"Surely Folk is as much about form as it is derivation if not even more so than other musics. This is one of the reasons I take issue with the 1954 Definition because it doesn't go into the musical form that defines the songs."

Am I being a bit thick here, in thinking that's the whole point of 1954: that it was formulated to accommodate The Folk of Music of Yugoslavia - or China, or India, come to that - alongside that of the British Isles or North America? All of which have very different musical forms.

One of the problems with defining folk music as 'that which is played in Designated Folk Contexts' is that it denies every other nation of the globe (apart from a few former colonies) the right to their own folk music.