Can Do Attitude
While looking up tai chi videos on Youtube, I came across what must be the most sensible piece of advice I have ever heard. It was one sentence: “Focus on what you can do.” In this case, he was discussing a hamstring stretch. If all you could manage was to get your hands down to your shins, then that was enough. If all you could do was get your hands to your knee, then that was enough. Do what you can do long enough and eventually you can do what you couldn't. That is the phrase. “Focus on what you can do.”
The Rebuttal
But what about all the things I can't do?!?!?! What if I'm trying to learn an instrument I've never played before? If I've never played the instrument, then I can't play it yet, so I can't even focus on what I can do because what I can do doesn't even exist yet!
The Rebutted Rebuttal
Yeah, sure, but that's totally not an accurate representation of how learning works. Think Mr. Miyagi. The Karate Kid needed to learn him some karate, and learn it fast. What did Mr. Miyagi do? Did he have the Karate Kid doing Flying Crane Style Judo Chops? No, of course not. He had the Karate Kid wax his car. Why? Because wax on wax off turns out to be an essential basic movement in karate, or most any martial art. The Karate Kid could do the movement, but not yet the art. Once the movement was perfected, he could then learn to use it in a different context.
Take playing the cello. Can you make your left hand into a “C?” Yes? Then you've got the about the right shape for the fingering hand. Can you do the Longhorn or the heavy metal \m/ symbol with your right hand? Then you're about half-way to a decent cello bow hold. Not all the way, mind you, but you're a good chunk of the way there. Congratulations! You didn't even expend any effort!
The point is, whatever you are attempting to learn must sprout from the seeds of knowledge that are already at hand even when you are a small child. If this were not so, it would be impossible to learn anything at all. How does a baby learn to speak? For a whole year, the child is doing little more than listening to the environment and to their family. Then what? The child does what the child can do: babble. The child babbles and babbles their way through a huge number of phonetic variations and, with a bit of encouragement from a kind parent or teacher, is nudged in the direction of the “correct” babbles.
At no point does the child think, “Oh no! I don't know what antidisestablishmentarianism means! Whatever shall I do?!?!” NO! The child babbles until something clicks, then practices what clicked until more sounds make sense, and then practices those until finally the child manages a coherent sentence.
So it is with writing: the child begins scratching scratches with a crayon; over time, and with direction, certain scratches are rewarded as the “correct” scratches; soon, the child has learned an alphabet, or the start of an enormous pictogram vocabulary; not long after, the child is writing “i luv mommy!” with an adorable backwards 'y.'
So it is with math. And science. And music. The germination of every subject comes from the observation of the external world, followed by the steady application of the instinctive advice, “Focus on what you can do.” It hardly ever occurs to a toddler what the toddler can't do, except insofar as the toddler is constantly seeing people do things that look kind of neat and, hey, maybe I should try that, too because that would be even neater.
The Dreadnought
At some point in ones life, however, one encounters a nasty monster: the Dreadnought. It is a combination of “cannot” and “ought” and “dread,” and it stands as the nemesis of all things beautiful and true. It begins innocently enough: One ought not run into the parking lot without looking around first because you'll get hit by a car and killed. I suppose, now that I look at that sentence, that is not a particularly innocent though, but that's where it starts. It starts with self preservation.
As long as the Dreadnought is confined to the world of self preservation, then everything is fine. The problem is, the Dreadnought is a terrible, vicious, greedy, gluttonous monster that will stop at nothing until it consumes all things in its path. When a young student is ridiculed for incorrectly answering the teacher's question, there is the Dreadnought. Wherever is a standardized test also lurks the Dreadnought. Wherever there is shame or guilt or embarrassment over the acquisition of skill or knowledge, you can bet the Dreadnought is there, waiting to feed upon a poor soul resigning itself to the infernal circle known as Iquit.
The Dreadnought says that a mistake is a failure. The Dreadnought says that one ought to know something even if one's foundation is unprepared for such knowledge. The Dreadnought says that knowledge Ought to be learned out of obligation, for status, rather than for the pleasure of learning and knowing. The Dreadnought says that if one ought, but one also cannot, then there not only no “do or do not,” there is not even try. The Dreadnought does everything in its power to trick, deceive, harass, and browbeat its victims into the Infernal Circle, Iquit, for exiting Iquit is infinitely more difficult than entering it. Indeed, once the victim has stepped into Iquit, it is likely the victim will remain to be forever feast upon by the Dreadnought.
