ALPHA discussion, which is whether “beta is the same as alpha,” especially since now part of it might be in a minor mode in a different key. All this complicated by various transcriptions and mechanical reproductions, by musicians who might not perform it the same way twice if you held a gun to their head.

Urban’s definition of omega very accurately captures the problem of trying to write a new tune that will be identified with the tradition, either something one wants to pass as fully traditional, or something recognizably innovative. Clearly, it has to “[contain] within itself traces of all the cultural elements that were the backdrop against which it took shape” (6), “past expressions of culture,” and “various aspects of different kinds of prior expressions,” or else one simply wouldn’t recognize it as traditional. On the other hand, it has to contain something innovative but plausible, to give it stickiness and memetic momentum. The new element is more than likely something drawn from “seemingly disparate cultural elements” (5). For instance, there are trends on the contradance scene to alter traditional material with roots jams and jazz harmonics and on the Celtic scene to meld with New Age textures. Page 16 in Urban is a blueprint for designing the qualities of an original/traditional tune. Some of these dynamics are also addressed by Lynch (11-12), but in the somewhat different context of beliefs.

There are also splits in trad communities between the principles of acceleration and inertia. Accelerators are irreverent, playful creators of omega stuff (that beautiful waltz you’re dancing to is actually the Gilligan’s Island theme in 3/4 time), while traditionalists and purists are “inertialists” (who in extreme cases, would reproduce the errors heard on some field recording of an “authentic” source). The two groups can get along, but each is sometimes just a little sour about the other’s approach, which is generally attributed to a disgusting personality flaw.

I’ve also observed some of the vagaries of diffusion, the puzzling ways material can percolate through the networks of folk music communities and other areas of national culture, and have experienced metaculture (ALPHA) as it is described by Urban, in the form of artifacts like publicity and reviews.

Given all this, I can see that the overall project of diffusion in the scholarly community differs in some ways from the project above, where tradition implies strict replication of an artifact (“individuals as conduits” [Urban 33]), and from projects like the social programs described by Rogers, where the goal, say, is to replicate behavior in stable ways, like having mothers adhere to the instructions on the baby formula. Scholarly communities seem to be primarily inertial in the other sense, of maintaining forward momentum, with an emphasis on omega productions, or originality and innovation.