The Whole Class Ensemble Tuition (WCET) is a model of teaching and learning music which takes place in many English primary schools. It is a relative newcomer to music pedagogy in the primary school. In the groundbreaking study reported in this paper, two new models of teaching and learning music are proposed. These are (a) "Music education starts with the instrument" and (b) "Music education takes place via the instrument." Conceptualised descriptions of classroom music pedagogies are not commonplace, and so this paper makes a significant contribution to the music education research literature by delineating, describing and labelling two of these with reference to the WCET programme. These distinctions are of international significance and are useful to describe differences between programmes, which constitutes a major contribution to music curricula discussions. The paper concludes that clarity on the purposes of teaching and learning is fundamental to effective musical pedagogy and that this is a matter that education systems worldwide should be considering.