I'm afraid this is degenerating into the same senseless arguments as in the previous thread - what is or isn't "folk music," old folks' music vs young folks' music, traditional vs singer-songwriter, etc. That is not the point I had in mind when I started the first thread.

The point I wanted to make was, at least in Seattle, audiences for all types of live local music seem to be very small. I wouldn't characterize my Haller Lake Arts Council series to be "folk music." I've booked a wide range of music by local musicians - from near classical to old-timey, blugrass, and even some singer-songwriters. And nothing seems to draw much of an audience.

The singer-songwriters I've booked, although they were some of the local best, hardly drew more than 15 or 20 people. They're singing all over town at coffeehouses, pubs, etc., so everyone has heard them before. And those that haven't heard them, don't seem to know anything about them or their music and are not inclined to come out. The Seattle Folklore Society books many out-of-town singer-songwriters with fair-sized audiences, simply because it's someone new and there is a lot of hype about how great they are, when in fact they're not better in many cases than the local talent. However, when the SFS booked a genuine traditional folk musician, Mike Seeger, they sold out the hall, standing room only! You'd think they might learn something from that.

For me, it's the quality of the music more than the genre or style. I do both instrumental fiddle - Irish sessions, some Klezmer, old-timey, and even some classical sounding music, and also sing with guitar (traditional ballads, songs of the sea, some Yiddish songs, and even some newly-composed songs). I couldn't care less about what it's called or whether someone might consider it "folk music" or not.

The thing that precipitated this discussion for me was that I was invited to do part of an afternoon gig in a coffeehouse along with some singer-songwriter friends of mine. I did my more traditional songs and instrumental pieces. But for the whole afternoon there were no more than 3 or 4 people actually listening to the music. It was a nice performance space and it was fun to play there, but it was more like a rehearsal than a performance. I then realized that this was the norm for most of our local singer-songwriters performing around town.

This may be something unique to a large city, and Seattle in particular, I don't know. As John Ross said, we have many small musical communities, which don't overlap, and which can't support any one type of music to any great extent. The situation may be quite different in a small town where there are not so many things competing with each other and there is a better sense of community amongst the people.

Or this might be a symptom of our culture in general where people are overworked, have little spare time, are bombarded by noise that the commercial music industry tells us is music, and we don't interact much with our neighbors or other people we might meet, and we seem to be glued to our computers, iPods, TV, and other forms of 'passive entertainment'.

One of my more enjoyable music activities is having a dozen or so friends in my home for a monthly music jam. There we do all kinds of music - instrumental to vocal, solo to group singing, backup and improvisation. Maybe that's where it's at, and I should be content with these small get-togethers and not worry about audiences.

That's about all I have to say.

Cheers, S. in Seattle