Interesting how guitars seem to set some people off. We once did a Bulgarian dance tune at the end of our first set. As is normal, a bunch of folks came up to talk to us and look at our unusual instruments (cittern, hurdy-gurdy, nyckelharpa). I was having a nice chat with someone about the time signature of the Bulgarian tune (5/16), when a loud voice cut through the conversation saying, "I hope you're not going around telling people you play Balkan music. That's not the way it's done!" I let him know that it is how the tune gets done, since he just saw it done that way.

The best part was that a week later we played a "folk festival" at the Bon Marche, the local large department store. We were set up in the women's handbag department, with the escalator from upstairs right in front of us. As we were playing the same Bulgarian tune, an old woman was coming down. She stood in front of us while we finished the tune and said, with a heavy Bulgarian accent, "That is Bulgarian!" She had danced to that tune as a child and was thrilled to hear it in a department store in Seattle. The guitar didn't bother her at all.

I'm so glad I'm playing for folks, not for the academics.