ABSTRACT
This chapter continues to explore the molar line that binds traditional music to the principle of identity. While theoretical definitions of traditional music impose the molar line from ‘above’, it is also supported from ‘below’, via the molecular investment of desires in identity as a core value of traditional music. The philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari frames an analysis of this micropolitics of traditional music. While regionalism and globalism may be positioned as alternatives to nationalism in analyses of traditional music’s cultural significance, they are grounded in the same principle of identity as nationalism, simply transposing it to a different territorial register. Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the minoritarian is advanced as a framework that submits the principle of identity to an infinite regress. At whatever level a major music is conceived according to a principle of identity, the condition for minoritarian influences to disrupt its legitimacy is created. This principle of deterritorialization invites a new way of understanding and valuing traditional music, as a medium for challenging, rather than expressing, established or presumed cultural identities. The theoretical argument in this chapter orients the discussions of minor musics in England’s folk revival—Celticism; Gypsy, Roma and Traveller music; and sea songs and chanties—which are unfolded in subsequent chapters.
