Introduction
In learning to play Old Time and Celtic musics on the Hammered Dulcimer, there are two (2) approaches that seem to be normally used - one conforming to the Oral tradition and one conforming to what I call the Classical tradition.

The Oral Tradition in music is in use when the person learning the music sits with the person from whom they are learning the music and learn it by ear.  They listen and learn.  In it's most pure form, there is no written music or tablature used, but everything is learned by ear.  The Classical Tradition in music is in use when person learning the music reads written music, either in the presence of a teacher or not.  In it's most pure form, there is no learning by ear, but strictly from the written music.

In the real world, even those who use the Classical Tradition approach many times learn partially by ear, and there are many people who can do both, and on the other hand there are many people who use the Oral Tradition who sometimes learn a tune from written music, so most of the time, you don't meet people who do one or the other in a strict sense. (Note that the popular Suzuki Method of teaching music stresses first being able to play by ear, then learning to read music.)  But recently, I have become more and more cognizant of the advantages of, and maybe the necessity for, Old Time and Celtic musics being transmitted down through the generations mainly by the Oral Tradition rather than the Classical Tradition. (This is also reminiscent of the Suzuki Method.)

My musical background - the Classical Tradition
I come from the Classical Tradition.  I learned to play piano and percussion from sheet music, note for note.  (I started playing, though, because I could pick out the melody to a song we sang in class at elementary school.)  So my formal background and all my training were to learn music and play music by playing notes from a page as written.  One can do this with Old Time and Celtic musics, and can get the notes, but when the music performed is compared to the style and feel of the music performed by those who learned orally from those in the Appalachian mountains and in Ireland and Scotland, it many times is found lacking, it seems.

Lost in Translation
It is nearly impossible to easily and reliably convey the feel and style of folk music by way of written music.  I am sure it could be done to some extent, but the interpretation of the words or symbols used would, I think, cause something to be "lost in translation".   However, if one sits with a master player, one hears, sees and feels the tune - more is conveyed by the listening than could ever reliably be conveyed by trying to use words.  Music is an art that many times bypasses the conscious mind in having it's effect on people, and to try to convey the parts of the music that go beyond words is, it seems to me, impossible in any complete manner.

A Disclaimer
Having said all that, I must say, so that I do not convey an incorrect attitude here, that playing music in a traditional style does not necessarily mean playing it the same way every time, or even keeping it the same as you've learned it.  At Swannanoa Gathering in the summer of 2000, I was in Sam Rizzetta's class, and one of the stories he told was of sitting with an old-timer learning tunes, and taping them to work on at home.  He went home and learned one of the tunes just like it was on the tape. When he went back he asked the old timer to play that tune so they could play it together.  They got to one part and what the old timer played was not what Sam had learned from the tape.  Sam stopped him and asked him about it - didn't this go this way?  and played him what he had learned.  The old timer said, "Yeah, I probably played it that way once."  Playing traditional music doesn't mean copying note for note, inflection for inflection, the person you learned it from.  It means starting where the person you learned it from was, and going on to make it your own.  In many cultures, unless you take the basic tune and improvise on it, no one is interested in hearing you play it.

And having said that, it must be said that when playing in a group, some standard of arrangement must be agreed upon.  If you have a drastically different chord progression you have put on a tune than those with whom you are playing, the tune will sound bad.  So, in sessions, that must be considered.  When playing solo, you have more freedom to do what you want.

Our Job as Folk/Traditional Musicians
While attending the Upper Potomac Dulcimer Fest in Harper's Ferry, WV in March, 2000, a local fiddler named Robby came into the jams at the festival each night.  Near the end of the weekend, he was playing tunes with us in the pub at the hotel, and someone commented on the incredible number of tunes he knew.  His response was, "That's my job.  I learn the tunes from the old timers and pass them on."   Immediately my insides shouted, "I want to do that!!"   At the time I didn't really understand what that meant.  Was this some special thing I was to do?

At Dulcimer Week at the Swannanoa Gathering in July 2000, my wife, Brandy and I were talking with one of the mountain dulcimer teachers, Mark Nelson, about music.  He gave an example from his experience that put all this together for me (thanks, Mark) - Mark was playing for some Morris dancers.  The tunes they used were some that are played as Irish music, and Mark was playing the tunes that way. During a dance, the leader would dance over near Mark, get in his face and say, "WRONG!" and dance away.  He did that several times, and at times would dance by and say "RIGHT!", but mostly it was "WRONG!!"

Mark was appropriately taken aback by this behavior, and had no idea what this was about.  After the dance ended, the fellow came over to Mark and said, "We have to talk."  He explained that some of the tunes they danced to were the same tunes as played in Irish music, and that Mark was playing them in the Irish style.  But the Irish style has an "up" feeling to it (the off beats are accented rather than having only a strong downbeat, if I understand this correctly) while the Morris dancers needed a very strong downbeat for the dancing.  So Mark learned how to play these tunes for Morris dancers.  The point here to me is that the same tune (as we hear in many workshops) can be played with different ornaments and may be played with a number of different accents of rhythm, and these differences are common, but make the tune either Irish, Scottish, Old Time or good for Morris dancing.  Unless one learns by hearing rather than from the plain sheet music, the different styles elude us, and we do not sound anywhere near authentic.  We can't express the Irishness or whatever we want to express of a musical tradition from just learning the sheet music.

Another thing Mark said, essentially, was that our job as musicians is to learn from the old timers and pass on the music.  This clicked with what I had heard Robby say, and made clear what I needed to do to satisfy this strong desire in me to "do that."  Instead of primarily learning tunes from the "Fiddler's Fakebook", I needed to start learning from others by ear in person or from tape so that I could hear and sing the tune and capture the feel and nuances of it.

What changes I have made in my approach to learning tunes

So, when I got home from Swannanoa, I purposed to change the way I had been learning tunes - I would begin to seek out people to learn from or learn from their CDs or tapes.  In person is best, I think because you can not only hear but see how they play the tunes, but next best is using a tape or CD.  If you can tape someone you can watch and learn the tune later from the tape, having watched them, I think, so far, that is next to the best.

I heard Rick Thum play "Wild Rose of the Mountain" at Swannanoa.   I loved it, and wanted to learn to play it.  Fortunately, he seems to love the tune also, and played it at every jam I attended.  On the last night, I got a tape of him playing it (from now on, a tape recorder will be my constant companion at jams).  I have begun learning it from the tape, having seen him play it many times.  In a less than an hour, I had the basic idea and notes of the tune, and now am working on cleaning it up to play in public.  I probably don't have all the notes absolutely right, but I do have the feel of it, I think, and the specific notes I may have wrong I can work out later.

So, I encourage anyone who is trying to learn fiddle, mountain dulcimer or hammered dulcimer tunes only from sheet music to get adventurous and begin to, at least, find recordings of the tunes to learn from, and, if possible, find a live person that can play well to sit with and learn the tunes from.  Festivals and workshops like Upper Potomac Dulcimer Fest, Swannanoa Gathering and Augusta are good places to get a lot of time to record and learn tunes especially if you do not have someone in your area that plays well.

Conclusion
This is folk music, and this is the folk tradition.  It is not what we are normally used to in our American society today, but we can learn a lot from getting in touch with the Oral Tradition.