I'm trying to make a distinction here between what we do in relative privacy and what we do in the public eye, so to speak, where our actions may influence others.

There is a big difference between the kind of love that respects the loved object and allows it to retain its natural character and identity, and the kind that desires to possess that object, moulding it into something different which suits us and our personal feelings about how it ought to be; this is to interpret the world -and, most particularly, that part of the world to which we do not ourselves belong, and which does not belong to us- purely in terms of ourselves.   I can't help but feel that this kind of solipsism risks destroying the object of love, if it be truly love, rather than mere desire; perhaps sometimes it is best just to look, or listen, and leave well alone.

I'm not suggesting that this is always the case; to an extent, in discussions of this kind, I find myself acting as Devil's Advocate more often than I would like, because I do believe that these things need to be said, and thought about seriously.   I certainly haven't suggested that there should be "prescribed" ways of singing a song, of playing a tune, or of what instruments should or should not be used.  I have said, though, that respect for material from traditions that are not our own demands that, if we wish to use such material, we do it with at least a degree of understanding.  If you change music from somebody else's tradition, outside that tradition, then it is, by definition, no longer traditional; however much you might like it to be.

If you change it with a genuine understanding of its nature and function, then it may well gain a new life in that new form; you may, equally, be able to transform it into something which may find its way into whatever tradition you yourself belong to.  I haven't said that it can't be done; maybe you can do it.  Some people certainly can; many, I fear, are simply not prepared to make the effort to understand what they are dealing with before they start tinkering with it.