Jerry started this off with an interesting point stated in a charming and intelligent way. Anybody want to get back to it?

I've always thought of Folk and Traditional as dynamic adjectives descriptive of musical context & process rather than the insubstantial & misleadingly conservative & reactionary genre nouns they've become. The 1954 Definition does not describe a musical genre, rather it contextualises music as Folk in terms of its human process regardless of genre. We might niggle over its reading, but in terms of a contemporary appreciation of music in context, it is, perhaps, supremely ironic that the musics most likely to be called Folk or Traditional are those which are no longer subject to the sort of processes described by the 1954 Definition on account of their somewhat precious revival status.

As a performer of such material (however so eccentric in terms of the wholly non-traditional revival orthodoxy) I treat it with the kid-gloves of the purist, like handling anything anciently precious, no matter how robust such things are in and of themselves. In other words, I become as conservative and reactionary as the best of them in terms of a wider ecology in which I regard their continuing presence in this word not only vulnerable, but perilous. As I said back there in my post of 23 Nov 09 - 11:38 AM: the music of any given tradition and the music of a revival / reinvention of that tradition are two very different things. The former exists in its wild state, running free in its natural habitat. The latter exist, at best, in captivity - at worst, stuffed in a glass display case. The former could be said to be traditional; the latter, perhaps rather less so... I don't mean this in any pejorative way - I am a Revivalist Traddy of some 36 years standing and proud of both it and my brethren and sistren who continue to make it all worthwhile - Shimrod included.

However, The Revival has only very tenuous links to the history and culture which gave us The Tradition. History and culture is a good thing to be aware of in terms of musical process, which is why I reacted as I did to Jo Taylor's post of 22 Nov 09 - 05:03 PM. To what extent are trad. English tunes (16, 17 18c?) an aspect of our wider culture? And to what extent has an awareness of that historicism permeated into that culture as a whole? I might sit playing 13th-Century Cantigas de Santa Maria on a reconstruction of a medieval bowed-lyre, but how are people who don't know that meant to access it in terms of musical empiricism? In the Folk Scene, there is a tendency towards a pedantry which I feel is totally unnecessary when it comes to dealing with such public reactions as Jo has described. After all, you have to walk many miles in the real world before meeting another folkie, let alone one shares your love of trad. English tunes (16, 17 18c?).

Is Folk Music something we might only appreciate if we've done the book-work? Well, if 3 years of Mudcat has taught me anything it's that the answer to such a question is a resounding Yes. Not that I was in any sort of doubt at all, and not that see any harm in that, but in terms of musical empiricism - Ministry of Sound it ain't. This is how I interpreted the OP Of this thread, that so-called Folk Music lacks the essential immediacy which is one of the defining factors of a truly traditional, or indeed folk, music. In other words, a music which is as natural to you as the words you speak; the music you grew up with as cultural ambience, a music which needs no words to tell you what it is; a music you are born with. In that music are the seeds of everything - like the thrill I felt on my 6th birthday in the summer of 1967 when I flipped over my band-new copy of All You Need is Love and heard the exquisite modal piping sounds at the opening of Baby You're A Rich Man and recognised therein a kindred empathy to an ancient music I've been questing after ever since. Even when I was six I realised it was the beginning of something amazing. As Camus said: A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

As much as culture defines of individualism, it is our individualism that redefines our culture; all is change, mutability and enrichment; all is process, everything is tradition.

Enjoy!