Do you know what the Dreadnought hates most? “I can.” It hates the person who says, “Well, I can't do that yet, but I can do this.” It hates the person who says, “I can't do calculus yet, but I can do advanced algebra, and that gets me a long ways there.” It hates the person who says, “I can't play Flight of the Bumblebee at tempo yet, but I can play it at 30 beats per minute.” It hates the person who says, “I can't speak Chinese fluently, but I can say 'Hello,' 'Goodbye,' and 'How are you today?'”
The Dreadnought hates all of these statements for one reason, and one reason only. It hates them because they represent another step in a the Stairs of Knowledge, the stairs that lead the Dreadnought's dinner up and out of Iquit. It hates all of these statements because it knows that the person who says them will not stay on that step; the person who says them will soon see the next step they can take, and then another, and then another, and then, one day, the Dreadnought's dinner will have left Iquit completely.
“I can do advanced algebra” becomes “I can derive this function, and now that one.” “I can play Flight of the Bumblebee at 30bpm” soon becomes “I can play Flight of the Bumblebee at 60bpm.” “I can say 'Hello,' 'Goodbye,' and 'How are you today” soon becomes “I can say 'Hello, nice weather we are having! Want to join me for lunch?”
Yes, my friends, the Stairs of Knowledge are long and arduous, but at the end of them lies a sweet, sweet reward. You avoid getting eaten by the Dreadnought.
If that's not reason enough, then also consider when you learn to do something cool, everybody will be all like, “Oh, wow, you can speak Chinese? I'm sooooo jealous! I can barely speak my own language with any amount of competence, much less two languages! Teehee!” So, you know, there's that, too.
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Learn to Compose, Learn to Play
History is instructive. We have so many thousands of years of people doing things to learn from, how could it not be? (Don't answer that. I'm trying to maintain my faith in humanity today) Yes, we have much to learn from the ancients. Mostly, history seems to be an uninterrupted line of things that should have killed us, but didn't. Or it did, but it was ok because they had kids. Or it did, but it was ok because what they did was so stupid it made us stronger by removing idiots from the gene pool. This is why history is important: we learn to avoid the stupid things our ancestors did, like putting mercury in our hats, or think that green rooms made people ill because they were green and not because there was arsenic in the pigment.
Or we can learn from what the ancients did right, which was a surprisingly high number of things considering how frequently people were dying of diseases that could be prevented by taking a bath every now and then. One of those things they did right was (are you ready for this? I'm going to blow your mind), composing music and performing music used to not be separate things.
Say whaaaaaaat?
Yeah, that's right. If you were a performer, you were a composer, too. And vice versa, because there wasn't a distinction. To be sure, it wasn't a distinction because nobody thought to make a distinction. But to be fair in the other direction, nobody really could make a distinction because nobody really had a way to write down words for a really long time, much less write down musical notes and rhythms. It's hard to compose a tune for some spoony bard to play accurately if you can't put it on a stone tablet for them to read from.
What did people do? Well, they learned general rules of how things ought to work, and just sort of made things up as they went along. So every instance of performance was, in some way or another, an act of composition as well. Everything you played or sung followed rules, but those rules were really more... guidelines. It just wasn't anything you ever wrote down because that not only didn't exist, there existed people who thought that writing music down was literally impossible. Really? Yes. How quaint.
Now. Where am I going with this? As a teacher (if you are a teacher of musical instruments), we face two problems. First is teaching the instrument. You would expect that goes without saying, but you would be surprised. Second is the teaching of music. Again, you would be surprised. Part of teaching music nowadays is teaching music notation. Think, as a music teacher, how many times you have had a student mess up because of a basic reading error? How many times has a student flipped the letters of two adjacent lines or spaces? How many times have you had a student forget how to count a dotted-quarter note?
If you can answer those two questions with an actual number, you are either guessing, lying, or only just started teaching. The truly honest answer is, “Pretty much all the time is how much.” We then, as teachers, complain about the state of youth these days, and wax poetic about how good the good ol' days were when people walked to school uphill both ways, in the snow, then didn't bathe because that's how one caught typhus, and look at all the cases of typhus nowadays! It's a wonder anyone survives childhood anymore. Honestly!
But lets think about this problem for a moment. Imagine you have a literature class. Now imagine you ask the class to read a story. Now imagine all of your students only know the alphabet and they're trying to read this story. Now you have a good sense of a beginning music student's mind. Is it any wonder these note misreadings happen if the student doesn't even know how to form basic musical words? Playing Beethoven's 5th one note at a time is comparable to reading a Dickens novel one letter at a time. That is to say, in neither case are you reading, nor are you playing. It is entirely possible the information gets stuffed into your head one way or another, but since the information is without context, without pattern, without semantic meaning, there is no understanding. And without understanding, you find yourself easily falling into the trap of miscounting dotted-quarter notes, or misreading an F as an A, or any falling for any number of simple errors that are easily prevented once one learns to actually read.
