Klarinet Archive - Posting 000892.txt from 1997/11

From: Nicholas Yuk Sing Yip <nyip@-----.edu>
Subj: re: thank You
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 12:33:04 -0500

It has been quite awhile since this came up. Anyway, I managed to find a
clarinet instructor that I can "click" with. I am currently at UC Santa
Cruz and am getting my performance degree there. I will get my education
degree somewhere else. I am taking lessons with Mark Brandenburg. He is a
great teacher as well as a performer. I discovered this myself!(^_^)
Thank you!

On Sat, 5 Jul 1997, Edwin V. Lacy wrote:

> On Fri, 4 Jul 1997, Nicholas Yuk Sing Yip wrote:
>
> > > Well, anyway, I have been playing the clarinet for the past nine - ten
> > > years. For the past five years I have been taking lessons with four
> > > different instructors and they seemed to have many different perspectives
> > > on how to play the clarinet. For instance one of my instructors thought
>
> I can't tell from your message whether you have had four different
> instructors in succession in a relatively short period of time, or whether
> you have been trying to study with more than one instructor at the same
> time, or whether your study has been irregular and you have had occasional
> lessons on an irregular basis with various instructors. In any event,
> studying with more than one teacher at a time, or with several in close
> proximity is very difficult to do, and usually results more in confusion
> than in progress. So, my immediate suggestion would be that you try to
> find a competent, knowledgable instructor and stick with that person for
> regular lessons on a fairly long-term basis. Try to follow that teacher's
> suggestions and methods as completely and as faithfully as you can. Try
> not to have mental reservations about what the teacher is telling you.
> When he/she makes a suggestion, don't measure what you are being told on
> the basis of what you remember some other teacher saying.
>
> Eventually, you will change to another teacher, and then you must adopt
> the new teacher's approach and methods in the same way. Ultimately, you
> will gain a broader perspective, and by picking and choosing those things
> that work for you from what you have been told by various teachers, you
> will develop your own personal style.
>
> Let me give you a personal example. I had the opportunity to study for a
> while with Bernard Portnoy, who had previously been a member of both the
> Cleveland and the Philadelphia orchestras. You probably have seen
> advertisements for Portnoy mouthpieces, ligatures and reeds. When I began
> to study with him, the first thing I did was to get one of his mouthpieces
> and ligatures and a couple of boxes of his reeds, because I wanted to
> adopt as much of his approach to the clarinet as I could. I wasn't trying
> to ingratiate myself to him, but after all, what he had to teach me was
> the way _he_ played the clarinet. I couldn't expect him to teach me
> someone else's way of playing.
>
> Today, I don't use that mouthpiece or ligature, or that type of reeds.
> But still, I feel that I learned a lot from him about music and about the
> clarinet, in part because I tried very hard to "pick his brain" on these
> subjects. If I had been resistant to his methods, perhaps insisting on
> retaining some things I had learned from other teachers, I feel certain
> that I would not have learned as much.
>
> Now, I feel in a much better position to evaluate what he told me and to
> use those things which seem to "click" for me. I don't feel guilty about
> not continuing to follow his methods completely, because I don't think it
> was ever his intention to turn out carbon copies of himself (not that I
> would ever have been able to be his equal).
>
> I have occasionally had students at the University level who can never
> quite bring themselves to change those things they were taught by previous
> teachers. When I make a suggestion, I can see in their eyes that they are
> measuring it against what they think a former teacher would have said
> about the technique I am suggesting. I think they feel that it would be
> disloyal to play something in a way that varies from what they have
> already been told. This situation pretty much ensures that the student
> will not learn very much, and that my job will be much more difficult and
> frustrating.
>
> So, to summarize, try to find a teacher you trust, perhaps one who is
> recommended by other players whose playing you admire. Then, stick with
> that teacher for a significant period, trying to learn all you can of what
> that person has to teach you. When you do that, you are not necessarily
> making a life-long committment to utilizing every technique that teacher
> does. In the long run, you are going to make those decisions for
> yourself.
>
> Ed Lacy
> *****************************************************************
> Dr. Edwin Lacy University of Evansville
> Professor of Music 1800 Lincoln Avenue
> Evansville, IN 47722
> el2@-----.edu (812)479-2754
> *****************************************************************
>
>
>