I CAN say without any fear of contradiction that Ringo Starr never had to give drumming workshops before The Beatles played Shay Stadium. Nor did Miles Davis never ever give instruction in intermediate trumpet playing to a group of teenagers before meeting up with John Coltrane for a gig in New York.
However, when it comes to traditional musicians, it seems that teaching the instrument they play or the songs they sing is an integral part of what they do.
Is it to do with the cultural transmission of an ancient art-form or is it just that no-one is going to become Justin Bieber-rich playing trad and the extra income teaching brings is always welcome?
Next week, the former Belfast Summer School of Traditional Music – now positively glowing under the name of Belfast Tradfest – is running classes in the whole gamut of traditional instruments with top musicians, singers and dancers eager and willing to share their skills with all and sundry.
One of the trad superstars sharing her talents at the Tradfest will be Armagh singer and flautist Ríoghnach Connolly, a young woman whose talents aren't enough for one band to cope with, fronting as she does, Honeyfeet, The Breath and Black Lung – and she also finds time to do a lot of teaching as well.
Does she enjoy teaching? Hell, yeah.
"I think it's more than a holistic approach, I'd say it's part of the tradition," she says.
"In fact, equally as important as the performing is the passing it on, because it's not yours to hold for yourself. It's not yours to keep, so there's no point in having it if you don't pass it on as it was passed on to you."
That cultural transmission has lovely mutual benefits for the teacher and the pupils.
"I like to get to the point when I'm teaching young ones where you see it is taking hold," says Ríoghanch.
"You are always trying to find a catalyst that gets your pupils hooked. It makes me sound like a drug dealer but I remember the time when I realised that this culture was for me.
"It was when I could go down to Miltown Malbay and sit with loads of ones my age – and I knew none of them before – but we all knew the same tunes. That was my moment, when I just thought to myself 'this is amazing!'
"We didn't even have to speak to each other but we had so much in common," she says.
Now when she teaches adults, she takes a different approach.
"You can offer them a certain type of song and let them choose their favourite, whether it is story-based or historical or because of the dialect but you can learn a lot about people from the songs they choose," says Ríoghnach.
Two years ago, for example, she taught a Russian lady who was originally from near Mongolia and who explained her culture, which fascinated Ríoghnach.
"She was from an area where they practiced some hardcore throat singing but she wasn't a Tuvan [a Turkic ethnic group from the Tuvan Republic on the Russo-Mongolian border] but she would wolf-whistle and howl and make animal noises and refused to sit on a seat but insisted on sitting on the floor!
"I, of course, loved this so we got everybody to sit on the floor and we had a great time!"
Flute-player Kevin Crawford from trad supergroup Lúnasa is another musician who travels far and wide to play and teach. When I spoke to him via Skype on Wednesday, he was in Albiez in the French Alps teaching and playing at a festival of Celtic music, Celti'cimes, along with other globe-trotting tradheads who will be cooking up a storm tomorrow night in the Belfast Tradfest's opening concert featuring Lúnasa, At First Light and the aforementioned Ríoghnach Connolly.
Both Ríoghnach and Kevin will be taking classes in tradtional singing and flute respectively. I asked Birmingham-born Crawford if he actually liked taking classes and doing workshops as well as performing?
"Absolutely," he replies enthusiastically.
"It's a massive part of what I do and I get a huge amount from it."
However, Kevin has a mantra where he says to all his students: "If you want to win competitions, don't come to me. But if you want to find a life in music and find the fun and the beauty in the music, then I'm definitely your man."
He tells me of his first teaching job in Boston where, on the plane to Boston College, he realised he didn't really know what he did himself and that he had never taken a lesson himself so he had no blueprint to use in his teaching.
"The questions they were asking me, I couldn't answer so when I got back to Ireland I started to figure out what I do – which is a good thing for any player – and then I just became better at sharing it."
"Now I can answer all the questions," he laughs.
And that is why Kevin is in such high demand all over the world. For the past 14 years he has been teaching during Celtic Week at the Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina and over that period he can see his pupils grow and develop over time, some of them even playing professionally or making records. They even have their own collective noun – the 'flutilla'.
Teaching in Ireland, Kevin has noticed the huge strides that are being made by young musicians here.
"Ireland is a special place," he smiles.
"The level of talent there is here is phenomenal. There is no way when I was their age that I had anything like the level of technique they have nowadays and the way they are progressing on their instruments at 9,10,11,12 years of age, whereas in the States people are coming to the music later in life and they are just looking to play it socially.
"Everyone has something to learn and I like to go back to the fundamentals and work out again what it is that grabs me about the music – and a lot of the time, it is the basic things like the pulse, the rhythm, the swing.
"When you become very good on your instrument, you sometimes tend to lose that core element, so I try to remind them of what it is that makes our music so recognisably Irish so that they don't lose the joy of playing."
:: Ríoghnach and Kevin are amongst the trad A-listers who will be teaching at the Belfast Tradfest next week. Full details are at Belfasttraditionalmusic.com
