Klarinet Archive - Posting 000211.txt from 2004/11

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Clarinets
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:32:20 -0500

I agree Joe. Ormondtoby misses an important part of
communicating technical information in a teaching environment.
Before one is prepared to understand the exceptions to a rule,
the first thing to be done is for that person to learn the rule.

That you really don't need to own a C clarinet (which was
Ormondtoby's basic idea) was not the issue, and by bringing it in
prematurely, he stirred the pot before it was ready to be
stirred. First it was necessary for Kimi to understand what a C
clarinet does and why it does what it does. Only after that
lesson is fully understood does one bring up the fact that there
are exceptions. (As you know I don't agree with those
exceptions, but I am not going to stir that pot at this point
since it serves no useful purpose to do so.)

Any beginning theory and harmony student learns the rules about
parallel fifths and parallel octaves, and if you write them you
will die the death of a thousand bites on the ass. But after all
the rules are learned and absorbed, THEN you find out that you
can do these things under certain circumstances.

When I retired from my business career after 30 years and
starting teaching math, one of the first courses I got was a
class in intermediate algebra. It was a learning experience for
me because the students did not know how to add 1/3 and 1/4.
They knew how to add 1/3 and 5/3, but the minute the denonminator
changed between the two or (God forbid) three fractions, they did
not know what to do. So the process of teaching fractions was
for the students to understand what the basis rules were, and
those basic rules always insisted that the denominators between
the fractions were the same. I've oversimplified because the
fractions were really 2/x and 3/y, but the principles were the
same.

The next semester I taught the calculus, and many of the students
still did were unable to handle the rules of fraction management,
which in the calculus is death because one gets into complex
fractions in which the numerator contains many fractions with
different denominators, and the denominator does too.

Anyone who has to teach a technical topic must get to understand
that you cannot dump the entire subject on anyone's head all at
once.

In effect, I deliberately did not bring up the subject of the
optionality of the C clarinet because to do so prematurely is bad
pedagogy, not forgetfulness on my part.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Fasel [mailto:jhf@-----.gov]
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 8:48 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: Re: [kl] Clarinets

The Hell you say!

--Joe ;-)

On 2004.11.05 09:40, Ormondtoby Montoya wrote:
> <big friendly grin, but the mother of a beginning clarinetist
needs to
> now that such rules are not immutable>

Joseph H. Fasel, Ph.D. email: jhf@-----.gov
Systems Planning and Analysis phone: +1 505 667 7158
University of California fax: +1 505 667 2960
Los Alamos National Laboratory post: D-2 MS F609; Los
Alamos, NM 87545

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