I really don't understand this Pip. It seems to come from a peculiar self-loathing combined with a search for some bucolic hearthfire.

I've explained what I think about three times in this thread alone, so I'm not sure why I'm bothering to try again, but here goes.

Live music is a specialised activity in this society. It wasn't always, but it is now. That's not bucolic fantasy or self-loathing, it's just the way history's turned out.

Obviously there are degrees: singing in a pub, playing tunes in someone's kitchen or getting a band together in a garage is a lot less specialised than getting your kicks at the Wigmore Hall - but it's still specialised. See how many pubs have a singaround going on and how many garages have bands in - on an average night it'd be one in what, 100? Live music made by ordinary people without making a big deal of it - because it's what you do, because it passes the time, because everyone's got a song in them - has basically died out in this society. Live music made by enthusiastic amateurs (and a few enthusiastic professionals) is great - I'm well into it, without any loathing whatever - but we're not the folk, and any new music we make is never going to be folk music.