I barely remember doing some accordion workshops at festivals back home in Victoria during the nineties. I had no plan going in and just winged it each time. To start off we had an open discussion. Starting with the historical and went on to different playing styles which lead on to technical aspects of playing. I taught what I could on ornamentation and variation in the context of what the participants were familiar tune wise without teaching any tunes. I made sure each person got something to take away from the workshop. The funny thing almost each person gave me something out of it as well. We were all sharing our knowledge collectively.

I recently (3 weeks ago) attended a five day workshop of trad fiddle. I had no idea what to expect. The classes ran from 10:00 to 13:00 each day. Pretty much all that happened was we learnt a set of three tunes each day. So 3 reels, 3 jigs, 3 polkas, 3 hornpipes , 3 slip jigs. Oh there was a slow air and a yoga session slotted in there. What surprised me is that there was only some passing discussion on the technical aspects of fiddle playing. The Tutor went through the 3 tunes slowly and methodically so we all had them, then at the end of class recorded them into our phones slowly and then at speed. Each morning the selection of tunes were decided upon based on finding 3 tunes that fitted together and that none of us knew.
In hindsight I think it would be good to decide on 3 tunes and record them at the end of each day for the next day’s learning.

Its only a 45 min time slot, so it can't be anything that extensive.

I'm sure I'm the exception, but I absolutely hate "tune-teaching" workshops where the group learns a tune phrase by phrase. First, I don't really learn tunes that way. Mainly, though, I want to learn something about the particular style, technique, and approach to fiddling of the host artist, and that's usually lost in an oversimplified quest to teach a tune to students of such a wide range of ability and experience.
I understand why musicians tasked with workshop duties teach that way. I just get nothing from it and because most workshops are "tune-teaching" regardless of how they are advertised, I seldom go out of my way to attend them anymore.

I've only attended four or five such workshops. I find the "we'll learn a tune" approach all right, because in the course of it, you'll usually get some tips and insights into how the "teacher" gets their presumably superior playing; e.g., "I put a little trill here because there's not much happening in this bit of the tune, but you don't have to, and I don't always do it. And then I like to slur up this run to the D, to give it a punch with the downstroke .... " Of course, some fiddlers are not even that articulate about their playing, and a 'workshop' is more just a chance to hang out with someone whose playing you admire ....

Yes. I much prefer to get some insight into how to play the instrument rather than just learning another tune. Especially if the tune you learn doesn’t get played in sessions anyway.

I played quite a few workshops years ago, and some since then. Often they weren't really "teaching" workshops, but more like a mini concert (often with several people or groups). But in a smaller setting, where audience members, or other performers, could request a tune or ask questions like "how (or why) do you do that?" or "where does that tune (or song) come from?" and so forth. Also a good time to swap stories and ideas. I think this concept goes back at least to the Newport Folk Festivals in the 1960's.
Really trying to teach is difficult if the group is very large or with differing skill levels. I've done those too, and it wasn't always so successful.
PS - I think the Slippery Hill website has some recordings of workshops like this from the Brandywine festivals, if you're curious.

Thanks for input guys. This is usually a mixed box of cookies, some beginners, some novices and a few decent fiddlers, which is why I have tried to vary the approach each year. I am leaning to teaching a simpler tune, which all can get and then showing how to spice it up with bowing and so forth. That way everyone gets at least something out of it.

Still open for suggestions though!

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Originally posted by DougD

I played quite a few workshops years ago, and some since then. Often they weren't really "teaching" workshops, but more like a mini concert (often with several people or groups). But in a smaller setting, where audience members, or other performers, could request a tune or ask questions like "how (or why) do you do that?" or "where does that tune (or song) come from?" and so forth. Also a good time to swap stories and ideas. I think this concept goes back at least to the Newport Folk Festivals in the 1960's.
Really trying to teach is difficult if the group is very large or with differing skill levels. I've done those too, and it wasn't always so successful.

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Some of these festivals pay a fair bit of money to get some bands onto the lineup so they get some of members to perform workshops. This a way of getting their pound of flesh / value out of some acts. I remember once the singer in one of the bands found out just before a festival we were at he was doing a workshop "Songs My Granny Taught Me". I turned up at the hall to give him a hand, there was a big crowd but no singer so I made some excuse to cover him and canceled the show. It was a funny moment!

I've taught a lot of workshops over the last 40+ years, and if I've learned anything about them, it's that lesson planning is futile (for me)... I didn't learn in a linear or graded way, and the even the near-ubiquitous practice of classifying a piece or technique as beginner, intermediate, or advanced makes no sense to me.

Teaching a self-selected random group the same tune at the same time, in an hour or less? A recipe for frustration! I try to start out on the supposed topic, do what I can to figure out how the majority of the participants relate to that topic... but usually wind up going off on something that's only tangentially related.

It all boils down to time and pitch, and nobody ever gets good enough that they don't need to learn more about both perception and performance with deeper understanding of what it means to be in tune and in time.

I don't know about fiddle workshops, but at Clifftop for TEN years, I offered free one-on-one fiddle and banjo lessons.. LOTS of takers.. We'd see what a fiddler could do and then show them a possible next step.. Clifftop doesn't usually offer workshops and as far as I can tell our compound filled a need.. and we loved it also.