Klarinet Archive - Posting 000348.txt from 2000/03

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Another adult student problem
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 11:46:51 -0500

Mary W. Balch writes,
>Amongst 20 or so clarinet and saxophone students that I teach, I have 2
adult students. One plays clarinet and the other tenor saxophone. The lady
that is playing clarinet is about 40-45 years old. She likes to play all the
time, which is a good thing. The bad part is that she keeps on playing even
when I am talking to her. So we end up wasting about 5 minutes of a 30
minute lesson with this problem. I really don't want to embarrass her by
calling it to her attention, but I'm getting about sick and tired of it!
Adults should know better! None of my other students act like this. My
other adult student is a 30-35 year old male. This particular lady knows my
father from a previous job that he had and I am wondering if she perceives me
as being young and ignorant, since I am 27 years old....>

If you don't make an issue of the age difference, chances are she won't,
either. All the time you're worrying that she might see you as a young
whippersnapper, she's probably worrying that you might see her as an old
fart. Since she can't read your mind, you must tell her how you prefer for
her to behave during lessons. Since you can't read her mind, either, it's no
use speculating that telling her not to play while you're talking *might*
embarrass her or that she *might* regard you as young and ignorant. To avoid
misunderstandings, you need to initiate two-way communication with her.

IMHO, the conversation will prove more productive if you prepare for it as a
chance to organize her lessons, rather than as a gripe session. For
instance, at a time when she's not playing, you might say, "Now I'm going to
have you start playing a phrase I'll point out to you, and then I'm going to
signal you to stop playing, while I explain something." As you say this, you
can mime holding a clarinet up in playing position and then lowering it to
your lap -- show her exactly what you want her to do. This way, you can tell
her what's going to happen *now* instead of complaining about something
that's already history. You might teach her a visual cue, such as the
football referee's "T" (timeout) sign with your hands, and tell her, "When I
do this, I'd like for you to stop playing." If she expects the interruption
as a normal, planned part of your lesson, she's less likely to feel annoyed
when you cut her off.

Has she studied music before? If so, it may be that as a beginner, she
tended to stop and repeat, stop and repeat, stop and repeat, a fatal habit
for anyone who wishes to play with a group. A previous instructor may have
stressed, "Keep on playing, even if a hurricane blows the roof off!" She may
have learned that lesson too well for her own good.

Even if she's a complete beginner, chances are she read about music lessons
and asked friends what to expect and how to behave, before she signed up.
People may have told her how important it is to learn to keep up with the
music. She may know that competition juries downgrade students for
hesitating or repeating when they make mistakes. The behavior that irritates
you, far from showing disrespect based on the difference in your ages, may be
her earnest attempt to play by what she perceives as the general rules. It
might astonish her to find out that you *do* want her to stop playing when
you speak. There's no need for this information to embarrass her, as long as
you tell her diplomatically.

I learned to listen for two different cues from my best piano teacher. If he
said something like, "Go back to measure 24 and try that phrase again," then
I knew that he intended for me to play a brief passage, then stop playing at
his signal and listen to his comments. But when he said, "Let's run through
it from the top," then he meant for me to keep on playing, no matter what.
He might stop me at the end of a movement, but not before, because he wanted
to hear the whole concept (if I had one!) instead of isolated phrases.

However, he often talked to me, or sang, even as I played a run-through, and
he certainly expected me to keep on without faltering. The ability to
continue playing coherently, in rhythm, despite distractions, was a major
part of the skill he wanted me to learn. For instance -- let's imagine I
played clarinet for him, instead of piano -- if I had been playing the Mozart
clarinet concerto, and if he sang along with me loudly, "DAAH, dah, dee DAAH
dit dit dit daah," while swooshing his arms wildly, I would have understood
him to mean that he wanted bolder dynamics, more expressive phrasing, with
more emphasis on the highest notes of the phrase than I'd given him, while
the "dits" meant more precision, more staccato on those notes. He used
words, too, and used them imaginatively: "Menos rhubarbo!" meant I should put
less rhubarb in my rubato -- tone it down.

For music, sports and all other learning that involved physical skills, that
active type of teaching stayed with me better than the style where the
teacher lectures while the student sits still with folded hands and listens.
When I practiced the same music at home, I would automatically "hear" him
singing along with me in my mind the way he had sung in my lesson, and of
course "rhubarbo" and similar plays on words made his advice memorable. I've
since heard about a violin teacher who voiced his objections to excessive
portamento -- a bowing technique for sliding from one note into the next,
easily overdone to the point of goopy sentimentality -- by shouting, "What
greasy treyf is this?! Is -- porkamento!"

That reminds me.... I left something hanging from a previous thread on
teaching styles, several weeks ago. Apparently I somehow gave the impression
that my early education was a destructive experience. Several people sent me
what amounted to condolences after I had intended only to describe what I
perceive as bad moments with good teachers. On the whole, I would have
preferred for this piano teacher not to huddle down in his chair and sob
self-pityingly when my playing disappointed him, for instance! My teachers
had their human faults, and had to put up with mine. It seems I wrote about
my experiences with too much rhubarbo and porkamento, because, in music as in
all other subjects, I had far more good teachers than poor ones.

Lelia

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