Save live music by taking a tip from Irish folk

Any live music needs thriving grassroots, writes Ian Stock, while Chris Hodgkins calls for a ‘Marshall plan for the arts’

Re Dave Simpson’s article (‘The whole ecosystem is collapsing’: inside the crisis in Britain’s live music scene, 1 March), maybe the industry needs to look elsewhere for role models. A repeatedly ignored genre is Irish traditional music – which is thriving as never before, and not only in Ireland. This is not a backward-looking activity for old crusties – the number of young people playing it is huge and the number of young bands burgeoning. Degree courses in traditional music of all sorts seem to be thriving. The Scottish music scene is similar. The main thing is that it is simple, honest fun – whatever your nationality.

We have just returned from Belfast TradFest, where every venue was packed to overflowing; the tuition workshops were at capacity and the pub sessions likewise. The Return to London Town festival in Cricklewood in October sees the same thing, and people travelling from elsewhere in Europe to participate. Last year’s Fleadh in Mullingar attracted 600,000 people from all over the world.
Granted, this music is not to everyone’s taste, but it is welcoming, participative, authentic and the very antithesis of the manipulative commercial music industry. It is a grassroots scene, where even world-touring stars are not too grand to spend a Saturday morning teaching eight-year-old beginners to play their instruments. Our monthly session in Colchester often fills the pub – on a Sunday night. Maybe the rest of the music world should take more notice.
Ian Stock
Coggeshall, Essex

An excellent article by Dave Simpson that detailed all the problems but was short on solutions. What is required, with urgency, is a national music plan for all music and genres, from education to performance to export. In the light of the devastation in cultural provision in Birmingham and elsewhere, this should be part of a “Marshall plan” for the arts. This must be a priority for an incoming Labour government.
Chris Hodgkins
Ealing, London