Matt,

I don’t want to highjack Pat’s thread, but I did want to second what Ray said about you. You don’t “fit the bill” of the “musician” discussion because you’re obviously a very accomplished musician regardless of anything you do with BIAB. We’d been debating on another thread about whether you had to be an “instrumentalist” in order to be classified as a “musician”, or whether folks who don’t play an instrument but use BIAB to create a song are also musicians.

I’m in the minority by taking the “instrumentalist” stance.
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Pat,

I would primarily fall into the EXPRESSIVE camp because I originally learned to play by ear and that’s still at the forefront of my playing.

I did however study some music theory so I could understand why things sound “good” and how music works. That greatly enhanced my playing and appreciation of music. It also made it easier to learn to improvise. I "almost" never play a song the same way twice, with the exception of where it's critical to a song.

My sight reading skills suck for standard notation, but I do use it and TAB to learn new songs. I prefer TAB for any fretted stringed instrument, but I used std. notation when I “dabbled” in piano and fiddle a few years ago.

I envy the folks who are great sight readers, but I pity those who can’t play without having the sheet music in front of them. (No flames please! It’s just my opinion).

Bob
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http://soundcloud.com/bobcflatpicke/music-in-the-mountains