Klarinet Archive - Posting 000219.txt from 2002/07

From: w8wright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: [kl] Teaching methods -- was it Nurture or Nature?
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 19:33:00 -0400

Over the past ten years, my daughter has become a piano teacher. She's
visiting right now. During the long drive home from the airport, I
asked her: "So how's the teaching going these days?" (She gives
individual lessons and also offers a 'master class' format.)

"Well, Dad," she replied, "I've found that it's really useful to role
play. I ask the students in my master class to imagine that Beethoven
and Chopin have materialized in the studio. What would they say to
each other? Usually the students draw a blank, so I play an excerpt
from each composer, and sometimes I discuss history or harmony, and then
I repeat the role playing exercise. The 2nd time around, they begin to
come up with ideas about what the two composers would say to each other,
based on what their music says and on their history."

This really struck home with me --- partly because she and I have never
discussed the idea of role playing as an educational tool before (that I
can remember), and partly because she uses the technique to solve an
educational problem rather than for the sake of recreation.

I suspect that most people on this list snickered (or shuddered?) when I
caused Mahalia Jackson and Mozart to materialize on Hangman's Hill, and
then I asked what they would talk about. If a musician must put
him/herself into the audience's shoes on occasion, then why not into a
composer's shoes on occasion as well? The concept is not nonsense.

[YMMV, of course]

My daughter also volunteered (without prompting from me) that, on the
basis of her experience, she is absolutely convinced that offering each
student a candy bar at the end of the lesson makes them more receptive
to requests for practice and to the other things that belong in a
complete music program --- music theory, proper instrument maintenance,
history, improved retention of what was covered during the lesson or
master class, and so forth.

I'm sure many of you remember my posts on the value of offering candy
bars and the negative comments (dare I say derision?) that some people
on the list offered in reply. Not every teacher agrees that it's a bad
technique. [My daughter commented that adult students are equally as
likely to nab a 2nd candy bar as the kids are.]

Another topic that she raised was the issue of 'feeling' the music and
'going with what you feel' --- as opposed to playing exactly as your
intellect and education say that the composer conceived. Without any
prompting from me, she went on to explain two alternative concepts of
"creativity".

One alternative is to put everything else aside that is not directly
related to the desired sound, and thereby to experience the sound more
intensely. The other alternative is to open oneself to *all* of one's
senses, and thereby to shed artificial and/or contrived restrictions.
These alternatives (are they mutually exclusive?) connect with the
'cross-talk-between-neural-pathways' and the
'sensory-foundation-of-rational-thought" concepts that I have frequently
advocated here on the list.

It seems to me that it's all tied together. Can (or does) focusing too
much on a subset of your sensations and cognition, such as the
composer's intent or 'proper' technique, restrict your creativity and/or
your intensity of emotion? Can music truly engage the entirety of
one's sensory and cognitive systems --- in the sense that you may feel
more musical or transported if you conceive of your entire body being
involved?

.......well, perhaps our daughter and I think alike because we raised
her. Or perhaps it's in the genes.

Or perhaps it's because the ideas are true.

Whatever the cause, it was indeed a pleasant surprise when she burst
forth today with many of the same ideas that I've been advocating here.
She uses them in a very pragmatic context.... Teaching successfully.

Cheers,
Bill

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