Something potentially controversial but worth discussing if possible nicely: the view that traditional singers should be 'revered' but that one could not learn to be a better folk singer by observing and adopting their techniques as they tended not to be very good singers, a thought also expressed by Peggy Seeger in some other contexts. Age, I think, is sometimes said to have something to do with this.

I don't want to decry the achievements, and my intention is not to enflame opinion, just to express what I noticed, and invite discussion, but there seems a bit of a contradiction in maintaining teaching practices informed by a variety of theoretical frameworks and a claim that the resulting 'techniques' or 'style' are traditional.

It all seems to me mixed up with the largely untraditional context (eg clubs, concerts, radio programmes, gramophone records) within which the output of the classes run by Seeger and MacColl was consumed by the public?