Klarinet Archive - Posting 000682.txt from 1998/06

From: Dee Hays <deerich@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] re:teacher talent (was beginner)
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 09:49:48 -0400

David C. Blumberg wrote:

> Mitch, what you gave IS an example of someone who can (or could) play.
> That is what counts. The teacher had the talent, and knowledge of doing the
> art at a high level. Do you think the great gymnast coach Bela (whatever
> the heck his last name is) who consistently coaches top Olympic gymnasts
> can do much now? No not at all probably, but when he was young, he could.
> That's the difference. How can one teach good tone, if they can't (or never
> could) produce it themselves? One can't teach phrasing, if they don't have
> the musical sense to do it themselves?

I seriously doubt if Bela Karoly could EVER have performed or even practiced on
the uneven parallel bars. One, they don't teach this to male gymnasts (the
male body is built all wrong for this event). Two, he was probably too big
even as a baby to even attempt them! For this piece of apparatus, a male
coach's knowledge will be academic but Karoly's (and other men's) students win
here just as often as students with women coaches (even many of the women
coaches are too big to have worked on uneven bars once they hit their teenage
years).

Yes you must have musical sense to teach phrasing but that doesn't mean you
have to be a player. Conductors make a career of phrasing and interpretation
but I seriously doubt if they are expert players on all instruments in the
orchestra. You can study embouchure academically and demonstrate it on a
single note but you don't need to be able to play Mozart's concerto or even
"Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

To be a successful teacher, one has to know all the little details but does not
need to be a particularly good performer. They have to be willing to
constantly monitor what the student does and correct flaws before they become
bad habits. This is where teachers so often fall down. They do not continue
to increase their understanding and they do not follow through on the
correction and monitoring.

If you required elementary through high school school band teachers to be good
players on all the instruments, very few schools could even have an
instrumental music program. It simply is not possible for most people to learn
this many instruments plus music theory, etc by the time they graduate from
college.

Yes students do risk picking up bad habits that will be hard to break when the
teacher only has basic knowledge of the instrument. However, the alternative
is NO instrumental music in the school system and that is even worse. Students
with a calling for music will sooner or later seek out the experts that they
need if they have dedication to go with their calling.

It has been my observation in life that the talented and great performers (in
any field not just music) are often quite poor at teaching. The person who has
always had a naturally correct embouchure simply cannot comprehend embouchure
problems. The baseball player who has had a natural fast ball since the day he
picked one up cannot tell you how to throw one. They have to study these to be
able to teach them and if they have had no problems themselves, it is rare for
them to have made this study. And it is unlikely that their teachers or
coaches would have brought up these issues. It is uncommon to teach a student
something that they can already do!

Dee Hays
Canton, SD

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