I think that this point that you make, GeorgeH, is a really important one--"the people who history effectively ignores can produce a vibrant, compelling and richly diverse music"

The question that I always end up wrestling with is-- to what degree did they produce this music, and to what degree did they, because of their isolation, preserve something more wide spread from a time gone past?

It is no accident that the great repositories of folk and traditional music(whatever these things turn out to be) tend to be places like the Appalachians, the Balkans, the Cape Breton Islands, The Bayou, etc etc that are geographically isolated, and that the people who preserve or continue these traditions are also isolated from the mainstream by religion, ethnicity, language etc

The odd meters and peculiar scales that seems unique to Balkan Music were prevalent in the music that existed in the rest of Europe before the composed court and church music became popular during the Renaissance--and that that these same meters and scales-appear, often as isolated examples, in other remote areas--such as Brittany--

I wonder as I wander through all of this--what is going on? Are traditional songs and music forms being preserved, or are they evolving, through the "Folk Process"?

Frank, you say that you don't believe in modern folk songs--because they have to be passed down from generation to generation--and presumably pretty much intact, to qualify as folk songs--

I am afraid that this thread will end if I agree with you on anything, but Icome pretty close to agreeing with, or at least understanding this point--

The question that I have is, how can a folksong be still be a folksong when it goes through the "folk process", and is substantially reworked in the course of transmission?