Rok2id, I would love to hear their perspective. I work within a very large University art department with practitioners of many art forms, so I obviously have great respect for the opinions of professional musicians and educators. As educators, we have to find ways to communicate with each other across our particular specialities and hopefully instill love and knowledge of the arts in both students who are arts majors as well as students who are taking arts courses because of graduation requirements. I'm not sure what level of expertise qualifies someone to be worthy of public commentary in your mind, but if educators were to suggest that students keep their mouths shut and their less than fully informed opinions to themselves until they had reached a predetermined level of artistic maturity, we'd not be doing a very good job of educating them by today's standards. I fail to see why adults attempting to educate themselves about an art form should also be relegated to the silent corner unless they pre-qualify as an expert opinion. It's just art we're talking about here, not as if we are risking spreading bad advice about how a disease is spread. I would also advise a slight tempering of reverence for the opinions of art professionals as oracles of absolute truth. I've worked with many artists and known a few composers, people who have been in history and textbooks for decades. They were and are subject to prejudices, biases, and irrational exuberances in spite of having great erudition in their specialty. No disrespect meant to Frogman and Learsfool, just making a general point.
