Dick Miles wrote early in this thread: play the music enjoy it, and when you judge a teacher judge him on how good his pupils are and.... has he enthused his pupils with a love of music, not on whether he called something bs harp or c

Totally agree with this statement - music teachers sometimes overlook this absolutely essential ingredient in making children like music and it's sad to bring the innocent in to our world of dogma which easily removes the magic of music.

I think totally understanding music is a natural state we are all born with - but society is massively to blame for teaching us that we do not understand enough to be participants because of the complicated, human-imposed classical rules involved. I have yet to meet a child of under 5 who cannot sing/play by ear. But by 5 and at school they are already taught that they don't know as much as they actually know and you are fighting a losing battle with society's prejudices which I'm afraid are shaped by the classical music world who have an assumed intellectual monopoly on making anyone who can afford lessons mediocre at playing music with the vague possibility that one day they will be brilliant.