That brings us to composition. Learning to compose a melody is not unlike learning to write a sentence. But in order to write a sentence, you have to know words and how to spell them. Here's the trick. We have an alphabet for music much as we have an alphabet for phonemes. A great many errors in musical practice have nothing to do with the instrument and everything to do with misreading the music on the page. But let me ask you this. Once you have learned to spell with any competence, do you ever feel in danger of forgetting the alphabet? No. Of course not. It's inconceivable! The otherwise random information of the alphabet has been organized into the far less random structures of language, and then used to the point that the alphabet is learned by rote. One hardly needs to think of the alphabet while writing, except for figuring out less known or particularly tricky words.
So it is with music. Once one has learned the “words” of music, once one has learned chords, scales, motives, and such and such and such, reading individual notes on the page becomes a trivial task. Reading errors will occur, of course, but much in the same way as a very literate person will correct a misspelling as soon as it is written, a musically literate performer will catch a note or rhythm misreading as soon as the error is played. And because such errors are found and corrected immediately, and because such errors are prevented from happening in the first place, less time is spent on what must be played and more time is spent on how one should play it. That is, one spends more time playing music.
“But Adam!” I hear the audience perhaps protest. “When does one begin teaching music composition? Teaching just the instrument is hard enough as is!” The answer is, “Immediately.” The trick is, don't tell them they're composing. Most students balk at the suggestion of being in any way creative because creativity is a thoughtcrime in schools throughout America, and the students are reminded of that every time they have to answer a multiple choice test question. What I have done with my students is, I put a sheet of staff paper in front of them, then draw four empty measures, give them a starting note, an ending note, and rest here or there. I then ask the student to pick some notes from the ones they know. As they name them, I ask them to write the note down.
Thus far, the student has no idea they are actually composing. They think they are doing a writing exercise. Little do they know, their devious teacher has a scheme! At some point as they write, I simply ask them to write the next measure the same as a measure they have already written. This is important, because recognizing patterns is crucial to reading music, words, or just, like, you know... existing in general. Once they have written four measures, I ask them to play it. They will make a couple of reading errors here and there. Then we draw four new bars, and I have the student pick some more notes, ask them to repeat a measure somewhere in there, and have them play that. After three or four of those exercises, reading errors are almost completely eradicated. All this in the space of a single lesson.
A whole lesson? Yes. And then another once the student learns some new notes. And then another. And then another... But think of the lessons you will rescue from the dregs of that dreaded question, “So what note is that again?”
Or we can learn from what the ancients did right, which was a surprisingly high number of things considering how frequently people were dying of diseases that could be prevented by taking a bath every now and then. One of those things they did right was (are you ready for this? I'm going to blow your mind), composing music and performing music used to not be separate things.
Say whaaaaaaat?
Yeah, that's right. If you were a performer, you were a composer, too. And vice versa, because there wasn't a distinction. To be sure, it wasn't a distinction because nobody thought to make a distinction. But to be fair in the other direction, nobody really could make a distinction because nobody really had a way to write down words for a really long time, much less write down musical notes and rhythms. It's hard to compose a tune for some spoony bard to play accurately if you can't put it on a stone tablet for them to read from.
What did people do? Well, they learned general rules of how things ought to work, and just sort of made things up as they went along. So every instance of performance was, in some way or another, an act of composition as well. Everything you played or sung followed rules, but those rules were really more... guidelines. It just wasn't anything you ever wrote down because that not only didn't exist, there existed people who thought that writing music down was literally impossible. Really? Yes. How quaint.
Now. Where am I going with this? As a teacher (if you are a teacher of musical instruments), we face two problems. First is teaching the instrument. You would expect that goes without saying, but you would be surprised. Second is the teaching of music. Again, you would be surprised. Part of teaching music nowadays is teaching music notation. Think, as a music teacher, how many times you have had a student mess up because of a basic reading error? How many times has a student flipped the letters of two adjacent lines or spaces? How many times have you had a student forget how to count a dotted-quarter note?
If you can answer those two questions with an actual number, you are either guessing, lying, or only just started teaching. The truly honest answer is, “Pretty much all the time is how much.” We then, as teachers, complain about the state of youth these days, and wax poetic about how good the good ol' days were when people walked to school uphill both ways, in the snow, then didn't bathe because that's how one caught typhus, and look at all the cases of typhus nowadays! It's a wonder anyone survives childhood anymore. Honestly!
