UB Ed,
You said, "The group I'm in plays traditional irish music like a bunch of Americans. If for no other reason than . . . we're a bunch of Americans. Occasionally we stumble into a fellow performer who . . . never fails to point out that we're not doing traditional Irish music."

One of the "things" (for me, anyway) about traditional folk music is that it is local music. The concept of learning everything there is to know about local music from somewhere else and then trying to play it like it is played somewhere else seems almost the antithesis of traditional musianship. It's really scholarly musicology, isn't it? Of course you are not doing traditional Irish music. As you say, you're a bunch of Americans. It sounds to me like you are doing traditional music from whatever city you are from. The music happens to have originated in Ireland, but so what? It's not in Ireland now, and neither are you. That doesn't decrease the traditional nature of the music, it just means that the locals are playing it in the local style -- making it even more traditional, if you will. It also doesn't change the Irish origins of the music, so calling it Irish music is still perfectly accurate.

Bill D, I have to say that I'm not one who lists being played acoustically as one of the necessary criteria for something being considered a folk song. It seems to me that most of Steeleye Span's songs are folk songs, and most singer-songerwriter songs are not. I consider a traditional folk song, even when sung by the worst classical soprano warbler, the most distorted garage band, or the fastest bluegrass band, to still be a traditional folk song. I guess my emphasis is more on the song itself and where it came from more than on where or how it is played. I've actually had people tell me that a song stops being a traditional folk song if I take it on stage and play it for pay with a band that has arranged it for performance. But the very same song is traditional if I sit around the living room playing it with some friends. I've always thought that was a bizarre concept. The song itself is a set of lyrics and a melody. They aren't really changed by being played in different venues on different instruments for different reasons.

John Peekstok