In musical style the amorous songs are similar to those of the trouvères; in several cases the same melody appears in both repertories.
According to most recent theories, the two repertories represent variant rites developed in different locales, rather than coming from different historical periods.
Musical transmission involves the processes of teaching and learning that preserve songs and repertories from one generation to the next.
In the 21st century, it is common for Native Americans to supplement oral tradition with the use of audio and video recordings for teaching, learning, and preserving traditional repertories.
Native Americans trace the ultimate origin of their traditional music to the time of creation, when specific songs or musical repertories were given to the first people by the Creator and by spirit beings in the mythic past.
Many Indian communities learn new songs and repertories from their neighbours and have a long history of adopting musical practices from outsiders.
The Athenian outrage of slaying the entire male population (416) in reprisal for the islanders' neutrality during the Peloponnesian War inspired the playwright Euripides to write and stage before his fellow Athenians his work Trojan Women, an anti-war play that continues as part of modern dramatic repertories.
Where new ceremonial songs are not composed because the repertories are considered complete, individual song leaders exercise musical creativity by improvising variations on traditional melodies or lyrics within accepted parameters.
Today troupes perform nightly throughout the year, when it is possible, and consequently, in popular theatre, large repertories of standard plays are created (some 350 in Kabuki and more than 200 in Chinese opera).
In particular, women from the circum-Caribbean area perform in collective rituals alongside men, sing their own repertories of ceremonial songs, and play musical instruments.
Some ritual repertories received at the time of creation are considered complete, so that by definition human beings cannot compose new music for them.
