Frank, I will answer your excellent questions-- you sure are engaged in thinking about all this! :~) I should reflect on it some first with my husband. So it will be a few days before I can address them.

A few "short answers"....

First, about keeping track of their progress this-- that's entirely on their side of the equation. However far along I think they may be when I will see them next, that isn't at all where it turns out that they're at-- they have either sped past my assessment by virtue of practice, epiphanies gained through listening to good musical models, hanging out with a better player, etc., or they have been busier than they thought they would be, and have lost progress or failed to make any due to lack of application.

When I work with them privately, it's on them to say what they want to work on, when they arrive. When they have not moved forward, we just repeat what we did last time, using the "lesson" time as part of the practice they missed, and then I assign motivating homework-- such as, "Choose four songs to bring next time, that you really want to play. Let's not waste our time together doing that, OK?"

Or, often, they have found a more accurate approach-- they have realized what little thing has been blocking their propgress, and they want to make a shift in focus or talk about what they spotted.

I have one big luxury in this-- time. I can give them a half hour or a few hours, and anything in between. One day I thought it would be a half hour of strum patterns, with myself modeling on autopharp anf the "student" on lap duilimer. But what needed to happen that day was how to simplify arrangements. So we worked throuhg a songbook he's using, that I also have used, and we did arragements and jammed them smooth for about an hour and a half. It was very satisfying and I never noticed the time rush by till my shoulder gave out!

A second answer-- our band is primarily a singalong band-- we play and songlead all forms of gospel. We also do some tin pan alley, and some oldtime, some Irish.... in a more "performer" mode we do fiddle tunes... the core group plays weekly for church services, and we are organizing concerts with Mudcat contacts. A recent description of "presenting" some of our people is in the thread, "When the Band Can't Come."

I think what we are "teaching" is not any specific instrument, but "Musicianship 101."

It's good you are inviting me to think about this more, BTW.

~Susan