I maintain that "having" to do something is the best way
of taking all of the joy out of it. And turning a pastime into
a competition comes a close second.

The approach that some of the Irish have taken exemplifies this.
It may have helped to preserve the music but what's the point of
that if in the process people (especially children) have been
made terribly unhappy and had the joy sucked out of what should
have been one of life's great pleasures? You see these kids at
some place called 'Cathleen O'Reilly School of Irish Dance' all
done up in stiff pseudo-irish costumes with far too much green
looking positively miserable except when they're supposed to
plaster a smile across their poor faces. The other day I saw
a program from Kennedy Center where some of the 'school of
dance' girls were attending one of their rare non-competitive
shows. One of them said 'oh this is so wonderful because you
aren't competing against other schools and you can just have
fun dancing and not have to worry all the time about being
perfect.' How sad that in most of her dance, which is a celebration
of the human spirit, this little girl '[has] to worry all the time
about being perfect!' She'll probably grow up into the same
hyper-critical snot-rag that her teacher is, if she keeps at
it long enough. Every time I see 'all-Ireland' this or that
champion on a performer's resume I'm at once attracted and
repulsed. I know he or she will be technically good, but that
they'd be involved in such a thing kind of takes them down a
peg or two personally, in my view, and I know it's not their
fault, coming from a system where culture is taught like catechism
and some think that's a good thing.

The idea that the culture of classical music is a good thing and
ought to be emulated in folk is purely wrong-headed. In fact, it's
not a nice thing at all. It's really quite nasty, and makes the
majority who come under its influence feel like failures.

Folk music is supposed to be about something different. It's about
giving and receiving pleasure in the music. That's why 'folk' did
it in the first place. Hell, most 'folk' had enough in their lives
that was unpleasant without having to wield music like a personal
scourage.

Similarly, it's not about competing against one another to prove
who's best, but about appreciating one another and enabling one
another so that the whole (in ensemble playing) is greater than
the some of the parts. And if a champion is to be crowned, it will
be by that person's peers and those who like to listen.

Mind you, I see nothing at all wrong with the academic study of
folk music and lore, and if that study includes learning to
emulate traditional methods and styles without variation, great.
Provided that's what the scholar wants to do. But never ever
should sight be lost of why the original musician did it...because
it gave him and his listeners pleasure. And, I would submit that
you can't emulate a traditional style without emulating the joy
of the traditional player. The idea of sitting before a panel of
judges precludes that, in my opinion. And, by the way, it seems
to me that many things that have earned such learned panels'
endorsement have neither more nor less merit than something entirely
different.

It's rather like my being informed, upon bringing a D/G melodeon
to an Irish session, that it wasn't 'traditional.' Well, old Pat
was holding a red mother-of-toilet seat Paolo Soprani tuned to B/C,
which he considered 'traditional.' Never mind that his particular
tuning was adopted by a set of players between the wars who were
looking for something a bit easier to deal with than the D and
D/G boxes that had found their way into Irish households. Now we
have a couple of generations of folks who think that they're
playing like Brian Boru's own squeezbox player when they do things
'properly' on a B/C box. 'Traditional' for most people means 'the
way it was done when I first heard it.'

Most things that are enjoyable, be they sailing, fishing, rowing,
whittling, riding, hiking, flying, etc. are at their best when they
aren't hampered by examinations, qualifications, and competition
beyond what is required to preserve safety and societal order. To
that I'd add music.

Then again, I always thought that a sailboat race was a technique for
messing up a perfectly nice afternoon of sailing.

Maybe I'll never amount to much.