To Guest above. I cannot agree that reading music is an essential skill for the genre that we generally call "Folk". I believe that it is the ear learning process that makes this music as interesting and exciting as it is. Often at sessions you will get a newcomer to the music coming along who may be very accomplished at reading music, ask them if they would like to play a number and they will often play something they have learned from a book. Nothing wrong with that but until they have done a fair amount of playing with others and without the fly specs to follow, their playing is often very stilted. Not because they cannot play but because it is impossible to write down the way the music is played, you can only do so much on paper.

Give me ear musicians any day.