OK, I had to do it - glad there's now a "BS" prefix available.

My questions for discussion are:
Is singing or making music at home or with friends less common now than it was 25 years, 50 years, 100 years ago?

Do people younger than us older folkies (40-70+ year-olds) make music on their own? What kind?

Are the people who get together to make music doing it for fun, or is it all done with an ear to becoming paid performers (Hey, let's put together a band - we can use my dad's garage!)

My feeling is that music is becoming more and more something that people look for from paid entertainers than something they can do themselves.

But why is this happening with folk music (if it is)? Here we sometimes hear that "the Washington DC audience" is unusual in that we sing along with the performers more (not that the performers always welcome that...) I remember going to Passim's in Boston while on a business trip 10 years ago to hear Bill Staines. Bill was singing a whole raft of his lovely songs with choruses, and I started singing along - until I noticed I was the only person in the place doing that, so I shut up. At work, folks look to me to start "Happy Birthday" in office parties because the know that - Gasp!- I SING in public! I hear the usual mumbling "Oh, I can't carry a tune" when I ask why they don't sing.

Why? Is it passivity from too much television? Maybe pop music - rock, rap, country, etc. has become too homogenized and technical, and how many garage bands can afford a full synth/sampling computerized rig? If that's the only kind of music you hear, it might be difficult to imagine yourself doing it without the gear. Or is it because "Music" class is one of the first things to be cut from a public school budget?

I remember having "Music" once or twice a week in grade school, where we would all sing songs from one of those collections put together for school kids. Many of those songs were traditional folksongs. The hired, part-time music teacher would bang out something on the piano and we'd all try to sing along - sometimes she'd even try teaching different parts. But I've also heard friends relate how that same part-time music teacher in their school (she really got around the country) told them they couldn't sing, and to just lip-synch the words, thus humiliating a kid and crushing whatever desire they had to have fun with music.

What do you think? Is home-made music just for fun a dying past-time? If so, why? If not, cite some examples. The floor is open!