Traditional:
The word "traditional" implies a process, the act of
"handing on". The music we are dealing with is "traditional" music in the sense
that we have come to possess it in a particular way, i.e. by oral transmission
from earlier generations.
Music:
The word "music", as used in this submission, includes the
music, song and dances which form complementary parts of the Irish tradition.
The term "musician" includes singers and dancers.
Ireland:
The word "Ireland" is here understood to mean the whole
island of Ireland. The "Irish" are all people with roots in Ireland, living in
Ireland or abroad.
Traditional Music of Ireland:
At any point in time the traditional music of Ireland is
that body of music which the people at that point in time has inherited from
earlier generations. It is both content and process.
Any measures taken to safeguard or enhance the well-being of the music must take
account of its two-fold nature. Our concern cannot simply be to preserve or
canonise the body of material that we find ourselves in possession of at the end
of the 20th century. We must protect the process of transmission itself from
debilitating or distorting influences, particularly those of a commercial
nature. At the very least we must refrain from subjecting the music to such
pressures, or aiding and abetting such pressures.
There is a simple analogy between the music and a fountain.
It would be foolish to collect all the water from a fountain, making sure not to
miss a drop, and then declare that you had somehow 'preserved' the fountain for
the future. If a particular body of music, however large, is preserved, and the
process that begot it is abandoned, then we will not have saved Irish
traditional music. The music that this generation inherited is radically
different from the music inherited by the musicians of 50, 100 or 200 years ago,
because a living traditional music is constantly changing. Our concern must be
that future generations should inherit a living traditional music in the same
way that we have.
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