Hello!
I'm a banjo teacher in central Missouri, and have been teaching here for a few years now. I primarily start students off with some tablature, but advise them that the tabs are suggestions, not the only way to play a tune, and encourage variation as well as learning by ear or inventing their own ways to play. I then gradually aim them towards learning licks and fills, and how to improvise within songs, piecing together different licks and rolls for given chord structures. I'm also not terribly good at playing from tablature, and that is another reason I aim students to learn by ear and by aural analysis rather than by rote.
With that being said, I have a student from a classical background who is very reluctant to do anything that is not written down in tablature, and I'm starting to run out of things to do with said student. I was wondering if anyone else had any good ideas on how to try and get students into the magical zen that is banjo playing, and away from a strictly textual/classical outlook on music as having a "right" and a "wrong". I know I used to be a classical violinist and couldn't wrap my head around what the heck the banjo was about, but I just sat down and listened to Earl nonstop and it started to click.....Thanks!
--Andy in Missouri.