After decades of learning, teaching, playing, listening to other musicians' playing, talking to them about how they learned, etc. I've come to the conclusion that EVERY METHOD WORKS....for someone. And EVERY METHOD FAILS....for someone.

It's sort of like the placebo effect.

I have been awestruck by too many fiddlers who never had a second's worth of formal musical training to believe that music theory is essential.

But I've been equally impressed with the music of too many fiddlers with classical training to believe that music theory is necessarily harmful.

I've loved the music of too many fiddlers who can't read a note to believe that the ability to read music is essential.

I've loved the music of too many fiddlers who can sight-read with the best of them to believe that the ability to read music is necessarily harmful.

But you get the drift.

I'm a teacher myself. There's no guaranteed, no-fail, one-size-fits-all approach to the teaching of anything, much less music.

When I teach, my approach is always, at best, a sometimes uneasy compromise between what the student wants me to do and what I want to do, what the student actually needs and what I wish the student needed, the best approach for the student and the approach I want to take.