I meant to say in my earlier post that we have many excellent young folk and traditional music artists up here. They haven't all been through the folk music degree courses or the Plockton "Centre of Excellence" school. It is easy for people to be disparaging about them (along the lines of "all technique but no musicality") but my experience of listening to them has, on the whole, been different. They get gigs at folk clubs as well as festivals, and usually bring in an enthusiastic crowd of young supporters to the audience, at least on those nights, if not every week: they mostly know their subject very well, having researched the provenance of any songs or tunes they do. And there are many great projects throughout Scotland to encourage young people to take up an instrument and play folk music.