Nobody is making excuses.

"Dont mention house concerts what could be open and free gatherings are the most closed and elitist of all. Get rid of them or set them right."

I think this may be the crux of Conrad's delusions right here. As I recall, way up-thread he says he went to a house concert once, expecting it to by free, and they wanted to charge him to get in.

There is nothing wrong with house concerts the way they are right now. As a matter of fact, there is a great deal that is very right about house concerts.

House concerts don't cost a great deal to set up. All you need is a house with a living room or other fairly sizable room that can accommodate a fair number of people. Twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five people perhaps, sitting on sofas, chairs, perhaps folding chairs, on cushions, cross-legged on the floor, whatever, without people having to sit in each others' laps. The setting is intimate. No PA system is necessary. Interaction between the singer and the audience is easy. Most singers I know like this kind of setting very much.

And this liking of an intimate, informal setting is not just limited to singers of folk songs. Linda Ronstadt once commented that she much prefers to sing in small, intimate settings as opposed to the usual big arenas where the lights are so bright she can't even see the audience and where a guitar riff from a rock concert held the previous week is still reverberating through the place.

If you check the internet, there is a whole network of people all over the country who open their houses for house concerts, and a singer who is aware of this network can do fairly extensive concert tours consisting of house concerts. This gives an opporutunity for very good, but often not well-known singers to become better known while singing for a lot of people all over an area of the country.

Otherwise, many fine singers who deserve to be heard might languish in obscurity, depriving others from the opportuntiy to enjoy hearing them.

Those who put on these concerts (those who live in the houses) are motivated, not by greed for profits, but by an intense interest in the music itself. This gives them a chance to hear the singer up close, and usually put them up for a night or two, and chat with them some before they move on to their next engagement. And more often than not, the money taken in (usually in the form of a "recommended donation" rather than a fixed fee, which avoids the necessity of entertainment licenses, bookwork, and having to pay local entertainment taxes) is given entirely to the singer. The singer most certainly does not get rich this way, but he or she can at least pay their traveling and living expenses while doing so.

There are advantages to everyone involved.

In addition, house concerts are very much in the traditions of the troubadours and minstrels who traveled around singing in private homes (manor houses, castles) for the lord of the manor and his family and friends. And in the traditions of other musicians as well. Mozart and Beethoven more often than not debuted their works at recitals that their patrons put on in their own homes. This was how they made their livings—so they could keep on composing their music!

Elitist? Modern house concerts are far less "elitist" than such things used to be, when the host or patron might be a duke—or a king. Most house concerts, and concerts at other small venues, are generally announced through internet web sites, or through newsletters. If they seem "exclusive" because, for example, the address is not advertised—only a phone number—this is because there is limited space, and the host wants you to make a reservation over the phone ahead of time (first come, first served) so he or she doesn't have a mob of people outside their house grousing because the place is already full up. It only makes sense!

The natural habitat of folk music is not the bloody-great folk festival with thousands of people attending, whether free or not. It is in front of the kitchen sink when a mother and daughter are singing while they're doing the dishes, or a couple of guys out on the front porch passing a banjo back and forth. Or the deck of a ship raising anchor, hoisting sail, or sitting around in the fo'c'sle playing a concertina and singing to while away the off-watch. Or swinging a sledge hammer on a chain gang. Or sitting by the fire in a cabin in a logging camp, singing "Come All Ye's." THAT is what "folk experiences" are! Not some huge folk festival!

So if Conrad is looking for a free "folk experience," I'd suggest that he sign about a whaling ship or a windjammer, or get himself busted so he'll wind up wearing stripes, with a chain on his leg, lining track with a bunch of other similarly clad guys.

The nearest most people can have to a "folk experience" these days is for a bunch of friends to get together in someone's living room to swap songs and sing for each other (case of beer or jug of screw-top wine optional).

NOT some huge folk festival!

Some dedicated people devote their lives to a particular activity, spend their time, energy, dedication—and money, oftentimes great amounts of it—to develop their talents and hone the skills necessary to pursue this activity. And when large numbers of people are more than happy to pay good money to hear them do what they do, there are always people like Conrad who make all kinds of excuses—yes, my opening statement on this post is incorrect; there ARE people making excuses!—claiming that these dedicated and talented people should simply write off their expenses in developing their talents and turn around and give the fruits of it to people like him—for nothing.

Why should they? Give me one good reason!

Don Firth