Thanks, everyone, for the responses and the vote of confidence!

To answer Leeneia's question, the two people who asked me about playing blues are friends of mine, and they were asking in jam situations to see if I could join in. I guess I should have explained the circumstances. The first of the two events at which I was asked about blues-playing was our folk-song society's monthly meeting, during the general-jam portion of the meeting. There are a couple of rooms in the building where we meet, in which we can jam, and most folks had migrated to a jam in one room while I still had my HD set up in the other room. I was chatting with friends when a stand-up bass player with whom I sometimes perform (on guitar) came in. He wanted to jam on some of the blues songs we perform together, but I had not brought my guitar to the meeting. So, we tried a few basic 1-4-5 turns with the HD, but I wasn't "feeling the groove" as it were, and I gave it up. Maybe I'll be more comfortable with the idea as I become a more proficient player.

The second event was a party at which people were singing their original songs while other musicians jammed along. The friend who asked about the HD there was about to sing his own composition. In songs he had sung earlier that day, I noticed that he was making some unusual chord progressions that would have been difficult for me to follow on guitar, let alone HD. This, combined with my experience earlier in the week with my bass-playing colleague, led me to decline to try to jam along on this friend's blues song. Instead I wandered off to assist the person who was making the pizza-delivery order for the party.

So there you have it: no animosity, just curiosity.

As you say, Leeneia, I need to get a little closer to mastery of the instrument before I would feel able to play blues on HD that sounds like blues, and not like something that sounds incongruous with the "sweetness" normally associated with the HD.

Hmmm, an ebow and a tone bar, eh? That would help. I'll think about it... :-)

In the meantime, maybe I'll have a crack at that Pizzicato Polka tune!