I feel like a lone voice in the wilderness here... There are just too many assumptions about the demographics of "folk", what the folk who "do folk" are like, and what they like. I can only - once again - talk from personal experience. Here's my music week so far:

Sunday: My local session in the Plough. Meself on guitar, an old mate on guitar and mandolin (both of us 64), said mate's nephew who's just done a course at BIM (Brighton Institute of Music) (in his early 20s), a couple on guitars and vocals, probably in their 50s - the bloke being one of the best guitarists I've heard in this area - plus one of our band members (40s) on melodeons and soprano sax, and a young couple in their mid-20s - her singing sweetly and him playing guitar and fiddle. The result of this mix? An evening of blues, jazz, early country music, Balkan fiddle tunes, Swedish folk tunes, 1930s torch songs, ragtime and English, Scottish and Irish traditional tunes.

Monday: the Surrey singaround (described in a post above):"Around 16 people sitting or standing, plus onlookers and other locals. There was a lot of singing - and some of that from Johnny Collins's repertoire (in tribute) by many there who had known him. And what glorious singing it was! I - who don't include this stuff in my own repertoire - sang myself hoarse as we raised the roof. Then there were the instruments - concertinas, guitars, fiddle, banjos, mandolins, accordion - sometimes solo, sometimes in duets and trios, sometimes all at once - on jazz tunes, a blues or two, some old-time music. But, most of all, there was immense humour, backchat, rude comments and jokes, plenty of beer drinking (including some of the best-kept pints of Adnams Broadside I've drunk outside Southwold) - interspersed with some excellent, free spicy snacks from the Nepalese landlord."

Wednesday: Get-together with two of the guys in our ceilidh band to work up some different rhythms and arrangements for some of the tunes, and get some ideas for new tunes for the dances.

Thursday: Dance evening up in Surrey at the same pub as Monday. Broadwood Morrish and local ladies' clog teams in alternating dances, followed by an immense jam in the bar. Highlights of the evening included a young chap from the Morris dancing a solo jig in the bar. Demographics of the Morris? From 20s to 80s! Music: much that was English traditional, but with plenty of old-time stuff from 1920s America, plus some great singing from young and old, male and female.

Night off tonight, but there's a ceilidh gig tomorrow, where we'll be playing - again - to young and old, and having great fun while watching them have great fun getting tangled up in the dances.

No philosophising here, no semantics, no hang-ups. we just get on with the music, have a great time, enjoy the company, the beer, the occasion. And sometimes get paid. What's the problem?