"An ethnomusicologist, social or cultural historian, whatever, would not and cannot discriminate, but I think it fair enough for 'folk song' collectors to confine their collecting to their definition of 'folk songs' (ah - there's the rub!).
An interesting excercise for us has been to ask the singers what 'their' attitude to the different types of song in their repertoire - that's when things really got interesting."

Yes, indeed, now we're getting intering! The early collectors were criticised for not taking enough notice about the collectees details. This started shifting later in the century: social context, singers life situation, etc. My problem is that I can't see how you can deal fully with these aspects without dealing with the entire repertoire of the singer.

You could, presumably, just note repertoire and collect the ones that interest you - but this is just as selective as collecting by any other parameter. In any case, it is rather interesting to hear the way a singer handles something like Knock 'Em in the Old etc. (as that's the example used above).

It is vernacular singing techniques that we are in real danger of losing (perhaps it's already mostly lost) and they offer a real peoples alternative to classical or rock techniques - actually, that's also possibly wrong - some would argue that rock technique is a vernacular style even if a development of American traditional!

Ho hum!

Tom