Klarinet Archive - Posting 000643.txt from 1998/06

From: Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.Net>
Subj: [kl] Playing and teaching (was Beginner students)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 11:45:43 -0400

This is one of those questions that doesn't have a pat answer. Let's
remember that all generalizations are wrong.

I have known, worked with, some brilliant performers who could never teach
successfully, usually because they can never get it through their heads
that most students are not as gifted as they are. I have known a number of
music teachers, music ed graduates, who are not great players on any
instrument, but have made solid careers in schools where they have to teach
every instrument in the band.

But I've also discovered, since I began teaching myself eight or ten years
ago, that to get beyond the level of mere competence on an instrument, a
student needs a teacher who is an experienced player of that instrument. A
student who is taught to play the clarinet by a teacher whose main
instrument is (for instance) the trombone, is likely to have some basic
problems. A trombonist, or whatever, who was taught in college how to play
and teach the clarinet, may realize how vital it is to form a correct
embouchure right from the start, and to stand, sit and hold the instrument
correctly. He or she may not even know all the components of a correct
embouchure on one of the reeds.

>From time to time I get a student who is dissatisfied with her or his
progress in a school music program, and I usually find that she or he has
developed bad habits. Once learned, of course, they're very hard to break.

I know a few school music teachers, and they are all good musicians and
very hard-working people. But it seems to me that the conditions under
which they work - having to teach an instrument in group classes, and using
one of the band methods which are oriented toward performance right from
the start - must make it very hard for them to do justice to either the
very best or (shall we say) the more unpromising students.

Beyond this, there is a multitude of details like various approaches to
tongueing and mastery of the alternate fingerings that make the difference
between a fairly good clarinet or saxophone player and a very good one.
Usually it takes a teacher who thoroughly knows an instrument to diagnose a
student's deficiencies in those areas, and deal with them. I would never
think of trying to do that for a brass or string student, or one on the
double reed instruments. I teach piano, too, but on the rare occasions when
I have a student who promises to be a better pianist than I am -- and
that's not extremely good -- I pass him or her on to a real piano teacher.

The bottom line in my opinion: You don't have to be a great performer to be
a great teacher, but it is important to have logged enough time on the
instruments you're teaching to be able to start students in the right
direction. After that, students who want to become outstanding performers
(a minority, alas) will usually need to find a teacher who specializes in
their instrument.

Much of the foregoing would come under the heading of no news, but after
reading the thread Beginning students for several days, I decided it might
need saying.

Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.net>

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