I had a friend who played violin in the local symphony orchestra. He could sight read like nobody else. He wanted to learn bluegrass fiddle. I loaned him a stack of fiddle tune books and sat with him playing rhythm guitar to each song as he flipped through the pages. I've never seen someone play these old time songs so well who has never heard them before, much less interpret them from notation. But, he was classically trained and sight reading goes with the turf.

As Mike said, he was good at interpretation, but lacked the feel or soul of an old time fiddle player and he knew it. He needed to learn the feel, soul, or groove, whatever you want to call it.
He began meeting me at bluegrass festivals and started playing with and learning from the old timers. They were impressed at his talent and gladly took him in.

This was 15 years ago. He's still with the symphony, and is an established old time fiddle player.

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