comparative insight on what makes a particular musical community special. The influence of anthropology (recently of gender studies), and of our disciplinary desire to explain 'music' according to local perspectives, can clearly be felt here. My feeling is that folk music experts have been less interested in writing about musical people than ethnomusicologists. Of course, folk researchers have documented the lives of notable performers, but, I think there is a difference in kind in the ways in which ethnomusicologists and folk music scholars discuss the communities within which they have carried out research. ConclusionsGiven these areas of distinction, I would see nonetheless a rich potential for cross-fertilisation between these two fields. We ethnomusicologists might pay more attention in our teaching and writing (and perhaps also organising of concerts and workshops) to the musical traditions of the British Isles. This would, at the very least, help ensure that all graduate musicians (many of whom go into classroom teaching and arts administration) actually know that such music exists. Furthermore, through arming students with an awareness that aims in this music are not necessarily identical to those in classical music, and encouraging them to discover for themselves how this music continues to play a meaningful part in contemporary people's lives, we can perhaps begin to break down some of the common prejudices that characterise knee-jerk reactions to the mention of folk music. Given that few universities employ folk music specialists, then this responsibility would seem to fall to the (still few but slightly more numerous) ethnomusicologists. Moreover, some ethnomusicologists may perhaps wish to begin researching British folk music themselves - even those of us who have invested in foreign language training. Not only will we find rich musical materials and social contexts, but also we can get on with this work while waiting for ...
