it's too heavy to pack around on your back. No strap would work. Capos would be too expensive to fashion. You couldn't carry this on your back while schlepping down a railroad track singing "Goin' Down This Road Feelin' Bad".

It generally is played so loud that it drowns out acoustic voices. You need sound reinforcement to carry it (not folklike).

It sounds the best on show tunes, some pop tunes, some originals, and some blues ala
Ray Charles or rock ala Jerry Lee Lewis. Elton made it sound good on his first album.
A Bachrach song needs a piano IMHO.

Folk? It's hard to integrate it into an acoustic ensemble. It sounds good in a Contra-Dance band, though. Keeps the dancers on their toes (so to speak). I think of Yvan Breaux with Heritage who really made that thing talk for dancers.

It's great for jazz. Chord changes sophisticated and smooth and sets that mood.

In folk? I believe in simplicity. Sometimes an "um-plunk" sound best for a song because it doesn't get in the way. Simple piano tends to sound like "Chopsticks" but simple accompaniments on the guitar or banjo are more appropriate for folk songs.

Lieder or semi-classical arrangements of folk songs work (but not for "purists") but they don't sound folk-like. Schubert was kind of classical-folky. Many of his tunes became German Volklieder. Gotta' have Gerald Moore (great piano accompanist) and Fischer-Dieskau though. Nicht folky though.

Folk is accessible and I believe that the guitar and banjo are more accessible than the piano (which is so musically capable that in the hands of a beginner, it is most unwieldy).

There is a nightmare of four or five pianos playing folk music together although that number works fine with some guitar an acoustic string players.

88 versus 6, 5 or 12 (or 4) sort of says it. (Oh yes, 36 for autoharp)

Frank Hamilton