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Re: Issues of Pedagogy, and on the lower lip...

Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-11-08 13:20

I completely agree that teachers, especially the recent ones, could have learned from Sherlock Holmes about observing instead of just seeing. But there's another factor. As Katrina wrote,
>Second question: Elementary _band_ teachers do not have the same goal as a private teacher does. >

That's an interesting observation, when juxtaposed with two of suavkue's comments:

>>Yet, I somehow managed to make first chair every single year; that is, until I got to the university.>>

and...

>>In the past week, I was going through another embouchure-changing cycle for the same reasons as stated above, and none of them worked - they all sounded extremely bright.>>

Suavkue, you played much better than the competition at the younger levels. The band teacher probably had a lot of kids who sounded horrible and really couldn't do much about it. They weren't going to make it to the university level. At some point, they were probably going to decide to stay amateurs or they were going to quit. Those band teachers *needed* to hear you, the first chair, play with a very bright, loud tone. The teachers *wanted* you to lead your section by clearly-audible example or, if necessary, simply drown out the wannabe and never-gonna-be clarinets who squeaked and played out of tune and got lost and faked playing. The teachers *wanted* you audible to the audience despite the shrieking, bellowing, blasting young trumpets and trombones who hadn't learned how to play quietly.

And now I'm only guessing, but I suspect that private teachers back then also took into account not only how you played but where and when you played. Subtlety was not a great virtue in most of those venues. The teachers had an incentive to encourage you to develop the ability to project, loudly, with that bright tone.

Of course, when you complained that you wanted something different, then yes, they could've revised their incentive to fit the unusual circumstance of having a student such as yourself, who wasn't average, who showed real promise. They could've done better. I'll bet when you teach, you remember what happened to you and you pay more attention to your students' individual needs.

Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.

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