I believe Carol C has got to the root of the matter

>>The type of traditional music I play the most of is from Finland. I do not have any Finnish ancestry. Why do I play it? Because it speaks to me.<<

There's a similar phrase in a story about George Fox - founder of the Quakers - for which I don't have references to hand. A sceptic came to hear Fox preach and was rapidly converted, saying to him: "Friend, thou speakest to my condition."

Songs and tunes from far-away places can also "speak to our condition" - they seem to make something resonate inside us, like the sympathetic strings on a sitar or a Hardanger fiddle. Sometimes they even seem to say "sing me", or "play me", and we can't resist the invitation.

Of ourse it's a good thing that some people choose to focus on preserving and documenting "the tradition", while others seek to develop and expand it. But those committed to the former camp would do well to remember that everything traditional was an innovation once. (Sometimes the innovation was more recently than we would like to think - for more on this, see E Hobsbam and T Ranger's fascinating book "The Invention of Tradition".)

Wassail!