"To use this distorted picture as blueprint for how things should be done is perhaps a tad misguided, unless of course it fits ones personal agenda, or else ability, in which case one might expect a little more by way of humility when it comes to discussing a subject that, one suspects, might hot have figured very highly, if at all, in their pic n' mix humanities degree."...Is that fair?...I admitted, above, I knew little of polyphony and chords (just, rather, learning, playing and singing simply the top-line-melody), and I'll add, being yet more precise, that there was no musicolgy department within the school of anthropology where I finished my humanities degree - which should, though, have taught me what to look for when I got into folk. Another thing that I found helpful was a tape called Voices, which had some of the "big-names" from the English folk-scene of the 80s selecting an E. trad. each - most done with "monophonic modality", Sedayne.