Traditional music - Topics

Field recording equipment changed what folk singers were willing to perform Why do capoeira rodas keep a live band playing during the sparring? Why does Scottish puirt a beul mouth music exist when instruments are available? What does a zurkhaneh session actually involve? Songs sung only when someone leaves home A storyteller who gets no response from the audience is judged to have failed Brass bands that grew out of the colliery workmen's band Drumming through the night at a harvest party How long does it take to learn one raga properly? How do you tune a gamelan that belongs to another village? What happens to a maqam when the tuning shifts by a quarter tone? What lets the sheng play chords that an organ cannot? Talking drums carry a message further than shouting because the tones match the words Why do anklet bells differ so much in weight between dance traditions? Why do Highland bagpipes sound sharper than their written pitch? Bugle calls that still divide the day on a garrison The school song nobody remembers the words to after graduation Why do some traditional ensembles perform entirely from memory? Work songs that kept a crew hauling in time A folklore archive that digitizes only the text loses the tune How do you tell a folk fiddle tune from a composed one? Street cries that told a neighbourhood what was for sale Why is breath written into shakuhachi notation? Serbian epic singers rebuild a ten thousand line song from stock phrases at every performance Should a flamenco beginner learn the compas before the footwork? Harvest songs and dances: who leads them and who joins in Why does flamenco footwork take years before it sounds clean? Marching songs written to make a long route step survivable What is a cipai and why do hundreds of tunes share one title? Hymn traditions that split along denominational lines Why are there so few young players of the Javanese rebab? Why are dizi players so particular about the membrane on the flute?