Folk music isn't dead. Way up there in the thread somewhere Ron talked about how we aren't singing as much as we used to and how folk music has become a spectator sport. This is only true if you are looking for folk music in concert halls, pubs, and CDs. While those are the places were performers of folk music can make money at it and where spectators can spectate, that isn't where most folk music happens. I'm singing more than ever, and so are most of my friends. Singing in the living room, at work, and while out walking.

Here in Seattle you can go to a "folk" dance of some type every night of the week if you want to. Not ethnic dance performances with costumes -- just normal folks getting together after work and dancing away the night. With live music. The musicians make a few bucks and the hall has to be rented, but it's really just a flourishing folk music and dance scene happening without the need to perform, get paid, attend conferences, worry about what happened to folk music, be on the radio, or any of the stuff that people usually think about when they think about the Music Business. Because it ain't business -- its people singing and playing and dancing as a vital part of their daily lives.

As for the difference between traditional music and singer-songwriter music, it's just a different genre of music. A lot of the same people like to listen to both. But the cultures the musics are played in are very different. The melodic structures are very different. The lyrics are very different. And, except for a relatively few exceptions, the musicians don't hang out with each other and play each other's music. There's no judgement here -- just an observation that calling it all folk music is like saying rap and rockabilly are both rock music. Yes, it's true in a way. And there may be a few people who play both and a few more who listen to both. Some of the same musical instruments may get used. But calling it all rock music doesn't really tell us anything meaningful about rap or about rockabilly.

I play almost exlusively old traditional European folk music, some of which I write. I don't ever go to concerts by singer-songwriters. They don't much come to my shows. When I find myself jamming with one at a party, I usually find that I can jam along on their songs and they haven't a clue what's going on when I play mine. Of course the same is true with the bluegrass folks.

I mix and match cultures in the music I play, and am completely aware that I am in some way diluting the traditions. Two things about that: the culture seems to be doing OK even with me pouring fusion on it and running it through the folk processor. There are lots of people from all the places I steal music from who are firmly carrying the tradition. Secondly, I'm an American. The American culture exists as a result of mixing an matching. I see it as melting pot music, a reflection of the culture I grew up in an live in. I'm never going to be a purely traditional Norwegian folk musician, or an Irish musician, or a Bulgarian musician. I didn't grow up in those cultures and I came to this music as an adult. The folks I play with have a variety of ethnic heritages and learned traditional music in different ways and have different areas of focus. Sort of like the American society as a whole.

John Peekstok