‘Nearly Everything's Got Two Sides'. The Music and Community of Jim Lowe of Backwater, New South Wales, 1900-1930.” Honours diss., University of New England.Google Scholar
1997Tradition As Personal Relationship”, Journal of American Folklore 110, 435 [in press].Google Scholar
Marcus, George E. 1986Ethnography in the Modern World System.” In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography ed. James Clifford and George E. Marcus, 165193. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1995The Redesign of Ethnography After the Critique of its Rhetoric.” In Rethinking Knowledge. Reflections Across the Disciplines, ed. Robert F. Goodman and Walter R. Fisher, 103121. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Marcus, George E., ed. 1992 Rereading Cultural Anthropology. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Meredith, John and Anderson, Hugh 1979 Folk Songs of Australia: And The Men and Women Who Sang Them, Sydney: Ure Smith.Google Scholar
Meredith, J., Covell, R. and Brown, P. 1987 Folk Songs of Australia, Volume Two. Kensington: New South Wales University Press.Google Scholar
Messner, Gerald Florian 1993Ethnomusicological Research, Another ‘Performance’ in the International Year of Indigenous Peoples?World of Music 35(1):8195.Google Scholar
Monier-Williams, Monier 1970 A Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Moyle, Richard M. 1979 Songs of the Pintupi. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
1986 Alyawarra Music. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Muana, Patrick Kagbeni 1996Beyond Frontiers: A Review of Analytical Paradigms in Folklore Studies.” Australian Folklore 11.Google Scholar
Myers, Fred 1986Always Ask: Resource Use and Land Ownership Among Pintupi Aborigines of the Australian Western Desert.” In Resource Managers: North American and Australian Hunter-Gatherers, ed. N. Williams and E. Hunn. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Myers, Helen 1991Indian, East Indian, and West Indian Music in Felicity, Trinidad.” In Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History, ed. Stephen Blum, Philip V. Bohlman and Daniel M. Neuman, 231241. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Myers, Helen, ed. 1992 Ethnomusicology: An Introduction. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Nettl, Bruno 1982Types of Tradition and Transmission.” In Cross-cultural Perspectives on Music, ed. Robert Falck and Timothy Rice, 319. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
1992Recent Directions in Ethnomusicology.” In Ethnomusicology: An Introduction, ed. Helen Myers, 377394. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Newall, Venetia J. 1987The Adaptation of Folklore and Tradition (Folklorismus).” Folklore 98(ii):131151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Onions, C.T., ed. 1969 The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gísli, Pálsson, ed. 1994 Beyond Boundaries: Understanding, Translation and Anthropological Discourse. Providence: Berg.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole and Gross, Elizabeth, eds. 1986 Feminist Challenges: Social and Political Theory. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Peterson, Nicholas 1986 Australian Territorial Organization. Sydney: Oceania Monograph 30, University of Sydney Press.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Henry 1990 With The White People. Ringwood: Penguin.Google Scholar
Riggins, Stephen Harold, ed. 1990 Beyond Goffman: Studies on Communication, Institution, and Social Interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, D. and Wilson, S.M., eds. 1993 Ethnohistory and Archaeology: Approaches to Postcontact Change in the Americas. New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosaldo, Michelle A. 1984Toward an Anthropology of Self and Feeling.” In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion, ed. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. Le Vine, 137157. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rowse, Tim 1990Aborigines as Historical Actors: Evidence and Inference.” In Through White Eyes, ed. S. Janson and S. Macintyre, Sydney: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
1994 After Mabo: Interpreting Indigenous Traditions. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall 1985 Islands of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Lawrence K., ed. 1995 The Specter of Relativism: Truth, Dialogue, and Phronesis in Philosophical Hermeneutics. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Seeger, Anthony 1991When Music Makes History.” In Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History, ed. Stephen Blum, Philip V. Bohlman and Daniel M. Neuman, 2334. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Sharp, Cecil 1972 English Folk Song: Some Conclusions. 4th ed. Wakefield: EP Publishers.Google Scholar
