I'm not a musician and can't really sing. Yet I am passionately engaged with music and have been since my early teens. There's absolutely nowt wrong with music as a spectator sport. As long as there have been performers there have been spectators - even in the 'good old days' of rural poverty and making your own entertainment, I would wager that there were as many, if not more, people listening as playing and singing: not everyone has it in them, just as not everyone can be a blacksmith or a carpenter. And of course, for most rural people up until the invention and mass production of radios and the introduction of improved public transport links (if you had the money or inclination to go to town to see a show, that is) their main experience of music would have been church, pub or family home - I can't imagine people had much choice but to make their own music or listen to music made by those around them. That's one of the reasons why I kind of agree with SO'P's comments that the 'tradition' is a retrospectively invented concept to describe an everyday activity of agrarian life that was born out of necessity (at least I think that was the gist). I think we have a tendency to hold this state of affairs up as some grand ideal and try to replicate it with our sessions and singarounds - which can never be anything but a fleeting re-enactment of the real thing, minus, of course, the grinding poverty, high infant mortality rates, rickets, limited diet, lack of education and healthcare and so on.

One of the downsides of the folk scene's insistence on participation as a core element of what the music is about, is that it can sometimes lead to some excruciating listening experiences - whatever the therapeutic value may be to the perpetrator! I don't think any other music scene overvalues participation to the same extent - though I tend to avoid open-mic nights and karaoke bars if I can... That's not to say I don't enjoy a good singaround - I was at one last night - but if that was my only choice, my musical life would be deeply diminished.

And finally, I'm not convinced that my appreciation of music is compromised because I'm not musically talented. To imply such a thing would be condescending, but sadly it is something I've heard many times over the years. In fact, it was the sort of crap my school music teacher used to come out with years back - as he busily attempted to turn the children in his class off music for life. But that's another story...