I've met a number of classical musicians who thought folk music, jazz, and Broadway show tunes were "beneath the salt," but I've never met a good classical musician or singer who didn't believe that "music is music," managed to learn something from just about everything they heard, and appreciated almost all other good musicians, no matter what their schtick.

In the late Fifties, I got a lot of grief at the University of Washington School of Music: "When are you going to stop messing around with those 'cowboy songs' and get serious?" So I transferred to the Cornish School of the Arts, where Lochram Johnson, then the head of the music department, said, "We don't care if you want to play tissue-paper and comb, just as long as you're serious about what you do."

I've had occasion to perform for crowds as large as 15,000 (Seattle Center Hootenannies in 1963), but my favorite kind of performing is the house concert. Intimate, informal, there I can be more like a real minstrel. There, you have to be both a showman and a musician. You have to entertain a roomful of people close up, and at that range, any sloppy musicianship is going to be pretty obvious. Other kinds of performing might be more rewarding financially, but I find this kind of performing very satisfying.

Don Firth