Klarinet Archive - Posting 001120.txt from 1998/11

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Absolutes
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 17:27:37 -0500

On Sun, 29 Nov 1998 09:19:12 -0600 (CST), rgarrett@-----.edu said:

> I wonder how it was missed the first two or three times around.

Mistakes were made....

> > explicit instruction *within a metaphor*. But, although you
> > responded to that, I think you were still smarting from what you
> > thought I had said about teaching in general to hear it:
>
> > > let's just not say the approach that seems to work well for others
> > > and doesn't work for you is wrong or less effective.
>
> > ....which I hadn't said.
>
> You concluded that I was "still smarting" yet when I conclude that you
> imply something, I'm wrong for you never having said it?
> Hmmmmmm......

I don't know what you mean by this. I was offering you a letout for
saying I'd said something I hadn't.

> > So I hope that my suggestion that you read what I wrote again can be
> > taken not as the insult it might have appeared to you initially. I
> > suggest that what has happened is that you've read the whole thing
> > with a particular slant, because of what happened right at the
> > beginning.
>
> I have not been insulted by you at all.

Good.

> I have many successful beginners - I'm secure in my teaching of young
> students. I posted regarding your post because I felt the message you
> were sending (while clearly, albeit busily worded, stated) was not the
> correct ones for blossoming teachers.

Well, you didn't understand the message properly, as you've said, so I
wonder how you knew that it was clearly, albeit busily worded, stated?
Or that it was not the correct ones for the blossoming teachers?

> It is, in my opinion, too general and philisophical - it is not really
> something that helps a teacher teach.

To consider that you may be saying something unhelpful, and to look out
for that, isn't something that helps a teacher teach?

> That I read it with a particular slant - well, everyone has a slant
> when they read something - you too!

Everyone has a slant.

But I was saying that because mistakes were made, you were
misunderstanding the whole intention with which I was posting. *That*
sort of slant.

> > By the way, I'm being quite surprised at the difficulty I'm having
> > just getting one small simple idea on the table here. Everybody
> > seems to want to hear me saying things I'm not.
>
> In conducting class, I tell my students that if one person screws up
> an entrance to a cue or gesture, it is probably the musician's fault.
> If several or many screw it up, it is probably the conductor's fault.
> If you are experiencing "everybody want[ing] to hear [you] saying
> things [you're] not" than I would humbly suggest you are not saying it
> well!

OK, I'll humbly rephrase that. There have been two people, and one in
particular, namely you, who seem to want to hear me saying things I'm
not.

> Regardless of what you have said to support the "definition" of
> dogmatic teaching (or whatever that was) -

You mean you *still* haven't got it?

> - you stated an opinion based on your definition - with your own slant
> with all the excess baggage that you have encountered in your own
> experiences - which is fine.

Nah, hand luggage only, me.

> People, myself in this case, will respond either positively or
> negatively in direct proportion to the strength of the statement -
> your's was quite strong.

Those people might take the trouble to read the statement more
carefully before responding to its 'strength', whatever that is. Or is
the 'strength' of a statement, that they want to respond in direct
proportion to, independent of its content?

> Regarding my teaching and your's (thanks for the compliment by the
> way):

> > But by the same token, you know diddley-squat about mine. The fact
> > that I don't at the moment have much to do with younger children
> > doesn't mean that I have never taught them, nor indeed that I don't
> > understand how important the job is. ("You have admitted....."
> > Pfui.) And, by God, I certainly have the experience of encountering
> > the results that people who *do* teach them produce, and engaging in
> > lengthy and heart-breaking repair work, sometimes.
>
> Well - I never meant to tell you that you don't understand the
> concepts of teaching young children. My apologies for having implied
> that. I was trying to say that teaching young children (beginning
> through 2nd or 3rd year) requires enormous structure, many more
> "absolutes" than older students, and firm pedagogy/sequence.

Well, 'enormous', 'many', 'firm'.... I'd put it rather that what young
children require is to be set on the right road, led to love the sound
they may make, encouraged to play a graded sequence of pieces,
preferably with others as soon as possible, and gently nudged back on
course when they stray off it.

But probably you already do all that. Or you could disagree with it, if
you want; one or the other, whichever suits.

> Your descriptions of teaching did not appear to fit into that mold -

Emphasis on the 'appear', here. Careful instruction is necessary when
necessary -- and not, when not necessary.

> further, it appeared more philisophical than pedagogical - and I was
> trying to point out that there is a difference with different age
> levels - something I must not have done a very good job of pointing
> out.

I know there is a difference with different age levels. I have two
children of my own. How did you assess that you hadn't done a very good
job pointing it out, since it's something I already know?

> I understand the process by which my 1941 Chevrolet car's engine,
> transmission, and front end were just overhauled - I watched, learned,
> and joined in the lengthy and frustrating repair work - but that
> doesn't mean I do it very well.

I don't understand this.

> I am not implying that you don't teach young students well, just that
> you have said you don't teach very many (if any?) of them. That
> usually leads one to conclude that your direct experience with them is
> minimal at best.

Well, it led *you* to think that my direct experience of them is minimal
at best. I don't know about 'one'.

Just looking at that again, what exactly do you mean by 'minimal, *at
best*'?

> I hope you can see how I and others drew the conclusions that we did?

You and the mice in your pocket, you mean?

No.

> My posts were really designed to discuss - not attack. Again, my
> apologies if they provoked anger or feelings of being attacked - those
> were not my intentions.
>
> Now.....if only I could play the five and seven key clarinets as well
> as you!!!

I think my playing isn't really relevant to this discussion.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE
tel/fax 01865 553339

"...his playing soars so freely, one is aware of witchcraft without
noticing a single magical gesture."
(C.D.F.Schubart on the harpsichord playing of C.P.E.Bach)

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