Klarinet Archive - Posting 000810.txt from 1998/08

From: gerhardt@-----. Gerhardt)
Subj: Re: [kl] Bad Audition (on bass clarinet)
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 10:09:19 -0400

On Aug 27, 4:30pm, "Dee D. Hays" wrote:

> There is a time and place for everything in life. However, college is a
> place to absorb the great mass of knowledge available. It is NOT the place
> to demonstrate your originality.

It is, however, a place to explore it, reason with it, and to learn to control
it; certainly not to repress it.

> It is NOT the goal of instructors and administrators to make your life
> miserable. It is their job and duty to impart the body of existing
> knowledge so that LATER in life you can build on it and develop original
> materials.

How much later? The instant your graduation cap returns to Earth? Ten years
after graduation? Most music students that I know are performing RIGHT NOW.
They're playing real music for real audiences who have real experience being
audiences. Many music students that I know (yours truly included) had been
playing "professionally" for years before returning to school. Are we now
required to unconditionally abandon our own experiences in favor of what
teachers--some our own age and younger--tell us? Must I really wait another
thirty years before I can begin to understand what Brahms is trying to say?

Students have ideas. They may be *immature* ideas but the ideas are not wrong
simply because one is "student" and the one who disagrees is "teacher." WHY it
is wrong or WHY it is right should be the issue, not simply THAT it is wrong or
right.

Music is more than just technique. Much of it cannot be taught, it must
actually be discovered. It doesn't have to wait until school is out, however.
Teachers can, from the beginning, give students the _room_ to make their own
discoveries, help them to _make_ discoveries, give them _credit_ for making
them, and offer _confidence_ that they can do it again.

--
Scott M. Gerhardt <gerhardt@-----.com>
5F 55 E8 3E AA 08 68 9A 58 CA 7C B1 B4 BE 24 B6

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