Steve Gardam commented on another thread that he tended to skip the bits in Hillery's PhD which were musically technical. I fully understand how musical analysis can get too much to take in. I recently gave up on a chapter in a book for this very reason. But I have the advantage of some degree of musical literacy. Even so I and had to think twice about a couple of bits of Hillery's technical vocabulary. But for me one of the strengths and points of interest of the piece was the comparisons of singing styles based on close analysis of use of voice and of ornamentation, rhythm, pitch (or slight lack of in some cases) etc. Too often folk songs are treated in writing as if they were nothing but lyrics. I know that different lyrics got sung to various tunes and so on, and also that musical notation and vocabulary doesn't fully describe what we hear, and are designed for 'art music' anyway, but as a person more of a musician than singer (and not much of either) I find it frustrating that the music bit tends to get ignored, or reduced to analysis of tune families. Music has its own semiotic significance, to put it one way. If they weren't songs people would recite them not sing them. I hope Steve doesn't mind me continuing that discussion here, where it seems more appropriate. And that he understands that I mean no disrespect by doing so.