Do you like and listen to recordings of the source singers?

No. I don't enjoy listening to that stuff. I may listen to it for research only, words or tune. Source musicians on the other hand can be good to listen to for their own sake (whether they are singing or not).

Do you prefer revival and present day singers?

Yes.

Do you like songs accompanied or unaccompanied?

Accompanied, definitely .... that's not to say I never enjoy hearing or singing uninstrumented song, but solo or unison stuff is so so often uninteresting tortuous, makes me miserable and angry, that it's easier just to skip it all.

Do you like traditional, contemporary or both?

I like a lot of folk songs, listening and playing. And I like a lot of other songs. Unfortunately I often find that my idea of what "original songs written in the folk tradition" are does not align with the ideas of people who usually say that phrase.

Like one poster above, I really hate all parody songs. All of them. And on a related but different note I am not that into original comedy songs either.


What about electric folk?

Yes I can like it, but I like it because it is good, not because it is electric. For example, definitely far and away my favourite recording of Wild Mountain Thyme is the one from the Scotland advert off the telly. And I like some folk song renditions that are a lot more hardcore and distant from traditional renditions than that. But equally there are a lot of experimental versions of folk music that are just painful for me to listen to.

Also I can't listen to the older electric stuff a lot of folkies seem to like (of course I mean fairport conventian and steeleye span, about as relevant to me as the beatles, which is to say completely irrelevant).

Dance music, social or ritual?

Social dance music: yes to occasionally doing all or any of listening, playing, dancing. Ritual: never.