I disagree HJ, accessibility is about more than the noise, it's about the people and locations the noise is heard and whether an individual can identify with those factors. I've spent 30 years avoiding folk clubs because my early experiences suggested the context had nothing to do with people like me so had to content myself with the same sound on recordings.

I attend a few festivals because there isn't the same sense of having to buy the whole package - certainly one attached to an historical definition anyway.

Jim the blief system part comes from discussions like this - you could listen to or make folk music all your life without ever having heard the date 1954 and be at no disadvantage or compromised in the sound you make or words you utter. The definition resembles a creed and I'm not happy with packaging beliefs in that way in any context.