But lets think about this problem for a moment. Imagine you have a literature class. Now imagine you ask the class to read a story. Now imagine all of your students only know the alphabet and they're trying to read this story. Now you have a good sense of a beginning music student's mind. Is it any wonder these note misreadings happen if the student doesn't even know how to form basic musical words? Playing Beethoven's 5th one note at a time is comparable to reading a Dickens novel one letter at a time. That is to say, in neither case are you reading, nor are you playing. It is entirely possible the information gets stuffed into your head one way or another, but since the information is without context, without pattern, without semantic meaning, there is no understanding. And without understanding, you find yourself easily falling into the trap of miscounting dotted-quarter notes, or misreading an F as an A, or any falling for any number of simple errors that are easily prevented once one learns to actually read.
That brings us to composition. Learning to compose a melody is not unlike learning to write a sentence. But in order to write a sentence, you have to know words and how to spell them. Here's the trick. We have an alphabet for music much as we have an alphabet for phonemes. A great many errors in musical practice have nothing to do with the instrument and everything to do with misreading the music on the page. But let me ask you this. Once you have learned to spell with any competence, do you ever feel in danger of forgetting the alphabet? No. Of course not. It's inconceivable! The otherwise random information of the alphabet has been organized into the far less random structures of language, and then used to the point that the alphabet is learned by rote. One hardly needs to think of the alphabet while writing, except for figuring out less known or particularly tricky words.
So it is with music. Once one has learned the “words” of music, once one has learned chords, scales, motives, and such and such and such, reading individual notes on the page becomes a trivial task. Reading errors will occur, of course, but much in the same way as a very literate person will correct a misspelling as soon as it is written, a musically literate performer will catch a note or rhythm misreading as soon as the error is played. And because such errors are found and corrected immediately, and because such errors are prevented from happening in the first place, less time is spent on what must be played and more time is spent on how one should play it. That is, one spends more time playing music.
“But Adam!” I hear the audience perhaps protest. “When does one begin teaching music composition? Teaching just the instrument is hard enough as is!” The answer is, “Immediately.” The trick is, don't tell them they're composing. Most students balk at the suggestion of being in any way creative because creativity is a thoughtcrime in schools throughout America, and the students are reminded of that every time they have to answer a multiple choice test question. What I have done with my students is, I put a sheet of staff paper in front of them, then draw four empty measures, give them a starting note, an ending note, and rest here or there. I then ask the student to pick some notes from the ones they know. As they name them, I ask them to write the note down.
Thus far, the student has no idea they are actually composing. They think they are doing a writing exercise. Little do they know, their devious teacher has a scheme! At some point as they write, I simply ask them to write the next measure the same as a measure they have already written. This is important, because recognizing patterns is crucial to reading music, words, or just, like, you know... existing in general. Once they have written four measures, I ask them to play it. They will make a couple of reading errors here and there. Then we draw four new bars, and I have the student pick some more notes, ask them to repeat a measure somewhere in there, and have them play that. After three or four of those exercises, reading errors are almost completely eradicated. All this in the space of a single lesson.
A whole lesson? Yes. And then another once the student learns some new notes. And then another. And then another... But think of the lessons you will rescue from the dregs of that dreaded question, “So what note is that again?”
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Words Not to Say
One day, I will settle on a writing schedule that will allow me to write, teach, practice, compose, and sleep more or less consistently. Today is not that day. Instead, I'm going to write a few words about a few words that I don't say while teaching any more.
Back up. I try not to say anymore. I have expunged a couple of these words from my teaching, and the effect has had a subtle impact on how my students receive my teaching. Namely, they listen more closlier, which means I repeat myself less often, which means I teach more in a lesson, which means my students get more better faster.
Before I go on, let me explain. This isn't about censorship. A good teacher will know not to say much outside of what they are teaching anyways. We've little time to spare for anything else. Nor is this about words of encouragement or discouragement that may or may not have the intended effect of encouraging or discouraging, depending on your personal attitude towards the student and/or any misguided attempts at reverse psychology.
No. These are little words. The littlest words are always the most importantest words. In this case, I mean to discuss the little words that are important because of their singular unimportance. They convey nothing, clutter up your teach-speak, take time away from actual teaching, and melt your student's attention span into a confectionery glaze which, while metaphorically delicious, is unhelpful to both long-term health and learning.
I of course do not mean to imply you use these words. No, you are far too erudite for that. I simply mean to imply that I have used these words, and that I have heard others use these words, and the results have always been less than ideal. Thus, my good reader, I wish only that you read these Words Not to Be Said, nod sagely, and say to yourself, "Yes, yes, this is quite right. One should never say such tripe in a lesson!" Now, onwards! To Excelsior!
Words not to say #1: "So."
