". . . the dreaded not-enough-practice disease."

Yeah, BWL, exactly so. Among folkies in particular, there seems to be some kind of prejudice against practicing. It's all supposed to happen spontaneously—somehow! But during that workshop with Doc Watson that I mention above, someone asked Doc how he gets that kind of smooth facility that he has when he's flatpicking single-line fiddle tunes. He answered, "Well, I practice scales for half an hour every day."

You could hear gasps of horror all over the room. "Practice!?? Scales!??"

As my drinking uncle used to say, "Whatever you do, don't waste your time trying to learn the tricks of the trade. Learn the trade!"

That fifth position F fingering is a killer. I think one of the reasons that a lot of classic guitarists seem to be able to do some things that folk musicians find extremely difficult, is not necessary because they're inherently better guitarists, but because a folk guitarist will try to grab a chord like that 5th position F and hold it for a full measure or more, whereas when it occurs in a classic guitar piece, you're on it for maybe one beat and you're off to something else. You sort of hit it "in transit" if you see what I mean. I've seen Sharon Isbin pop into that fingering like it was nothing. But she was doing a scale run. Her fingers were in motion when she landed on the position for one beat, and then she was off to something else.

Don Firth