Apparently (according to another thread) I, as a thirty something am considered a "youngster" (not my words)! Also apparently (according to another thread) by the time I was in school during the seventies, Traditional English music song and dance had been dropped from the curriculum. Doesn't exactly astound me. I learned nothing about native traditions at school. I didn't even know there were any.

I only stumbled onto Trad recently. I can't say exactly why that is, except that (unlike lots of other kinds of music eg. Early English, Opera, Classical/Modern Classical, Plain Song, Jazz, Rock and Pop, Ambient and Trance, World and Fusion etc.) it simply never crossed my path.

I don't know why it didn't. But it just didn't. Perhaps that implies nothing but ignorance on my part, but I suspect that I may speak for the experience of others of my generation, too. I only heard the term 'Child Ballad' about two months ago. And I can promise you, that virtually no-one of my own aquaintance (bar one older music teacher) would know what I was talking about if I mentioned it in conversation, without explanation.

I'm sure their is a discerning 'younger audience' for Trad out there, and that they don't require anyone to dumb it down for them either. In fact from what I've picked up off Mudcat in the time I've been here, is that there is already a rapidly growing interest in younger people. But a little education and promotion directed at younger people can't hurt.