I caught myself saying this today. Such a little word. Such a useless one. So easy to say so often. Look! I just wrote it twice without even trying! DAMN YOU LITTLE WORDS! "So" is perhaps the least offensive of these Words Not to Say. The problem is encapsulated by the Star Trek episode, The Trouble with Tribbles. A tribble is a little fluffy piece of cuteness that, unbeknownst to the Starship Enterprise, are cute, fluffy psychic parasites that multiply faster than rabbits at an Easter orgy. By the end of the episode, the Enterprise is filthy with the damned things, and much of the crew has been reduced to a drooling mass of whatever arcane fluid is produced when tens of millions of people watch a cat video on YouTube.
Such is the word "so." Individually harmless, when "so" catches a teacher unawares, it breeds until the speaker can hardly speak a word without prefacing it with the dreaded "So." Be wary, dear reader!
Words Not to Say #2: "Pretty."
I do not mean "Tabatha, you are very pretty today," although you should avoid saying such things lest you come off as a total creeper. Instead, I refer to the adverbial form of the word. "Pretty good." "Pretty bad." "Pretty alright." "Pretty pretty." "Pretty" is a word one uses to blunt the impact of the following word. Its entire purpose is to pull a word's meaning from extremity to the mean. The end result is language which is pretty boring.
Music is not supposed to be boring! Music is supposed to be the opposite of boring! You almost have to actively try to make music boring, and here you are doing just that by blunting your diction with a piece of tribble. Imagine saying, "That attempt at Beethoven's 5th was pretty good, but it should really be pretty awesome." NO. "THAT ATTEMPT AT BEETHOVEN'S 5th WAS PRETTY GOOD, BUT IT SHOULD BE AWESOME. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?"
Using the word "pretty" communicates low expectations. Not only that, it is quite difficult to use the adverbial "pretty" without also using words that suck ass, like "good" or "bad" or "sauerkraut." I take that back. I've used the phrase "That melody was pretty sauerkraut," and I got the point across. Regardless. Remove the adverbial "pretty" from your language, and your language will become much more pretty.
Words Not to Say #3: "Make sure."
Words consistently fail to express how much I hate this fucking phrase. Every time I hear a teacher say it, I want to rip my ears off and stuff them up my nostrils. Teeth gnashing just doesn't get it done. Believe me, I've got the flat molars to prove it.
"Make sure" prefaces some instruction which a teacher wishes not to be taken seriously. "Make sure you keep your bow straight." "Make sure you play in tune." "Make sure you don't take a huge dump on the carpet." God dammit, just say what you mean already! Look, here. I'll show you. "Keep your bow straight." "Play in tune." "Don't crap on the carpet." See what a difference that makes? And again, "make sure" is, like the other listed words, a tribble. While you're typing grades into your grade book, the "Make sures" are off humping in the dark corners of your brain. The next day, you say "Make sure you..." a few more times. Six months later and your tongue is a veritable shag carpet of tribble, and the "Make sures" have sucked the brains of you and your students into vacuous oblivion.
Worse, "Make sure" fails at every turn to communicate why we do something. Why do we keep the bow straight? So our tone doesn't sound like ass. Why do we play in tune? So our ensemble doesn't sound like ass. Why do we do anything I tell you to do? So that... Ok, look, if you can't get the picture at the third pass, work on your pattern recognition skills. Point is, nothing glazes a student's brains faster than "Make sure you..." Gah. Just typing it makes my tongue feel fuzzy.
Words Not to Say #4: Try
How many times do you have to see The Empire Strikes Back before you get it into your tribble-addled head? THERE IS NO TRY. There is only "Do," or "Do not." When you say "Try playing that phrase again," you not only take the impact out of your sentence with a totally unnecessary word, but you also imply your student could fail, which is counterproductive for the very reason that they will fail. Nothing wrong with that except that fear of failure has an uncanny ability to convince a human to stop doing something. Also, a student can walk away from trying with a clear conscience. As in, "Oh well, at least I tried." Don't try, do it. If it didn't come out right, do it again. It's not hard. "Play that phrase again!"
Trying takes you out of the task. Trying is the enemy of flow, effortlessness, and good taste. Trying is safe, which is why people try. It keeps failure at arm's length. Screw that. Get in, get your hands dirty, and screw up already. Then keep screwing up until you don't screw up so much anymore. Then keep doing that until screwing up happens less and less. Then keep doing that until you're so far up, you've forgotten what screwing up even smells like. Welcome to the Layer Cake.
(Aside: Layer Cake is a pimpin' movie. You should watch it.)
