I play separately with several people who are fairly new at it. I started playing with one very shy mandolin player who had been coming to my Friday night jams after he called me one day and said, Did you mean it when you said to give you a call if I want to get better? I said, Yes, indeed.

We've been playing together now for almost two years- and he's doing breaks and leads in the group now.

Another current one, a guitar player, is a good reader (which I'm not) but wanted to train her ear. We've been playing together now for about 4 months, and she also is doing leads and breaks in the weekly jam, with no paper in sight.

I took my cue from generous people over the years whose main tenet is to get as many people as possible playing. Meeting with a group and also playing one to one on the side is an excellent way to get comfortable. The most typical outcome is that they discover that they can trust their ear. Besides, it's a heck of a lot of fun.