Scrump mentioned that his comments "could apply equally to comtemporary material" and I tend to feel that a lot of our declarations about trad or folk music fall in this category. I'm involved in some deliberations with our Arts Council - trying to ensure a place for folk or trad music in the overall music strategy. One thing that's come up is the music's place in the community, and the singer's relationship (or tradition bearer's relationship) to their community. Not audience; community.

Personally I think that the more removed the 'performer' is from the community, the more a song becomes a performance show piece, and the singer a 'celebrity', the farther they move from 'tradition', and the less the tradition is honoured.

To put it in economic terms, the more links in the chain between the provider and the consumer, the farther you get from tradition. That is, if I sing a song and teach it to you at my kitchen table (see another Rassmussen though-provoking thread) then that's pretty close to 'tradition'. If you have to buy a ticket from a theatre which had to go to an agent to make a deal with a performer who makes deals with roadies ... etc ... before the song can be heard, then a lot of money is changing hands, and the 'product' is moving very far from the Tradition.

I'm not a performer, but I try to honour tradition by learning not only the song but the context in which it was written, the community in which it was preserved, the language and idioms used, etc. Then when I sing it to someone else, I make sure that I share at least some of that with them.

Was it here, in the 'Cat, that someone once wrote, "A folksinger is someone who takes 5 minutes to introduce a 2 minute song" ?   I think that backs up what I'm saying. Is there another music which needs that amount of background to be valid?

This is getting good ...

sian
(hey Jerry: did you get that stuff I sent?)