Sorry, I lost myself a minute thinking about Daniel Craig. Where was I? Right. Try not to say try. I mean, hell. If the sentence "Try not to say try" doesn't convince you not to say try, nothing will. Not even Daniel Craig.
Words to Say
This depends upon context, but ultimately, say what you mean and say only what you need to say. A student's bow isn't straight, just say "Your bow isn't straight, fix it." A student is out of tune, say, "Was that in tune?" If they answer "Yes," then you have your work cut out for you. A student isn't watching you conduct, then don't say anything, just put on that creepy clown mask you have in the closet and conduct right in front of their stand. Because sometimes words just aren't good enough for the job.
Back up. I try not to say anymore. I have expunged a couple of these words from my teaching, and the effect has had a subtle impact on how my students receive my teaching. Namely, they listen more closlier, which means I repeat myself less often, which means I teach more in a lesson, which means my students get more better faster.
Before I go on, let me explain. This isn't about censorship. A good teacher will know not to say much outside of what they are teaching anyways. We've little time to spare for anything else. Nor is this about words of encouragement or discouragement that may or may not have the intended effect of encouraging or discouraging, depending on your personal attitude towards the student and/or any misguided attempts at reverse psychology.
No. These are little words. The littlest words are always the most importantest words. In this case, I mean to discuss the little words that are important because of their singular unimportance. They convey nothing, clutter up your teach-speak, take time away from actual teaching, and melt your student's attention span into a confectionery glaze which, while metaphorically delicious, is unhelpful to both long-term health and learning.
I of course do not mean to imply you use these words. No, you are far too erudite for that. I simply mean to imply that I have used these words, and that I have heard others use these words, and the results have always been less than ideal. Thus, my good reader, I wish only that you read these Words Not to Be Said, nod sagely, and say to yourself, "Yes, yes, this is quite right. One should never say such tripe in a lesson!" Now, onwards! To Excelsior!
Words not to say #1: "So."
I caught myself saying this today. Such a little word. Such a useless one. So easy to say so often. Look! I just wrote it twice without even trying! DAMN YOU LITTLE WORDS! "So" is perhaps the least offensive of these Words Not to Say. The problem is encapsulated by the Star Trek episode, The Trouble with Tribbles. A tribble is a little fluffy piece of cuteness that, unbeknownst to the Starship Enterprise, are cute, fluffy psychic parasites that multiply faster than rabbits at an Easter orgy. By the end of the episode, the Enterprise is filthy with the damned things, and much of the crew has been reduced to a drooling mass of whatever arcane fluid is produced when tens of millions of people watch a cat video on YouTube.
Such is the word "so." Individually harmless, when "so" catches a teacher unawares, it breeds until the speaker can hardly speak a word without prefacing it with the dreaded "So." Be wary, dear reader!
Words Not to Say #2: "Pretty."
I do not mean "Tabatha, you are very pretty today," although you should avoid saying such things lest you come off as a total creeper. Instead, I refer to the adverbial form of the word. "Pretty good." "Pretty bad." "Pretty alright." "Pretty pretty." "Pretty" is a word one uses to blunt the impact of the following word. Its entire purpose is to pull a word's meaning from extremity to the mean. The end result is language which is pretty boring.
Music is not supposed to be boring! Music is supposed to be the opposite of boring! You almost have to actively try to make music boring, and here you are doing just that by blunting your diction with a piece of tribble. Imagine saying, "That attempt at Beethoven's 5th was pretty good, but it should really be pretty awesome." NO. "THAT ATTEMPT AT BEETHOVEN'S 5th WAS PRETTY GOOD, BUT IT SHOULD BE AWESOME. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?"
Using the word "pretty" communicates low expectations. Not only that, it is quite difficult to use the adverbial "pretty" without also using words that suck ass, like "good" or "bad" or "sauerkraut." I take that back. I've used the phrase "That melody was pretty sauerkraut," and I got the point across. Regardless. Remove the adverbial "pretty" from your language, and your language will become much more pretty.
Words Not to Say #3: "Make sure."
Words consistently fail to express how much I hate this fucking phrase. Every time I hear a teacher say it, I want to rip my ears off and stuff them up my nostrils. Teeth gnashing just doesn't get it done. Believe me, I've got the flat molars to prove it.
"Make sure" prefaces some instruction which a teacher wishes not to be taken seriously. "Make sure you keep your bow straight." "Make sure you play in tune." "Make sure you don't take a huge dump on the carpet." God dammit, just say what you mean already! Look, here. I'll show you. "Keep your bow straight." "Play in tune." "Don't crap on the carpet." See what a difference that makes? And again, "make sure" is, like the other listed words, a tribble. While you're typing grades into your grade book, the "Make sures" are off humping in the dark corners of your brain. The next day, you say "Make sure you..." a few more times. Six months later and your tongue is a veritable shag carpet of tribble, and the "Make sures" have sucked the brains of you and your students into vacuous oblivion.
