"the cultural expectation of performance as the primary goal of music making"

Seems to me this is the big one.

Seems to me that folk music is participatory music, whatever else it is.

The last time I worked at a library there was a Chinese girl -- from China -- who had to copy great stacks of paper and she always sang along with the Xerox machine.

It was good, and it's too bad we've lost that kind of thing. People look at you funny if you sing walking down the street or sitting by yourself, and it's time we turned that around.

clint