A long-standing conception in the history of the study of culture has been the model of two distinct types of traditions interacting with one another but remaining essentially separate. Dichotomies such as folk vs. high or fine art, little vs. great, rural vs. urban, or village vs. court have been used in reference to this distinction. There are a number of problems with such a model, to be sure, but it is not my intention to consider them all here. Rather, I intend to refer to the binary division, because it is so widely held in so many cultures around the world, as popular conception, and to view recent developments within a particular tradition as a response to that conception. The division usually implies a hierarchy. Carriers of what is seen as a lower tradition may be dissatisfied with that status. One response they might choose is to abandon that tradition altogether in favor of a more widely respected one. Another is to modify its practice in such substantial ways that it resembles other more widely respected traditions. But still another response—one which counters the notion of these two types of tradition as separate entities—is to adopt some elements of the other in order to legitimize their own. For musical traditions these elements may include authoritative texts, notation, terminology, theoretical writings, codification, distribution through the media, and formalized transmission in an academic setting.