"to play an instrument without knowing what you're doing can be damaging because you incorporate bad techniques that become so ingrained that it becomes a huge struggle trying to get rid of them to play properly."

Ah!!! :-) but many styles of 'folk music' depend on that very fact!

Many fokies hold a violin bow (it IS actually a violin they play, but they call it a fiddle - a viedle is a very different ancient instrument!) the totally wrong way to play classical violin. It is 'wrong' because their way of holding it prohibits them from being able to play the more advanced technical stuff (and play much above a certain speed!), such as Paganini stuff - he was thought to be in league with the devil BECAUSE he was doing things technically differently from the 'experts' of his day. But today, any serious VIOLIN player must be able to play Paganini - you can't pass the exams, for a start...

HOWEVER, for the folkie style of music they play, the technique is adequate. Note again, however, that many of those who play with the VIOLIN resting on the arm - a style of playing that is easily traced back to the Renaissance and may date earlier (and then there is the playing in the lap style - also an early method in 'classical' music for instruments older than the violin!), many also admit that in order to play certain Irish stuff 'faster' :-0 they need to tuck it under the chin! Shades of Paganini!

SO... who's destroying what again? :-)

Sounds like various forms of 'creativity' to me ...

But trolls can only think in black and white - or 'L-mode' - (no matter how many factoids they THINK they have learned!), what happens is why they seem to shift their stance in a 'debate' is because they keep redefining the binary cutoff point along the grey scale between black and white (in spite of demanding 'constants and absolutes' from others, they have insufficient Real World experience to know more than a few tiny unrelated esoteric highlights) ... if you have played with 'graphics' (or done much serious in the way of art above fingerpainting) especially on computers, you will understand this. :-)

They problem with being constrained to think in only black and white terms is that you always end up losing contact with the Reality of the World around you which is infinitely displayed in shades of grey...