@Donald: Just one very minor point in reply to an observation you made earlier in the thread.  A couple very good reasons for using aliases online rather than your actual name are "identity theft" and "stalkers".  If you have never had problems with either of those, I am glad for you.  But some of us have, and online nicknames and aliases are more a matter of caution than a mask of anonymity donned for "fun and games".  Just a thought for ya there.

@Composer: Well, I'd have to agree that at least most of the people I've met over the years that considered themselves "serious classical" students didn't seem to be much on improvisation.  Polished mechanical regurgitation of respected stock pieces (much like you usually seem to be encouraging) tends to be more the norm with such folks, so far as I have seen.  Not that I looked much.  Not my personal field of interest.

But improvisational skills seem to be something that it is assumed are learned at some advanced level of training or that simply appear out of nowhere after a certain number of hours of practice of things that aren't improvisation.  I don't know where people get ideas like that.  Kind of like farming onions and expecting them to spontaneously turn into peach pie.  LOL

I have no idea where you get the notion that finger strength and independence are avoided when learning piano.  I can't think of any instrument that uses fingers at all where those attributes aren't considered desirable, actually.  So long as one bears in mind that strong fingers do *not* mean that one can't still play with a light touch.  But I do not believe I have ever seen any musical instruction that touts the virtues of weak fingers that all move together, as if the player was wearing mittens or something.   

Ah, Alfred.  The Alfred Method for adult beginning piano was the textbook when I took adult beginning piano back in college.  It does teach at least some bare basics in an accessible enough fashion.  I doubt that of itself it produces many "virtuosos", but it does have a reasonable success rate for resulting in people who can use all the fingers of both hands and sight-read at least reasonably on basic material rather than just plunk out "chopsticks" or something when a piano or other keyboard is at hand. 

You mention "Suzuki method" and Picklefish will usually do a "shout out".  You mention Alfred method for piano and I suppose I am obliged to follow Pf's example, since I do owe it at least being where I began to learn to sight read after more than a decade of playing by ear and improvising.  Such "methods" may have their shortcomings, but I feel reasonably confident that they will result in more people making some inroads on learning to play an instrument than your posts ever will. LOL  No offense intended, Composer, just being honest. 

One minor point, so far as the aspiration to be a 'real virtuoso' and accomplishing it 'with no instructor ever', you kinda already missed the boat on that, dude/dudette..  Most of those books you spew lists of were written by music instructors.  You may be receiving instruction from those individuals via their books rather than say, private lessons, but they are study materials prepared by instructors in at least a number of cases.

This site/forum that you love so to rant and rail against actually makes no claim to provide a full classical education on violin, if you bother to look close.  If you want to believe that is what this site/community is/should be about, I think you maybe need to balance your reality checkbook just a little more often.  

And it appears that now you also want to see if you can offend anyone with insinuations about "Trick" players.  LOL  Ah.. so now we see the terrible truth.. All the world is just a pack of silly "Trick Violinists", as opposed to the noble and true Composer, who valiantly strives against the unwashed and banal masses intent on belittling the noble soprano viol with their silliness. 

Seriously, dude/dudette.. Do you get this stuff out of a book or something?  Or is there some newsletter out there like "the Violin Forum Troll's Weekly" with articles like "'Trick Violin', the hottest new inflammatory insinuation for June!"?   If not, you maybe should really consider a career in stand-up comedy or something.

I mean, just to mention a few of your beloved composers/musicians, Bach, Mozart, Liszt.. Those guys knew and had FUN with every trick of their day, and invented tricks that are still making the rounds.  Just one example in case anyone maybe was napping in music history.. Liszt figuring out how to imitate some of Paganini's violin sounds with fast piano slurs? Hello?  Trick Piano, and a dang fine example of it.  LOL

Pierre really needs no defending, but just one comment you made that I can't resist.. "Pierre has to be vague in his responses"..

"Oh pot!   Black dost the kettle call thee!"  ROFL

Seriously, YOU are the one that has built a reputation here for making grand claims and then not delivering.  You are the one who is always making vague and undefined insinuations and imprecations.    

@EJ-Kisz: Yeah, I don't really understand any particular virtue in avoiding learning from other folks.  I've always considered it kind of a part of music that I learn at least a little something from every musician I've ever played with or sometimes even watched.  I think of that as a good thing, personally.

I mean sure, you want to develop your own sound.  But it strikes me that trying to avoid learning from others would result in having to "re-invent the wheel" so much that it would be more of an impediment than a help to one's playing.

Whatever, though.  "Different folks is just different."  Any way that somebody decides to learn, well, more power to them.  It's all good.