Guitarist David Fiuczynski says the emphasis on ear training helped lead him toward his own style. “You internalize all these melodies and you analyze them and you know what the intervals are and so forth,” the 2011 Guggenheim Fellow says, “and once you can identify things that are on the outside, you start to identify things that are on the inside. So that’s a means of finding your own voice.”

Though still an undergrad, bluegrass prodigy Sarah Jarosz already has a Grammy nomination on her resume. She finds immersion in unfamiliar styles to be particularly helpful.