Hi Susan,

This is an interesting approach.

When you jam with others, do you encounter music that you don't like? If so, how do you deal with that?

It sounds like to me that your approach is very much teaching but in a different kind of way. Your interest in the individual student is refreshing. Do you get your students to play music together or is this more one on one?

I would imagine that you would be truthful. How much does this reflect your own interests (say as different from theirs)?  I think a person can only be objective about teaching others to a point. For example, I can teach some young kids to play rock solos because I've done it but I don't like it. So I won't do it. I've even sat down an annotated some Jimi Hendrix but although I appreciate what he did, I don't like to be a part of that style of playing.  

You use the term mentor rather than teacher. I would assume that the conventional way of teaching runs antithetical to the way you work with students. You might not even want to call them students, right?

When you present them with your band, what does that entail? Do they sit in with you on public performances? What kind of band is it?

Do you document what you do instinctively and keep notes on each individual student? I assume you have in mind what you feel the student needs to find his/her way. How do you determine those deliberate choices? Do they differ from student to student?

I see what you do as an important part of the folk process. It's similar to the way traditional folk singers and players act within their subculture. They learn from their parents, relatives, friends in somewhat the same way. For example, Jean Ritchie's family from the Cumberlands taught her in kind of this way I would suppose. Maybe not formally but by modeling as you have pointed out.
How do you integrate what you do creatively with other folk's interest?

I used to think (maybe still do) that you can't really teach anyone anything but you can present the information in an interesting an involved way. Maybe this is teaching in a real sense. So much of what we call "education" is about lecturing and spoon-feeding in a hierarchical manner. The teacher is god (master) and the student is neophyte (slave). That's not real education to me.

I think that the folkies growing up in the Revival tended to be inconoclasts and the idea of learning anything formally would not be appealing. OTOH musicians like Doc Watson tell us on his "Legacy" recording that he thought that what he did wasn't interesting to others. He was surprised when there was so much interest in what he does. He learned to play different kinds of music to play at dances and in bands. Much of the accoustic single-string fiddle tune styles he learned from playing electric guitar. I don't think he'd be resistant to learning anything from anyone. I find that the best musicians that I've known are eager to learn anything anyway anytime. However, the focus in what they do is pretty consistent. (Being a good picker or singer or etc.)

How do you handle someone who is ambivalent about wanting to learn?

There are so many books, CD's, videos etc. to learn from on an individual level.
Less is said about learning to jam. What do your jams consist of? Picking and singing? Learning the same songs? How do you conduct a jam?

You said,
"I think when people are in this kind of adult, active-learning mode, it's the music that's doing the teaching."

I absolutely agree. You could even plug in the word "subject" for "music".

And,
"We don't operate the folk process unilaterally... it operates US, just as much."

I think that this is really the only way you can learn folk music. The student becomes the teacher as well as the other way 'round.
This kind of interaction is what gives folk music it's vitality, I believe.

Both you and Mark take a kind of mentoring role in your "teaching" if you want to call it that...a kind of modeling for your students. Do you ever get to a point when you tell the student that they don't need you now and suggest where else to go to continue their learning? I've done this a couple of times I think with guitar and 5-string banjo students.

Frank Hamilton