I love to sing, but cannot perform. My voice is not good, and I am not always right on key. I sing along on the chorus or sing at parties. The New York Pinewoods Folk Music Club (Folk Music Society of New York) has a policy of encouraging everyone to participate; our notion of folk music is that folks do it. (We also put on concerts by good singers).
Many of the people who sing traditional music a lot seem to have set aside the guitars that were ubiquitous in the 1960's to sing unaccompanied. At Champlain Valley last year the best performance (to my ears) was a workshop of unaccompanied songs by Colleen Cleveland and Lorraine Hammond. Lorraine is an accomplished instrumentalist, but she sings as well as Colleen, and this was a wonderful hour.
I do not have the kind of patience to learn to play an instrument. I used to kind of strum a guitar, but put it aside when I married a very good musician. Then I built a dulcimer. I spent hours working with the wood to get it just right, hours and hours going over it to perfect this and that. Once it was built, I started to learn to play it. I found that I just did not have the same persistence to learn to play it.
I also read more threads than I post to. I try not to spend too too much time on Mudcat. I look at threads about certain songs or people, or how to run a folk music club. I sometimes post on threads like this where I feel people understand and share experiences.