Klarinet Archive - Posting 000018.txt from 2000/02

From: "Kevin Fay (LCA)" <kevinfay@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Need for Teachers
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2000 13:15:51 -0500

Jay D. Webler made (IMHO) an insightful comment:

<<<My point is that you have to be careful when you teach yourself for you
may go down the road of self-deception. You also may develop habits that
will be hard to break.>>>

It's been a long, long time since I took educational theory. I'm going to
paraphrase some thoughts by better thinkers than me -- I'd give correct
attribution if my brain was not withered by time and fact displacement.

As the theory goes, it's impossible to "learn from a teacher." We are all
inherently "self-taught" -- the learning only happens when the student
allows input, not when the teacher/book/stimulus decides to output. (It's
for this reason that note-taking is important, and should not be displaced
by laptops in the classroom -- the act of writing commits audio input to
memory in a manner that typing apparently does not). In other words, the
actual learning takes place in the practice room after a lesson -- not in
the lesson itself.

This makes sense to me. I recall banging my head against the wall with a
particular student, who just didn't get it. One day, though, the light bulb
goes on -- they come to their lesson mastering that technique, as almost a
complete surprise!

There are some people who can figure it out all by themselves, just by
working in the practice room to get the tone that they hear in their head.
Jack Brymer, as I recall, was almost entirely self-taught. Other people
require a bit more guidance. Consequently, the value of a teacher is not
necessarily to "show the way." If learning is indeed a trial-and-error
process, however, a good teacher can cut down on the errors, thereby
speeding up the exercise.

The best clarinet teacher I ever had was Gene Zoro, at Western Washington
University. Aside from being a fantastic player (and therefore a good model
of sound to have in my head), he taught clarinet as a *process*, where
particular problems would be broken down into the smallest possible
components. In short -- analysis, analysis, analysis. 90% of fixing a
problem is figuring out what it is. Which interval in the run is causing
the mistake? What is the *exact* tongue position that is making the
articulation muddy? Once correctly identified, problems are quickly fixed
with a little metronome time -- problems not correctly identified won't be
fixed, now matter how long and hard you practice your mistakes.

Of course, the very worst thing you can do is practice your mistakes,
thereby committing them to motor memory and making them that much harder to
undo. This is perhaps one reason that teachers can get frustrated with
older students, who often consciously or subconsciously refuse to change
bad habits.

kjf

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