I've been thinking about my topic and I'm starting to find that a lot of the higher level of musicians really seem to have a strong traditional leaning when it comes to what music a person plays.  I remember not paying much attention when I was younger, but when Chris Thile decided to move away from bluegrass and start playing other music as well, I distinctly remember someone saying that they felt betrayed.  Thinking about this now I'm not quite sure how someone could feel betrayed that another musician would want to play music other than bluegrass.  The idea seems almost absurd, because to feel betrayal at something like that they would need to believe that they possessed some kind of ownership over the music Thile played and once someone plays that music they can't be another kind of musician.

I've also begun to notice the different values people place on musicians in bluegrass.  I used to think that the skill and emotional expression of a musician would likely give them a high value among the culture, but I'm finding in bluegrass that the musicians that people talk about most are the ones who promote the traditional bluegrass sound.  As I've stated before some of my favorites are Sam Bush, Chris Thile and Ricky Skaggs, but I've hardly heard a mention of Sam Bush, well known for his rhythm mandolin playing, while I've heard much more mention of Ricky Skaggs, who plays a very traditional style.  Of course there are exceptions and I often find that the people who do hold nontraditional bluegrass musicians in high esteem, often reflect it in their playing.  The leader of the Encinitas jam session for example, Jason, often plays some very chromatic runs on the banjo and I know that he has a taste for newgrass and jazz.  At one jam session, however, when talking to a bass/banjo player, he said that he had once been a good banjo player himself, but now he had ended up playing bass for "this guy." and motioned at Jason.  The thinly veiled contempt in his voice was rather surprising, in my experiences I had never really heard people speak ill of each other in the bluegrass circles.

I'm starting to realize there are certain boundaries, the difference between playing at a jam circle and at a performance, or the difference between the beginner musicians and the veterans.  It seems like at a jam circle that the general consensus is that the way a musician should play should be a very traditional style and that in a performance setting you can take more liberties, but shouldn't stray too far from their roots.  I think that the different opinions from the musicians at different skill levels comes from a certain place of reverence from the less skilled, taking and learning from whoever they can, and often finding a singular figure they try to emulate more than others, while the older and more experienced musicians seem to give respect in a various amount of ways, from traditional style and skill, to the amount of work another musician receives and even, as I've found, merely time spent in the culture.  The last one I found was very strange, because I was at a jam and I had garnered a certain amount of respect from the veterans due to my playing style, but when another musician came up to me and recognized me from when I had played in a band six or seven years ago, right away i could see there was a shift in how I was treated, a bit more like an equal rather than a young hotshot with a decent amount of skill.