Tom - I agree believeit or not!

I suggest that the route of learning - or at some stage playing with organised groups people, actually enhances your ability to add your own distintive interpretations when playing solo.

You have a bigger library of experience to draw on.

Both the performers I mentioned earlier are excellent at what they do. The dfference - it seems to me - is that they find it hard to be accompanied despite being excellent - for the above reasons; whereas many (most?) other performers I know can be well AND be accompanied through the playing-with-others experience.

Another little example that sits here is of a friend who needed a bass player for her folk band. A very keen supporter from a local club came forward - but gave up after one practice because his background was totally 44/country time. He had no experience of the more traditional Folky timings and complicated bar formats. He couldn't hack it because his musical playing experience was "sheltered" - despite being accomplished in the styles he knew.

Ian Fyvie