Klarinet Archive - Posting 000020.txt from 2002/06

From: "kenneth.wolman@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Teaching the 'students' of today
Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 09:58:20 -0400

At 01:13 PM 6/1/2002 +0100, you wrote:
>Teaching may not suit some people, anyway. I stopped having lessons as
>soon as possible, myself; and a few years ago my youngest son asked for
>a guitar for his birthday -- on the condition that he didn't have to
>have a teacher. (He'd been there, you see.)

There's also the variable--a lousy teacher and the effect said lousy
teacher can have on the enthusiasm of a student. I've been over this
ground before, I think: the in-school "group lessons" given to both my
children, same as they were given to me years before. At best the kid is
left to develop his or her own path; at worst, any interest is
squashed. My older son wanted to learn the saxophone. The teacher
insisted he go the "standard route" and learn the clarinet
first. Why? "Because we've always done it that way." He ended up not
learning either instrument and quit after one year. My ex and I consented
when he told us he wanted to stop playing. We also watched the
teacher--the same teacher--very carefully when he got hold of our younger
son three years later. This kid could play hell out of a trumpet but grew
frustrated and then lazy because he kept getting "tutelage" that he
instinctively knew was misfocused and inaccurate (details on request). By
the time he got to high school he made a switch to baritone horn. By the
time he got out of high school he was playing guitar--self-taught. I have
his trumpet here, just in case he ever wants to pick it up again. Musical
instruments have a funny way of coming back to haunt you--but they do it
when they're ready and you're ready for them, with or without a teacher who
often gets in the way.

>What's the *real* meaning, for example, of the more famous injunction
>'not to cast pearls before swine'?
>
>I'd say the point is that if you do, it's *you* that's stupid, not the
>swine. And they have a right to be annoyed, because they're interested
>in things that are much more important, for them -- and arguably, much
>more important anyway.

Maybe the question is "Why do you want to learn to play?" It felt to me as
though the teachers in the public schools were in the business of
perpetuating professional players or teaching them
professional-style. Yes, I probably am wrong here, and if so, then
so. Adult learners are probably much easier to teach and have a lot more
fun just hacking around, free of the idea that they're going to be Wynton
Marsalis or our Mr. Pay, for that matter (and you seemed to have turned out
okay anyway, Tony:-). At a time several years ago when I thought about
lessons, and before I realized I could not afford them, of the teachers I
called only one challenged me and said "What do you want from them?" When
I told him clearly what I wanted--to get rid of my bad habits and to learn
how to tongue properly--he said he could teach me that stuff on a
once-a-month basis, trust me to practice, and he--infamous for reducing
undergraduate conservatory students to tears--would be happy to work with
an adult who didn't have grandiose ideas of what he wanted from himself or
the instrument.

Ken

Kenneth Wolman http://www.kenwolman.com
"Do you think grief is anything like depression? Go with grief. It's better.
In grief you're at least feeling a rich, deep feeling. In depression you
don't even have that, it's just that awful feeling of nullity."--Dick Cavett

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