Worse, "Make sure" fails at every turn to communicate why we do something. Why do we keep the bow straight? So our tone doesn't sound like ass. Why do we play in tune? So our ensemble doesn't sound like ass. Why do we do anything I tell you to do? So that... Ok, look, if you can't get the picture at the third pass, work on your pattern recognition skills. Point is, nothing glazes a student's brains faster than "Make sure you..." Gah. Just typing it makes my tongue feel fuzzy.
Words Not to Say #4: Try
How many times do you have to see The Empire Strikes Back before you get it into your tribble-addled head? THERE IS NO TRY. There is only "Do," or "Do not." When you say "Try playing that phrase again," you not only take the impact out of your sentence with a totally unnecessary word, but you also imply your student could fail, which is counterproductive for the very reason that they will fail. Nothing wrong with that except that fear of failure has an uncanny ability to convince a human to stop doing something. Also, a student can walk away from trying with a clear conscience. As in, "Oh well, at least I tried." Don't try, do it. If it didn't come out right, do it again. It's not hard. "Play that phrase again!"
Trying takes you out of the task. Trying is the enemy of flow, effortlessness, and good taste. Trying is safe, which is why people try. It keeps failure at arm's length. Screw that. Get in, get your hands dirty, and screw up already. Then keep screwing up until you don't screw up so much anymore. Then keep doing that until screwing up happens less and less. Then keep doing that until you're so far up, you've forgotten what screwing up even smells like. Welcome to the Layer Cake.
(Aside: Layer Cake is a pimpin' movie. You should watch it.)
Sorry, I lost myself a minute thinking about Daniel Craig. Where was I? Right. Try not to say try. I mean, hell. If the sentence "Try not to say try" doesn't convince you not to say try, nothing will. Not even Daniel Craig.
Words to Say
This depends upon context, but ultimately, say what you mean and say only what you need to say. A student's bow isn't straight, just say "Your bow isn't straight, fix it." A student is out of tune, say, "Was that in tune?" If they answer "Yes," then you have your work cut out for you. A student isn't watching you conduct, then don't say anything, just put on that creepy clown mask you have in the closet and conduct right in front of their stand. Because sometimes words just aren't good enough for the job.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
It's Not the Ears, but How We Hear
“Teaching takes patience.” I thought this thought. I even thought this thought was thoughtful. But what I thought I thought was not what I thought I should thought. Think. Not what I thought I should think.
Wait.
“Teaching takes patience.” This is a truism. I think it is true... ish. What I have been finding with my own teaching has been slightly different. I'm not actually patient. I mean, I am. But that patience is not the result of some inherent virtue that I have. Although it is a virtue...
Dammit.
“Teaching takes patience.” Yes. Yes it does. But where does this patience come from? That's the important bit. Some people might be patient because they have a high sense of mission. Their clear sense of purpose allows them to slog through to the greater good. I am not really one of those people. I suppose that makes me terrible, but I don't care. Haters gon' hate. Instead, some people are patient because they enjoy the job, like me.
But the more I think about it, the odder and odder that statement becomes. “I enjoy teaching.” It's a bit like saying “I enjoy getting flogged by an 800 pound gorilla.” Especially when it comes to music. How many parents out there have literally told their kid to stop playing for five goddamn minutes because jeezus, that violin sounds like a toddler in a fist fight with a fennec fox.
Not in so many words, I mean. Just, like. “Hey, I think you should probably stop for today, you have math homework to do,” except you didn't really care about the math homework, it was just a convenient excuse at the moment. Don't lie. You know you've done it.
I'm not even the kid's parent, and I not only hear that kid play for thirty minutes, I also hear pretty much the same thing in thirty minute increments for 4-5 hours a day. And yet I say, “Oh yeah, I enjoy teaching.” At face value that seems like the height of insanity. This is not something a normal person says.
But what I have come to realize is, I am not patient as an inherent virtue. I am patient as a result of a mind-set. It's a kind of mental misdirection. When I hear a mistake, the something I sometimes say to the student is “Yeah! That sounded awesome! It wasn't right, but sure sounded cool.” This is especially true for missed pitches, or weird sound effects the cello can make if you're not careful (or if you're supremely careful to make that sound on purpose).
Usually, the student hears this and is at first amused. They laugh, because that's not what teachers are supposed to say. Teachers are supposed to say, “Oh my god that was awful, you're awful, everything about your life will be awful until you do that again and do it right. … [student messes up again] … Oh. My. GAAAAAAWD.” So, you know, it's funny and, I must imagine, somewhat relieving to hear that while they didn't play what they set out to play, they at least made me say something weird.
