"People no longer express themselves to each other with songs or record events within their communities, rather they/we have become passive recipients of entertainment and culture – television has seen to that. Nowadays people, particularly young people, are more likely to communicate via a mobile phone!

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Malcolm Douglas summed it up perfectly for me right at the beginning of this thread:
"Our descendants, on the other hand, may inherit some sort of tradition from us. It will depend on whether or not we leave them anything worth having".

Here is what bothers me about this discussion of "traditional".   Jim made some very good statements, but I come away with the impression that many of the posters in this thread have their own general idea of what "traditional" should be. Even worse, there are preconceived notions about what "the tradition" should be.   I get the feeling that most of the posters feel that "traditional" music reflects a certain style of music that meets their own description and then they will dismiss anything that does not meet that set of criteria. The study of folklore is the study of a subject in movement, not simply the buried bones of the past.

Is it really for us to pass judgement on modern sources of entertainment?

I suspect that most of us are products of the folk revival - some posters were active participants in that era, others of us are able to share in the wealth of what they gathered. The "traditional" songs of bygone eras reflected past cultures that we studied. It was important to record the source singers to get an idea of what made up their heritage. The songs spoke of love, play, work, politics and history of a past time. Browse through the Penguin book, or any of the Lomax, Stan Hugill, Cecil Sharp or other folk collectors and you will discover a link to a time when these modern conveniences were not to be found.

Is it fair that we dismiss the topics of modern singer-songwriters who are doing EXACTLY the same work that the shapers of these songs did in past generations? The output and structure may be different, and it might not appeal to some of us on an entertainment level, but perhaps that is not its intention. Some of the songs that were collected a century ago were really treasured heirlooms of families that shared their wealth with the collectors. A song that mothers sang to their children was every bit as introspective as the "navel-gazers" that make up todays crop of folksingers. Sure, the song may have been more accessible to our generation, but to dismiss the current songs is simply a example of not studying modern offerings with the same criteria that we used to study the music of past cultures.

The music may not be made on the front porch or in the kitchen as it was several generations ago, but there is still music being made and shared in a community setting. Folk music is a living tradition and traditional music will continue to be made. We just need to keep our eyes and ears open along with our minds.