Klarinet Archive - Posting 000326.txt from 1998/04

From: Jennifer Rose McKenna <jrm0013@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: lesson motivation
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 16:03:07 -0400

This is a similar concept that I have had in the back of my mind
all year now. I am an music education major who is taking 18 hours this
semester, and i practice everyday,(except for saturday actually, because i
work 8am to 8pm and then go to sleep because i work at 9 am the next day)
and I have a friend of mine who plays oboe. She is a good player but feels
no guilt at all for only practicing 1-2 a week! She says she goes into her
lessons and plays and gets congratualted for all her hard work...If I did
that I would go into my lesson and told never to come back!!
I understand the statement of " not all good musicians are good teachers"
but i believe in order to be a good teacher you must be a good musician.
But I have also heard the horor story from our marching band director, who
plays clarinet, that he didn't get to play at all during last semester
because of everything he did with marching band.
I can not imagine not continuing to play. But I also know that in order to
make a good living off of playing, you need to play fantasticly and
practice alot more than I do now. So I know I could never be a performance
major, becuase of the practice it takes, but also because I will enjoy the
feeling of teaching others to appreciate and love music the way that I have.

Jennifer McKenna
jrm0013@-----.edu
university of north texas
music ed major/clarinet concentration

On Tue, 7 Apr 1998 07:50:05 -0600 I AM THE PUFFER GOOSE HAHAHAHA
<talbotse12@-----.edu> wrote:
> Oh I fully realize that there are often times that one does not choose
> to practice. After a day of 5 hours of rehersal or a huge class
> load like yesterday would be one of thoes times. I wasn't saying that
> "ed. majors should be completely motivated to improve". I was just
> wondering if the Ed. students in question had ever thought of the
> concept that one must be a good musician to teach another to be a
> good musician. When one puts down the clarinet and gets on the
> podium with a baton......they are still performing themselves just
> with a different instrament. It is a perspective they need to try on
> for size. One motivation I have is that I realize that once I'm in
> the field (in just over a year) that I'm not going to get the opportunity
> to perform as much and there are times that I'm going to really miss
> my clarinet because I will be working thoes 12 hour days with all the
> marching band drill writing, sectionals, lessons, rehersals, and about
> a thousand administraitive duties.......it'll make 18 credit semsmters
> look like child's play. So I'm going to enjoy my clarinet while I can.
> =)
>
> Sean Talbot
> UW-Whitewater
> talbotse12@-----.edu