We're going over well-trodden ground here again Glueman, but I think it's been established beyond reasonable doubt that the 'professional traditional musician' is not a new phenomenon. Any period you look at in history you'll find trade musicians making a significant contribution and providing major influence. Some even argue that all the non-trade system has done is encourage songs to fall into disrepair, and that it was always the working chaps (or those with a 'trade' attitude) who did the making, the mending and the significant disseminating. And yes, Howard, we do know that the better non-trade musicians did win rewards on occasion (just as trade musicians did - and still do - play for fun as well as reward). It's all mixed up together. What we have here is yin and yang - or maybe two dimensions - X and Y. You can take any folk event, or person, or song, or whatever you like and plot it on that pro/am graph. But it won't stay there long, because it's a dynamic system and everything's tumbling down the stream all the time. And that's what makes it special. Tom