Peter, you said, "Certain elements are... a sense of a tradition, respect for tools, an ability to let the material (physical or otherwise) tell you what it wants you to do with it, and a kind of humility (that one will never know it all)."

That says it exactly for me. And your words were exemplefied by my beloved Byron, who came late (around age 50) to the concertina, but approached the instrument and the music with something approaching reverence.

Allison