Glueman: We can interpret them as best we can but projecting anything else onto the music is comic at best and dangerously misplaced at worst.

If 'the' tradition was seen as 'a' tradition without the accompanying verisimilitude hokum and guru racket accompaniment, we'd have a far more vibrant and inclusive folk 'scene'.

Glueman, can you elucidate? I've been playing traditional music for more than 30 years, and I've played extensively in at least seven different traditions with hundreds of musicians. I've never actually met anyone who has any such attitude toward traditional music. Are you speaking from actual experience, or from the mists of your imagination?

John