Road music

The tradition Mikhail was raised in, and the one he still works in. Road music is improvised and observational: the song is made on the spot, and made out of whatever is actually in front of the singer, which is generally the room and the people in it.

It has been worth more to him than most of what the university taught him. He has bought a seat in a merchant wagon with it and a week’s lodging with it, and been fed on it by people who took the labor too and thought the arrangement fair.