The Reliabililty of Oral Transmission: The Case of Samaritan Music

When researching Oral traditions there are different approaches regarding the question of reliability as part of the attempt to locate the most-reliable version. Samaritan music lends itself well to the examination of these issues- due to the rare circumstances of the Samaratians in Israel. A daughter community was created in Holon in 1955 with limited contact to the larger community in Shechem. Recordings of 14 Samaritan singers were analyzed with regard to textual troping, melodic troping, vibrato, tonal structure and glissando. The most similarity was found among the chazzanim originating in Shchem while the Holon members were more flexible in their stylistic consistency.