Klarinet Archive - Posting 001132.txt from 1998/11

From: Dan Sutherland <dsuther@-----.ca>
Subj: Re: [kl] Absolutes Squeaking
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 00:04:40 -0500

All right, pocket mice be damned.
Try this. Spread your fingers open as far as they will go. Slide them on
to your Artly or Armstrong [I forget the brand]. Feel the holes and keys
beneath your fingers. Try a passage that you customarily squeak on but be
determined not to flinch particularly with your left hand thumb. Let us
know how you do.

Dan

>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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