The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #136369   Message #3176575
Posted By: DMcG
26-Jun-11 - 04:25 AM
Thread Name: Will trad music die when we do?
Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
I don't think it will die with us. Given the wide variety of types of music that survives (gregorian chant, medaeval madrigals, barbshop quartets, west gallery, ...) it would be odd of trad disappeared. Certinaly, it will go in and out of fashion, but that's something else.

And there's another factor that is, I suspect, underrated. Last week I was was in an ersatz 'pub' along with a whole bunch of people (perhaps 100) of various ages and backgrounds. They were not drawn together by a love of music, or any such. Yet, when the pub produced a pianist and started on the stuff like 'Down at the old Bull and Bush, Tipperary' and so on, almost everyone joined in with gusto. I stress here that this is not exactly my music of choice, and that it is not what the OP meant by trad (I assume). Yet there was something important happening that was truly 'folkish' in my book: a group of very ordinary people getting together and singing just for the fun of it. No higher purpose, as a church might have. No idea that 'we are a choir'. No competitiveness. Just singing for the sheer enjoyment of it.