How is a “distinct tune” defined here?
Without wanting to get too involved (yet) in a “theory of the tune,” let me make at least the following comments here. I take a fundamentally reception-oriented approach, inspired perhaps most of all by Eco’s community-related comments on textual semiotics. This means that if I have evidence that the community of Irish traditional musicians understands a tune a certain way, then that’s the way I define the tune. Furthermore, I give priority to a (recorded) performance of a tune over a transcription of it. Finally, I agree with Tomás Ó Canainn’s method of analysis of Irish dance tune melodies as described in his 1978 volume Traditional Music in Ireland (especially pages 27–34 – see TOC in the Bibliography). Ó Canainn’s ideas have been refined and expanded by James R. Cowdery in his book The Melodic Tradition of Ireland (1990); while Cowdery indirectly challenges the possibility of an index such as this, I am nevertheless sympathetic with his demonstrations. I have also come to my own co
