Interesting thread. Some random responses to a bunch of different points by a bunch of different people.

I think Russ and that fiddle FAQ both touched on something important--you can't learn anything without respect for the music you want to learn and a willingness to meet it on its own terms. It goes both ways. I don't think a folk musician who can't accept orchestral music as having its own reasons for doing what it does is any better off than a classical musician who regards folk music as "incorrect." The fun comes in learning why, and you can't learn why if you don't think there is a why to learn.

It's a bit astonishing to hear someone say that one simply must never unlearn "classical technique" to play non-classical music. I can't speak for piano, but I'm curious if anyone advocates playing acoustic blues guitar in the classical position and forbids blues guitarists to use fingerpicks, steel strings, or their thumb to fret the low "E" string, or playing classical guitar on a Dobro with a flatpick. I find it difficult to understand anyone saying that either Gary Davis or Segovia was using the wrong technique for what they did. Better to ask why, I think.

There wasn't much differentiation between "classical technique" and being able to sight-read standard notation. When someone says "classical technique," I think of things like rest strokes vs. free strokes, wrist positions, and so on. Sight-reading is a different animal, I'd say, and certainly not the sum total of "classical technique." That must be true for any instrument. Oh, well--at least newer method books are less likely to have a section on notation titled "the rudiments of music" rather than something like "the rudiments of musical notation."

I don't think that learning some classical technique or sight-reading is a bad thing, but there are an awful lot of teachers out there teaching either or both without teaching much music. The fact that classical music has a developed pedagogy allows a lot of idiots to inflict rote playing on their students (my mother used to teach ear playing to the products of that kind of instruction). Is that worse than the lack of a fixed pedagogy allowing a lot of idiots to teach folk guitar as thrashing on a few open chords? I dunno, but in my book turning someone off to music is a pretty serious crime.

Dustin