Klarinet Archive - Posting 000480.txt from 2004/10

From: Clarinetologist@-----.com
Subj: Re: [kl] The authoritarian teacher (was: [kl] Daniel Bonade and Rose)
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 01:16:55 -0400

Patricia,

I can assure you that this is not a situation of ADHD, absent mindedness or tyrannical teaching. Of all groups who would be sympathetic to someone interested in an absolute attention to detail, it would be clarinetists!

Please don't put too much emphasis or any assumptions into this. It can be summed up as a good experience for me that has beneficial in years that followed.

Rich

In a message dated 10/15/2004 11:53:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "Patricia A. Smith" <arlyss1@-----.net> writes:

>Lelia Loban wrote:
>
>>1.  The teacher hero-worships one of his or her own former teachers who used this method, and blindly copies it, or saw a description of this method in a book or heard it in a college class, and copied it.  
>>
>><snip of a well written post, for space considerations>
>>  
>>
>Lelia, you make some good points.   I definitely think there are a
>goodly number of those "sadistic" "Professor Umbridge" types from HPV
>out there.   That said, I also believe some other things have been
>overlooked in the process:
>
>1)  Often, too many young players come from backgrounds that focus way
>too much upon "playing" as the MOST desirable career in music, while
>other careers in music are inferior by inference.  However, without
>music teachers, music therapists, music retailers, repair specialists,
>people who develop music-making software, people who develop curricula
>for music instruction, etc., where would we be?  IMO, though it is
>wonderful to appreciate fine performers and their artistry, it is also
>important to realize that these other professionals have dedicated their
>lives to assisting others in ways that are not only important to music,
>but to society at large.  Our world would be poorer without them.
>
>2) Though I felt you described three possibilities for the "micro-focus"
>on such a few measures in a lesson, IMO, there is yet a fourth
>possibility.  If the teacher is otherwise an amiable sort, and is not
>being mean or bullying, but merely too focused on details, perhaps the
>teacher may possibly have ADHD or some related disorder in which s/he
>has difficulty focusing attention for long enough periods of time to
>listen to students play entire pieces of music without stopping them.
>
>IMO, it is a good practice to listen to any prepared piece in its
>entirety - or at least through an entire section for longer works, even
>on the more advanced levels, in order to find out if mistakes are
>occurring in patterns or if they are merely isolated occurrences.  This
>is especially true of sightreading, technical problems, tonguing and
>rhythm perplexities.  If a student misses the same rhythmic pattern,
>say, five times out of seven, s/he needs some work on it.  If s/he only
>misses it 2/7, then perhaps that was a fluke.  But only if the teacher
>listens to that piece in its entirety will s/he know for sure.
>
>The teacher who inherently lacks ability to focus long enough to be able
>to listen to and analyze a student's playing for this amount of time,
>and can only look at minute details, a little bit at a time, will often
>break down a student's playing into manageable "sections" of just a few
>measures.  S/he will do this, not to be intentionally cruel to the
>student, but because if the student plays more than, say, half a page
>through a set of exercises, the teacher's mind wanders so badly, s/he
>forgets the music, and is most likely thinking about where s/he's going
>for the weekend, or, whether or not the guy next door has clean
>underwear.  ADHD is like this, and it affects more adults than one would
>think.
>
>This is NOT to say this teacher would NOT ever be a good teacher, or
>that the teacher cannot train his/herself to overcome this deficiency
>with behavioral interventions, either self-monitored or
>therapist-assisted. S/he may have a good DEAL to offer students.  
>However, a student would either:
>
>a) have to have some awareness that this is what is going on with this
>teacher, and that the teacher was not being picky out of malice, or out
>of thinking the student was "no good";
>or,
>b) the teacher would have to explain to the student that s/he teaches in
>this way because it is the best way for the teacher to remain focused on
>the student's playing (without going into a lot of unneeded detail).
>
>I gather, Lelia, that most teachers you've known of who do
>"micro-measure analysis" tended to be the "in-your-face" tyrant types,
>rahter than merely absent-minded professors trying to fight being
>absent-minded...those tyrants are the ones I avoid - for myself & the kids.
>
>Patricia Smith
>
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