WAV, while yesterday I agreed with you in principle about this, I suddenly realized something, which was actually pretty obvious. Your point of when an English musician plays a Swedish tune for example, they are taking away from one of their own English tunes, as you yourself mentioned regarding My Bonnie, which you now say you have abandoned. Well, I've been to your myspace page, and I see one of your top friends is Kathryn Tickell (actually, she's one of mine too, I've met her, and I hold her talent in very high regard) and have just about everything she's done. So I'm guessing you think highly of her as well. Now, I can open up anyone of the notes to her albums and find her doing Northumbrian tunes of course, but a quick perusal will find Irish, Greek, Scottish, French, Italian, tunes in their as well. First part of my question is this-she is the player of one of the most recognized native instruments of the English folk tradition-if you did not read the liner notes beforehand, would you recognize those tunes as not being of English origin? In other words, do you fault her for playing Swedish tunes on an English instrument, even though without the benefit of notes, would be unrecognizable to most ears? Second question is, related to this specifically, Kathryn is or was (and Sue or DS, I'm sure you know if she still is or not)a lecturer on the Folk & Traditional Music Degree Corse at Newcastle University. So this is someone whom I think you respect WAV. WOuld you tell Kathryn Tickell personally, number one-you should ONLY be playing English material (and I guess Kathryn's many excelent self-penned tunes would count as not of the tradition, therefore, not playable), and number two, that your lecturing in this degree course is detrimental to English traditional music, because it includes some Irish music? Howard's point above was completely true-as a player, why limit yourself. I could give you a hard time for listing the cords of a Scottish song on an English music thread. I could, but I won't, because I really don't care. I like to know where a song or tune comes from, but that's it. Meanwhile, I'm off to play Kathryn's album Strange But True-but I guess it's not going to be pure enough for your liking.