Shils, Edward 1981 Tradition. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Shweder, Richard A. and Edmund, J. Bourne 1984Does the Concept of the Person Vary Cross-culturally?” In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion, ed. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. Le Vine, 158199. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shweder, Richard A. and Vine, Robert A. Le, eds. 1984 Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Simpson, J.A. and Weiner, E.S.C., preps. 1989 The Oxford English Dictionary, Volume XVIII. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Spiro, Melford E. 1984Some Reflections on Cultural Determinism and Relativism with Special Reference to Emotion and Reason.” In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion, ed. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. Le Vine, 323346. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
1992Cultural Relativism and the Future of Anthropology.” In Rereading Cultural Anthropology, ed. George E. Marcus, 124151. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Srinivasan, Nirmala 1990The Cross-cultural Relevance of Goffman's Concept of Individual Agency.” In Beyond Goffman: Studies on Communication, Institution, and Social Interaction, ed. Stephen Harold Riggins, 141162. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, Stainton, Rex, Paul Stenner, Gleeson, Kate and Rogers, Wendy Stainton 1995 Social Psychology, A Critical Agenda. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Stanner, W.E.H. 1959Continuity and Change Among the Aborigines.” Australian Journal of Science 21.Google Scholar
1989 On Aboriginal Religion. Sydney: Oceania Monograph 36, University of Sydney Press.Google Scholar
Swain, Tony 1985 Aboriginal Religion: An Historical Account. Adelaide: Australian Association for the Study of Religions.Google Scholar
1993 A Place For Strangers: Towards a History of Australian Aboriginal Being. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Szwed, John F. 1970Paul E. Hall: A Newfoundland Song-maker and His Community of Song.” In Folksongs and Their Makers, ed. Ray B. Browne, 147169. Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Popular Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, Nicholas 1992The Inversion of Tradition.” American Ethnologist 19(2):213232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tonkin, Elizabeth 1992 Narrating Our Pasts: The Social Construction of Oral History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toren, Christina 1988Making the Present, Revealing the Past: the Mutability and Continuity of Tradition as Process.” Man NS 23:696717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minh-ha, Trinh T. 1989 Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Turner, Stephen 1994 The Social Theory of Practices: Tradition, Tacit Knowledge and Presuppositions. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Urdang, Laurence 1991 The Oxford Thesaurus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vansina, Jan 1985 Oral Tradition as History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Waley, Arthur 1982 Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wallace, Ruth A., ed. 1989 Feminism and Sociological Theory. Newbury Park: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, Immanuel 1987World Systems Analysis.” In Social Theory Today, ed. Anthony Giddens and Jonathan H. Turner, 309324. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Ward, Russel 1977 The Australian Legend. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Waterman, Christopher 1991 “Juju History.” In Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History, ed. Stephen Blum, Philip V. Bohlman and Daniel M. Neuman, 4967. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Weedon, Chris 1988 Feminist Practice & Poststructuralist Theory. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Wikkan, Unni 1994Beyond the Words: The Power of Resonance.” In Beyond Boundaries: Understanding, Translation and Anthropological Discourse, ed. Gísli Pálsson, 184209. Providence: Berg.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond 1961 The Long Revolution. London: Chatto and Windus.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1977 Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Winch, Peter 1977Understanding a Primitive Society.” In Understanding and Social Inquiry, ed. Fred R. Dallmayr and Thomas A. McCarthy, 159188. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Witmer, Robert 1991Stability in Blackfoot Songs, 1909-1968.” In Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History, ed. Stephen Blum, Philip V. Bohlman and Daniel M. Neuman, 242253. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Yeatman, Anna 1986Women, Domestic Life and Sociology.” In Feminist Challenges: Social and Political Theory, ed. Carole Pateman and Elizabeth Gross, 157172. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar