Peter from Essex: That's an interesting split between "musician" and "singer" - in my community most singers also play an instrument to accompany themselves - guitar, banjo, mandolin,autoharp or sometimes fiddle - so there's not as much of a division.

I have also been pondering lately just how this kind of music is used in our community. Over the past 25 years here I've seen it work in reverse of what you suggest: people decided to learn an instrument, and songs, and started getting together to play in each other's homes. When we got too many people, and got better, we started jamming every week in various bars. From there we started getting hired to play for wedding receptions, street dances, political rallys, contra-dances, etc. I don't know if we're "traditional" or not. (But a lot of us are getting older!!)