Jim,

'It seems to me you start on extremely shaky ground in trying to separate 'folk' and 'tradition'; they are two sides to the same coin - one referring to the origins of our songs etc.; the other to the process that shaped them.'JC

If they are 2 sides to the same coin they are still separate words with different meanings to most of us; 'traditional' applies to the processes involved, 'folk' to the people who evolved them. There is therefore nothing wrong with dealing with them separately if we are looking for a working definition.

Brian, why do we have to forget the football songs etc? Just because they are a 'living' tradition and are largely restricted to a measurable and definable community doesn't make them any less traditional or folk.

I'm sorry, whilst the vast majority of what we now recognise as folk/traditional song is easily recognisable I for one could not use this as part of a definition. I can think of many excellent imitations of traditional song that patently are not traditional.

We seem to be coming at this from several different angles. Perhaps what we need are several different definitions to be applied in these different spheres.

Brian quite rightly states that songs are nowadays passed on in a different way to the old days. So we simply have 2 (or more) separate but similar traditions to define.

Jim, I know you won't accept this but 'folk' to practically everyone in the English-speaking world has a different conception (based on 'sounds-like')to the Mudcat conception. Fair enough, lots of words in the dictionary have many definitions. If we like we can attempt to put out a Mudcat definition of it, BUT I think it would be an easier and more fruitful excercise to try to gain concensus on 'traditional song' first.

As for 'Music Hall' song there is a growing number of collectors who do not distinguish between these songs and the broadside ballads and Child ballads when collecting/publishing (John Howson at Veteran, Rod Stradling at MusTrad for instance) apart from which Sharp/Broadwood let a fair few music hall songs slip into their collections unknowingly. Do we throw these out? Jolly Waggoner/ Jim the Carter's Lad etc? This is one reason why I said I don't recognise putting in time limits or origin limits on whether something is traditional or not. For me it is simply the undergoing of the oral/aural process.

To me 'My Brudda Sylvest' is a traditional song, even though I know it was written in 1908. Perhaps someone would like to tell me why it isn't a traditional song?