Those that can read music and especially those who understand how it all fits together (scales, chords etc) are at a great advantage. The ability to read the dots per se will not make you a better musician but the ability to understand what I would call musical syntax is, coupled with critical music listening as mentioned above. If you understand how music all fits together, it opens up possibilities such as interesting harmonies and chords. Of course there are many great folk musicians who couldn't read music but the current crop of younger generation folkies are all good readers of music and are pushing out the borders on what can be done with our music.

Tradsinger