Years ago, I was spending a lot of time on SoundCloud. It was a wonderful website to me, since I could freely share my early efforts, but also browse and discover new music that I couldn't find elsewhere. It was a great way to find music that I'd like, and I was already very picky.
The website allowed you to set various different things as the genre of your music. I don't remember the exact details, but if I remember correctly, the genre could be basically any text string. There was also a blossoming trad music presence.
The way that trad is distinguished from folk, to my understanding, is that trad refers specifically to folk traditions of music native to Ireland, Scotland, and potentially also maritime and francophone Canada, the contradance music tradition in New England, Scandinavian music, and maybe even a bit of English music. Folk, in my mind at the time, encompassed any acoustic music that hadn't been subsumed by another genre already. Folk implies the possibility of history, but potentially also just historical affect, or potentially just any person who got their hands on a guitar and started singing.
These are not entirely inaccurate, but also aren't perfect. For instance, I was taking mandolin lessons at the time with David Surette, who was running the folk department at the Concord Community Music School. These ideas also say little of folk musics of other places. The point is that to my mind, there was a significant distinction.
One day, I went on SoundCloud to discover that they had set genres in stone, that trad was no longer an option, and that folk was now "Folk and Singer-Songwriter." In an instant, my ability to find music that I liked had been crushed in a clamor of starry-eyed, petulant guitarfolk. This was my awakening to the fact that the shape of the space determines the activities of the inhabitants. I was angry and devastated. The small music community that I cherished had been assimilated and destroyed. It had not been understood and valued enough to survive.
People still, of course, post some trad music to SoundCloud. Life goes on. It's just that the discovery options that once existed were obliterated, so very few people find and hear it, and usually to find it, you have to know what you're looking for already. There isn't much use in that - that's not what the platform is about. SoundCloud at its core and roots isn't really a streaming service, despite its efforts. It's a way for people to share and learn about new and exciting music.
Now I'd say that there is still a useful distinction between the terms, but that trad is just a subset of folk, with specific geographical roots. If you say "Traditional Music," you are referring to long-lasting folk musics, which are tied to place or culture. If you say "Trad Music," I'd say that I love and well know that music.
Ever since that moment, I've viewed online social spaces with a little bit more suspicion, and I've had wild ideas for how music could be shared online. How specific communities and traditions can find a home in quiet corners, open enough to allow movement and discovery, but protected enough to survive amid the onslaught of the din of a billion musicians. YouTube, for all its faults, has a pretty good idea of what trad music is, and helps me find new music. Bandcamp, for all of moral strength and character, just doesn't feel right to me. Maybe one day, I'll get it together and make it happen, but until then, the I hope that the music will survive in large part because its means of survival are not dictated by the internet.
Trad music is inherently a deeply social music. In the US, the structure of Irish sessions is generally highly rigorous, although not without variation, and cradles the music through time as if it were still the sole tether to the culture of the homeland. The only question is that of bringing young musicians up to the level they need to enjoy a session, and for the session to accept them. Since they are largely set in pubs, there is an expectation of a minimum skill level to not take away from the experience for the patrons. The circle looks inward, and the music that escapes containment is a byproduct, but even so, that byproduct is what guarantees the musicians their drink and, more importantly, their home.
Without a strong culture of home music in America, I think that online space for trad music is critical. Selfishly, while I'm living in a place that has no Trad music unless I spend significant money and travel for upwards of two hours one way, I lean heavily on the internet to keep me connected to the music.
I don't have a conclusion, but I'll wrap this up by saying that the most valuable thing to me right now in my pursuit of the music is a physical book of Irish tunes. I am finding it to be a renewal, an opportunity to grow my skills, and an excuse to stay in touch with the people that I care about in my music community back home. None of those things can be taken away by the gerrymandering of online space.