The Irish have loads of competitions and again it doesn't seem to have hurt Irish traditional music much
quote folkie dave.
it has certainly altered it,comhaltas set out to stop the music from dying and keeping it pure from undesirable cultural influences,what they have done,is alter it,it has become a music that is obsessed with ornmamentation, this is a direct result of their marking system for competitions.
since the most marks are given for ornamentation,many competitors think this means the music has to be over ornamented,unfortunately some judges encourage this nonsense.