Playing music IS communicating, Dick. I'm not clear about what else a bunch of sessioneers has to do in order to fit your "duty to communicate." Beethoven became profoundly deaf yet his late music is one of the greatest communicators in all art. We don't sit in a tight huddle to muffle out our sound. We don't sit in a private back room. We chat to the pub customers in between tune sets. I can't remember a time when we refused to do Wild Rover/ Black Velvet Band/Whiskey in The Jar. We let visitors join in (at our peril occasionally). We do play for ourselves and we don't regard what we do as a public performance. In different settings we had a little band, and in that format, yes, we performed. Weddings, dances, parties and all that. Try to get a handle on what we are saying here, Dick. That would make for a pleasant surprise.

And by their fruits and all that... Do you really think that our lovely landlord, so grateful that we enhanced the atmosphere and pulled in lots of custom over almost twenty years, would have plied us with gallons of free beer if all we did was huddle sour-faced in a corner, refusing to talk to anyone outside our little clique?