COMPLETELY OFF TOPIC

Bloody hell! I use a hand held old style Kaossilator 1 & a K-Pro mostly for the vocoder but it really is a doozy unit; I've even got a K-Pad Quad thang which I use with the MS-20. I've been tempted by the 2s for a while now; in fact I was planning to get one for my folk-hating son for Xmas! Nice one pfr! Thanks for the heads up!

Related : I'm on the verge of buying a Moog Theremini which seems like an expensive toy, but we've got a gig coming up in Sheffield in November and I want to use it on Tam Lin... Basically a kaossilator you play by waving your hands around - I have a mind to use it with my Line 6 delay modeller & EHX Super Ego for max layered drones...

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The purpose of a definition is to enable the precise identification of something

Fair enough with chairs, eggs, carpets & kaossilators, but how can you define so nebulous a concept as Folk without diminishing the very essence of the thing you're setting out to define, assuming it exists at all?

The 1954 Definition defines NOTHING with any sort of clarity or objectivity. It is 100% subjective ineffable twaddle from beginning to end and about as much use as The Horse Definition in telling us anything at all other than that a) people play music in communities and b) all music derives from what went before it and changes as it gets passed on. This is true of ALL music; all music is born of observable traditional process but all music (thank God) is not Folk.

Understanding the corpus of Traditional Folk Song & Balladry is NOT a matter of defining, but a matter of close & exacting musicological & ethnomusicological analysis. We can describe them, but we can never define them. They have given rise to a concept of Folk in the same way as so-called Green Men have given rise to a concept of Paganism and yet they are quite separate from that concept. They are NOT folk in that they precede the Folk Concept and exist quite independently & autonomously from it. That autonomy is essential to their appreciation - likewise an understanding of the culture & times of those who made and sang them. Also their nature in terms of organic fluidity that is barely hinted at in recorded & collected 'variations' which are as much use as to understanding such things as a stuffed swallow will tell you about migration patterns.