I see what you mean, Brian, about cross-row vs single-row playing; in fact I think the method you suggest is pretty close to what many people do anyway (i.e. learning as single-row and adding cross-row playing later), because picking out a tune on a single row is such fun and so satisfying for a beginner, I can't imagine many people not doing it as soon as they get their hands on a melodeon.

I just found it helpful to realise earlier rather than later that there are other ways of doing things, and keep an open mind about the alternatives. I do cross rows quite a bit, but I don't find it a problem to switch to a single-row method if that happens to work best, because in a sense you never abandon single-row playing - there are always phrases or tunes in which nothing else works.

Maybe it's not so much a question of learning and unlearning as learning two (or more) methods in parallel.

Marje