Klarinet Archive - Posting 000264.txt from 2003/03

From: "Christy Erickson" <perickso@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] re: anger and jealousy
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 14:14:12 -0500

Joe, This student's biggest problem was that I gave her so many of =
these
practice hints, encouraged her to learn her scales, all the things you
mentioned-especially the SLOW practice part, which I didn't learn until =
I
was in my 30's. Trouble is she couldn't put up with the frustration of
working on any of the details-just wanted to play well. Same with her =
piano
playing. I assign scales, arpeggios, etudes, etc... to work on but when
she'd come to her lesson, she hadn't done any of it. You can't hand the
responsibility off to the teacher if you're not willing to take their =
advice
and instruction. I showed her how to prepare her reeds but she never =
even
bought the materials needed to do it. When we would sit at the piano =
and
work on fingering she'd play a passage with suggested fingering once and
then would proceed to use a different fingering when she went home to
practice-never the best ones for her. I consider my skills to be rather =
up
to date since I went back to school for music after working in the =
social
work field for 11 years and I was much more serious the second time =
around.
If my teaching skills were lacking, the student this girls compared =
herself
to wouldn't have played as well as she did!

Christy Erickson

-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Wakeling [mailto:joseph.wakeling@-----.net]=20
Subject: Re: [kl] re: anger and jealousy

<< 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

---------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------