GSS: well they might learn to improve their performances from watching performers like carthy, dow, wizz jones.wilson family, vin grbutt
folk clubs are the best place in my experience to learn the art of performing, many other examples apart from those i mentioned, such as barbara dickson derek brimstone.

Maybe folk clubs WERE the best place to improve your performance "back in the day"....and at the time when people like the older people on here were wanting to improve their performance, the people they were looking at (Carthy, Jones etc) were only a few years older than themselves. Nowadays youngsters are also emulating other skilled youngsters just a couple of years older than themselves. They go and see the people in my examples above (Little Unsaid, Sean de Burca, Jamie Roberts etc) to improve their own skills.

My performance improvement, what there is of it, has come about mainly through "after hours" sessions at open mics. For example, the OM I mentioned above on Wednesday night "formally" went on until 0030, but in fact at least 10-12 people stayed on after the PA was switched off, jamming, learning new riffs and techniques from each other and swapping tips until at least 0200. It was still going on when I left, as I had to work in the morning, so no idea when they finally ran out of steam. Some of us get together to jam at peoples' homes. Here's one of those jams:

Anja Neil Paolo Jam

Not exactly complex finger-picking, but far from "thrashing". And very typical.


GSS: Firstly you tell me that young finger pickers are not going to folk clubs then you tell me buskers are not representative, i can only talk from what i see, from my own experience , and that tells me that overall the skill of finger picking in my experience has been replace by strummers, your examples are very good , but my point is that they are a minority, are you trying to say they are a majority? I HAVE CHECKED OUT YOUR SITES AND IT DOES NOT ALTER MY OPINION THAT OVERALL IT APPEARS TO BE UNFASHIONABE.

But what do you see and where? As I said before, MOST buskers have ALWAYS thrashed. The ones I remember in Leicester and Bradford in the early 70s certainly did. And I guess if you went to venues that were more "fashionable" than Folk Clubs, you may change your mind. Going to a Folk Club these days to find out what's fashionable is just a little out of the loop! A GOOD open mic would, I think, throw up some surprises for you. As I said, of the 19 performers on Wednesday, EVERY ONE did at least one song of his/ her 3 song set fingerstyle or hybrid picking. Well, I tell a lie....one played keyboards, one was on ukulele and one played a fiddle, so I guess that's 16 out of 16 with guitars who did some fingerstyle stuff. And where I live, in Kent, the Grey Lady Music Lounge or The Forum are the places to see young talent. The performers at the Grey Lady in particular almost all use fingerstyle when playing guitar. It's a tiny venue and "thrashing" would be OTT there.