Irish tunes - which I suppose Dick is talking about - are open to many different accompaniments, limited only by the accompanist's harmonic imagination and skill. Purists will keep claiming that they should not be accompanied at all (except in unison), but they have been left far behind by developments in the past 50-80 years. Just ask Donal Lunny.

Making the tunes interesting to a broader, international audience has been possible through the development of more intriguing orchestration such as Mr Lunny has been perpetrating for some decades now, with bands such as The Bothy Band, Planxty, Moving Hearts and Coolfin. The naysayers are clearly left in the dust - or the museum, as it were.