歌詞と旋律の変容 Aural Tradition in Music

　伝統歌の継承過程での変容について、歌詞の変容も旋律の変容も、どちらも起こるという、結論めいた意見が、数日続いた Mudcat のスレッドで出た（2005年9月）。経験的には誰もが知っていることだが、このスレッドは歌い手にとっては参考になる。

　その、とりまとめのような Anahata さんの意見（9月29日）：
Aural tradition in music - any takers?

From the original message:
folk lyrics often change with each singer and yet musical notation seems so... rigid. What I mean is - I can write down lyrics easily, but it's a bit more complicated to score a tune - so do tunes tend to stagnate because of this?

It's exactly the same with tunes as it is with words.
Many's the tune I've written down, the way I play it, and then later checked against what I thought was the printed source I learnt it from, and found I'd changed it.

In fact I'd say it's easier to change tunes that [than] it is to change lyrics, certainly no harder.
Musical notation is no more exact than the written word, and human memory is equally fallible in both departments.
And bad, hastily written music handwriting, like its text counterpart, is open to guesswork as to what was originally meant.
Anahata

[Source: The Mudcat Café, 'Aural tradition in music - any takers?']