Klarinet Archive - Posting 000262.txt from 2003/03

From: "Joseph Wakeling" <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] re: anger and jealousy
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 14:14:10 -0500

<< The fact is this girl compared HERSELF to my other student and asked me
questions about how she played as well as she did. My answer was always,
"she works and practices very hard." >>

I don't want to make any assumptions here about you and your students or you
as a teacher---and I'm not trying to be rude here---but it seems to me that
you're not really answering your student's question. "How does she play as
well as she does?" is really asking, "What do I have to do to play that
well?"---and "Work and practise hard" is really not an answer to that.
Because the obvious next question is, "At what?"

In fact the instruction "Work and practise hard" can even be negative
because if you work and practise hard at the wrong things it can *subtract*
from your ability.

Whereas even comparatively little quality practise on *the right things* can
have a marked effect on improving performance.

So it strikes me you might have some success by teaching this girl lots of
games and tricks to make the hard work more fun---games to play with scales
and arpeggios, with difficult technical passages in music, etc.

As I said, I don't want to make assumptions. But I *was* a "big fish in a
small pond" and yet when I came out into the wider world I realised that
*part* of my problem wasn't just that I had not had high standards to spur
me on (I was never the *best* anyway)---it was that I hadn't been taught
lots of habits and techniques which other people had had since the beginning
of their musical education. For example, I was never *taught* any other way
of practising scales than just playing them up and down, endlessly. The
same for difficult passagework---"Practise it slowly and speed up." *One*
way, but what about things like rhythmic variation? It was just assumed I
would find my own way. Seeing a student doing "well enough" within the
small town can easily be assumed to be enough---that is, the *teacher* can
be a "small-town person" as well as the student!

So maybe this is part of your student's problem too?

-- Joe

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