As a traditionalist I tend to like my music as it was intended to be heard. I like traditional English folk music performed with the use of traditional instruments and vocals. It's music that was rarely written for profit. It's music that has endured and been passed down by oral tradition. You don't have to be a great musician to be a folk singer.

My understanding is that the term folk music gained usage in the 18th century to refer to peasants or non-literate people. 'Folk music' in the strict, original sense of the term covers only that music which arises from the speech and circumstances of the common people of a culture.

All I meant was my preference is for culture is 18th century rural England. I also respect that there is some great new material in the 21st century by musicians expressing the condition of life today. This music and song is created by the common people in the process of expressing themselves, it can still be done in the traditional sense.


Music transmitted by word of mouth though a community will, in time, develop many variants, because this kind of transmission cannot produce word-for-word and note-for-note accuracy. Indeed, many traditional folk singers are quite creative and deliberately modify the material they learn without the use of electric instruments and decimate the original folk tradition.

On a lighter note, Louis Armstrong once said, "All music is folk music, I ain't never heard a horse sing". He hadn't visited some of the clubs I've been !