A very interesting topic to me. I run a folk club and was recently thinking about the problem of continuity - how folk music is passed on. This passing on is the communicating, swapping, trading of the material which constiutes the "Tradition". Where you learn it from. It used to be that you learned it from kinfolk. Then it was largely learned from recordings including books and moving pictures via broadcast media. This is all still happening but there is a new medium available which is occupying peoples attention. You guessed, it computers and the 'net.

In the light of several recent threads worrying about folk and folk clubs dying out I was contemplating setting up a thread to exhort all Mudcat folkies to work to increase the exposure folk gets on YouTube. If we want it to live, we have to promote it. We have to win the attention of potential customers. We need to be offering lots of opportunity for people to acquire the taste. If we don't it will be crowded out- muscled aside by all the other jostling stuff and get no airspace at all and will wither away. It needs to struggle robustly to gain airspace and be "there"

As a precursor to starting the thread I decided to begin to set up a virtual version of my folk club on YouTube. Once I had got it going and working then I could use it to underline my verbal message. I am finding it a bit harder than I expected. YouTube is certainly the place but does not seem to lend itself to what I want to do.

I decided to set up a "Channel" under the name "WolfFolkClub". I currently have three videos up there with lots more to go up. Please have a look and let me have your thoughts. I am eager to learn how to get this right.

Cheers

Roger
The Wolf Folk Club (Norfolk England)