"Yet think on this, the very music that they now keep locked up, and look at with cotton gloves on, whilst worshipping at its altar, was once the very music of the masses themselves. I tried to give it back to many, but you know what, they don't want it given back, because they deem it 'theirs' rather than 'ours'."

Well, I can't answer for your personal experiences obviously, but from my own part, I have had a completely different experience from Traddies.

I leapfrogged to Mudcat from a very serious forum on Trad Song (to which I'd been referred by the charming Johnny Adams who also runs the English Song and Dance forum.) The reception to my own queries on those forums (which are much more serious and 'academic' than Mudcat ever is), was wonderfully embracing, informative, encouraging and supportive.

I realised that those forums were too serious and academic for my very newby interest, bad sense of humour and somewhat irreverent manner (I posted as RosaSomniferum there, and again my thanks to those good people who gave me lots of helpful advice). So here I am, in the Cat. Which is rather more suited to my personality and current needs.

My continued curiosity here, has however similarly been answered with nothing but support and encouragement. And although it's a bit more of a schoolyard here, if I ask, I get answers! Ta da! All good. If no-one in the traddie world wanted other people to discover traditional arts, surely I would not have had such supportive responses to my initial forays into heavy-duty traddie forum land. My questions would have been either completely ignored or contemptuously swatted away. But the opposite happened. The people were so friendly, that I quite simply cannot relate to your experiences.

All human intercourse is fraught with misunderstandings, and no-where moreso than on the internet...