When we are dead ≠ fewer and fewer people are attracted to traditional music.

As Jim says, the tradition is alive and well, at least here in Ireland, though it's absorbing new and varied elements, which means it does grow and change. But the whole reason this happens is because the kids - or enough of them to sustain life - pick it up and run with it. I know this isn't the only place where that's true.

I grew up in 50's California, and the music that influenced me was mostly what I heard on the radio and my parents' records. But I responded most strongly to the folky material and always followed - and later played - it. Certain things just lead you. This is part of human nature and I don't think it's going to change.

There are loads of "folk songs" (and tunes too) that were written by someone consciously working in a traditional style, which then actually become so by dint of the fact that they get sung and heard and re-sung and take on a life of their own. I don't even see any real distinction between the two. How often has something by Ewan MacColl or Woody Guthrie been introduced as "an old sailor/cowboy/whatever song"? That's the first step in the immortality process. It's what keeps our culture alive and relevant, and these songs will continue to speak to people down through the generations. As some of them have already done, for centuries. They sing the universal truths and there will always be ears to pick them up and voices to carry them on along the next stretch of the road.

There's no logical reason why, given my background and influences, I should love and "know" traditional and trad-style songs above the rest, but I do. I started out listening to The Kingston Trio and plastic shamrock-&-leprechaun paddywhackery (because that's all there was where I grew up) but something drew me, until one day I found myself playing the real thing in the real place.



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AL - When they assign you your cloud & nightie: For a C chord, the root note is on a red string; for an F chord it's on a black string. Then you're outta luck cuz the G7's based on a white string and there are are 5 of those. (Clue: it's the one next to the F...)