@ABitRusty - no I didn't, but I've seen Aly and Phil live on a number of occasions - first time was YEARS ago, when still a student - well - actually - no he wasn't with Phil then... it would have been with folks like Gerry Rafferty ( I remember that concert) - and he was also with some group I just can't recall the name of right now....  no matter... it'll come back to me....

Many years later, we had moved from close to the "Edinburgh circle" ( we lived in Dunfermline back then, so it was easy to get across the water to experience some culture in the big-smoke that is Edinburgh! ) to a village in the far north, and, oh about 12 years back now, I caught Aly and Phil at a local concert in a small local hall in Durness ( I guess the max capacity would have been short of 200 folks - but the place was mobbed and we were right at the front of the "stage" - ha - it was just a slightly raised platform at the back of the hall - and I could almost reach-out and touch their instruments! )

THAT was when I thought "Know what Bill - that darned instrument is for ME!!!!" LOL - although - it took me another 7 or so years to shake myself loose from the ties-of-work...  Musically wasted years....

So now - at give or take 5 years into playing, you can indirectly blame Aly Bain for the occasional tune I share...  ( Oh, and I "blame" @adimn as well - without whom and this site - I would never have progressed to the point I have !  LOL Pierre, ^5s NO BLAME AT ALL bro' - it's my Scottish sense of humour )

Yeah @ABitRusty - me too - on guitar  - was my first instrument at about age 14 (well, apart from an old piano-keyed accordion my old man brought home for me when I was 7 or 8 because he had seen me tapping my foot to accordion and fiddle tunes on the radio - that was before we even had a television !!!! ).  But yes, on guitar I was always (and largely still to this day) finger-picking melody lines, and not really playing rhythm guitar, let alone down-in-the-dirt rock leads...  Yeah - well, for soloing you have to really bring "something of your own" into it - and with guitar and "where I was at the time in terms of playing ability" I found I could never really jam with others ( well, not "on the spot"- it would need time to work together, which we never could really arrange ).   

And to some extent, I find the same issue on fiddle - but admittedly, to a significantly lesser extent - maybe that's just with the passage of time and becoming more familiar, in general, with tune structures and timing... dunno - but (well, for at least where I am in my playing journey) I do try to make my fiddle solos have a "bit of me" in them, a certain uniqueness, and not an "oh, it's just yet another take on such-and-such"

Yeah - your "fiddle hero" - I know precisely what you mean - it must be great to have an inspiration so near-by and indeed, the ability to access one-to-one lessons, awesome !

Indeed Tim @starise - there is almost always

"more than one way to do it" and "The fiddler is doing everything my teacher is telling me not to do right now LOL"...

Love it !

As a former tutor and mentor myself - not in music, but other disciplines - I have found that didactic-teaching-methods (which I avoided using, and preferentially chose a more 'student-centered-approach') , can have, in equal measure, both significant benefits and significant disadvantages. 

I say that (benefits and disadvantages of didactic methods) with no experience of being the student or recipient-of, say, a once a week 30 or 60 minute lesson,  and I "guess" that the "didactic teaching" method is - well - probably - what is largely used by those who make their living from doing that - and that's no criticism - it's really how they HAVE to do what they do, given the time-limited exposure they have to an individual student. 

As I say - not a criticism of tutors at all - I understand the position entirely, and the above ramblings on my thoughts about teaching methods were just triggered by your words !   It's just one of the many topics that interest me in general, and more specifically, how we, as adults, appear to learn in quite a different way from youngsters (and not just fiddle/violin)....

Yeah - up for discussion - for those who have a teacher - let's hear your thoughts.  There probably is a thread already dedicated to such a topic - well sort of - there is this link - https://fiddlerman.com/forum/t.....endations/