For those who are convinced that the provenance of a piece of music is more important than its substance, let me offer you the following challenge:

Let me sit down with you and play you three instrumental pieces from a "set" - three pieces which you had never heard before. There are many thousands of tunes playable in sessions, and it's unlikely that you would know them all.

How would you tell, just by listening, whether any of these tunes was (for example):

1. A traditional melody of unknown provenance
2. A melody from the pen of a 19th century fiddler such as James Hill
3. A melody from an obscure 18th century tunebook with a mix of known and unknown composers
4. A modern melody written by a known composer such as John Kirkpatrick or Andy Cutting

I defy you to label them. The only judgements you could surely make would be subjective - whether you liked the pieces or not, whether you had opinions on the execution, etc.

The answer, of course, is that it doesn't matter a jot. There are many, many composed tunes old and new - with a known author - which sit quite happily and absolutely seamlessly with tunes for which there is no known author or for which there may be many sources. Tunes are played in sets at communal session week in, week out. They're played in sets for dancing by countless ceilidh bands all over the country - week in, week out, for weddings, birthday parties and other functions - with hundreds of participants, some of whom may never have heard the tunes before. And who, frankly, may not care as long as the dance is enjoyable.

So, this thread, for all its fire and wind, has been concerned with just one aspect of folk music - song. And songs are bogged down and weighted with a mass of cultural, historical, social and verbal baggage which very often obscures the beauty or otherwise of the music. As Nigel said in an earlier post - just enjoy the bloody music (or words to that effect) - lose the baggage.

I'm aware that the thread title is "What makes a new song…" etc. But the thread has widened from that to encompass "folk" as a genre of music. Except that it hasn't - it's dealt solely with folk (or otherwise) songs.

So what of the three tunes? How would you place them - and does it matter to the musician or the listener?