Personal note from Rita:

I've had a long association with Peter at this point and have learned from him a healthy respect for the fundamentals of nyckelharpa playing. Peter is all about giving his students the tools they need to develop their playing logically and sequentially such that every new skill builds upon a previously learned skill. He saves new folks from making all the mistakes the rest of us have made who did not have the advantage of learning at his knee from the start. So it isn't so much about learning tunes and being able to play them on the instrument, as it is about learning the finesse of efficiently executing the moves with both your hands such that you can bring forth the music without struggling with bad techniques or running out of fingers and such things that plague most harpa players off and on.

I would not advise anyone to start with volume 3 unless they just want to pick up tunes ... but that they can do from CDs. I guarantee that even a very seasoned player can benefit from volume 1 and volume 2, in that order.

I've met lots of folks who've played for years and are having a good time with it, but their form and technique is often lacking. I myself am a struggling wanna-be player, so I know how hard it is to unlearn bad habits, but I also know how wonderful it feels to correct something that wasn't right from the start.

I guess it is a matter of how humble one is. Personally I haven't graduated from volume 1 yet, although I can play tunes from all three volumes.