Hi folks... this is Mike Wilson here that posted this blog originally... I'm NOT Mike Wilson of The Wilsons from the North East... must check out my namesake one day!!

Well, this is the liveliest response/discussion I've had, and it's fascinating the different angles people are coming from!

I purposefully left the questions vague as I wanted to see what people felt it meant to them and didn't want to steer responses in any particular direction.

I didn't have in mind the tradition of any particular nation, just traditional music in general. The thing that prompted my curiosity, is that musicians/reviewers are always celebrating or slating both those that innovate and those that preserve... there are extremes of both, and then there's a whole load of music that hovers somewhere inbetween.

I've just read Peter Cox's great book about the Radio Ballads and found the bit about MacColl/Seeger and their Critics Club fascinating... there's also going to be an interesting article about Gaelic song in the forthcoming edition of LT in an interview with Margaret Stewart, who has very strong opinions about how her tradition is being treated... and she really does feel that it's HER tradition.

What I'm trying to get at is WHY? Why do people fall in to these two camps, why do people feel so strongly and can anybody put forward articulate arguments for both. I suppose it will only be worth writing about if I get extreme opinions that fall into both camps. Though despite the oft encountered musings around this subject people have so far seemed happy to sit on the fence somewhat!

Discuss!