I don't think that any of the posts on this thread actually did question the validity of folk song collecting. Sandy took the time and trouble to explain and to some extent, defend the questions that were raised about some of the downsides of the process.

It is the idea that anything is unquestionable that worries me and when and if something is considered as such, it is probably a very good idea to question it. When we were young, were used to think the questioning of the unquestionable was unquestionably a good thing to do?

The best way to communicate a folk song/tune is by hearing it live. Next best is a recording and lastly, the printed page. There are a few gifted 'sight' readers of music who can read the melody from a page as most of us would read a poem but this is not true for all. The page however is not the starting point.

The idea that you look for and find folk music on a page of a book is one that is very common in England. Why and how this preposterous concept came to be is what has prompted this thread and also this one. What is it with the English. Someone said something about maps earlier in the thread.

In truth how often does it happen that a song is lifted from a collection, 'cold', that is without hearing it sung, referred to or on being familiar with another version? Sometimes this is done consciously and these are the ones most in danger of being the 'Frankenstein's monsters. Thankfully that is not the way that the majority of people now use collections.

Divisions in music are the last thing that I want to see. To me there is only one nest. I wonder if the older and wiser Pete Seeger of today would be quite so sure that 'pulling the plug' of the electric Bob Dylan at Newport was such a necessary thing to attempt?

The original music of the past is now being referred to as traditional music. The original music of the present will then form the main part of the traditional music of the future. The DT has recognised this and that is it's great value as a collection. People today sing the original creations of Ewan McColl and Richard Thompson without knowing the 'recent' origin of them, and without seeing them in any collection.

Does old = gold and new = spew? Not in my (song) book.

I stared this thread say that it was a view from England. I think the paranoia about the 'dangers' of the singer songwriter, is very much a view from America.