Then I play it back at them, and that's when they realize I'm not just blowing smoke out my ass. What they had done was honestly, truly cool. And sometimes, the “mistake” they made sounds better than whatever is written in the part. I mean, not on its own, necessarily. Usually I take what they did and recompose what we're playing to include and expand upon the “mistake.” Have you heard that insufferable Suzuki vl.1 French Folk Song played in an Arabic scale? It's kind of neat.
I don't do that all the time. I only do that when it's actually cool, otherwise it will lose all its value. But what the student doesn't realize is, I'm actually doing that a lot in my head. Nothing they ever play is anything I don't want to hear, because while they're busy trying to figure out how reconstruct sound from a bunch of squiggles and dots, I'm hearing techniques Kaija Saariaho uses in her pieces for solo cello; I'm hearing musical indeterminacy the likes of which would make The New York School blush; I'm hearing Ives as melodies from different practice rooms overlap; or Ligeti as the orchestra warms up.
That's how I can be patient. When I'm teaching, I'm not hearing a student screwing up. I'm hearing music. It may not be the music on the page, but that doesn't matter. That is totally, utterly, impossibly inconsequential. The student may or may not ever play that page correctly, and all we can do is make some changes and try again. If they do, great, if not whatever.
So they didn't play what was on the page. But what they did play... What a sound!
Wait.
“Teaching takes patience.” This is a truism. I think it is true... ish. What I have been finding with my own teaching has been slightly different. I'm not actually patient. I mean, I am. But that patience is not the result of some inherent virtue that I have. Although it is a virtue...
Dammit.
“Teaching takes patience.” Yes. Yes it does. But where does this patience come from? That's the important bit. Some people might be patient because they have a high sense of mission. Their clear sense of purpose allows them to slog through to the greater good. I am not really one of those people. I suppose that makes me terrible, but I don't care. Haters gon' hate. Instead, some people are patient because they enjoy the job, like me.
But the more I think about it, the odder and odder that statement becomes. “I enjoy teaching.” It's a bit like saying “I enjoy getting flogged by an 800 pound gorilla.” Especially when it comes to music. How many parents out there have literally told their kid to stop playing for five goddamn minutes because jeezus, that violin sounds like a toddler in a fist fight with a fennec fox.
Not in so many words, I mean. Just, like. “Hey, I think you should probably stop for today, you have math homework to do,” except you didn't really care about the math homework, it was just a convenient excuse at the moment. Don't lie. You know you've done it.
I'm not even the kid's parent, and I not only hear that kid play for thirty minutes, I also hear pretty much the same thing in thirty minute increments for 4-5 hours a day. And yet I say, “Oh yeah, I enjoy teaching.” At face value that seems like the height of insanity. This is not something a normal person says.
But what I have come to realize is, I am not patient as an inherent virtue. I am patient as a result of a mind-set. It's a kind of mental misdirection. When I hear a mistake, the something I sometimes say to the student is “Yeah! That sounded awesome! It wasn't right, but sure sounded cool.” This is especially true for missed pitches, or weird sound effects the cello can make if you're not careful (or if you're supremely careful to make that sound on purpose).
Usually, the student hears this and is at first amused. They laugh, because that's not what teachers are supposed to say. Teachers are supposed to say, “Oh my god that was awful, you're awful, everything about your life will be awful until you do that again and do it right. … [student messes up again] … Oh. My. GAAAAAAWD.” So, you know, it's funny and, I must imagine, somewhat relieving to hear that while they didn't play what they set out to play, they at least made me say something weird.
Then I play it back at them, and that's when they realize I'm not just blowing smoke out my ass. What they had done was honestly, truly cool. And sometimes, the “mistake” they made sounds better than whatever is written in the part. I mean, not on its own, necessarily. Usually I take what they did and recompose what we're playing to include and expand upon the “mistake.” Have you heard that insufferable Suzuki vl.1 French Folk Song played in an Arabic scale? It's kind of neat.
I don't do that all the time. I only do that when it's actually cool, otherwise it will lose all its value. But what the student doesn't realize is, I'm actually doing that a lot in my head. Nothing they ever play is anything I don't want to hear, because while they're busy trying to figure out how reconstruct sound from a bunch of squiggles and dots, I'm hearing techniques Kaija Saariaho uses in her pieces for solo cello; I'm hearing musical indeterminacy the likes of which would make The New York School blush; I'm hearing Ives as melodies from different practice rooms overlap; or Ligeti as the orchestra warms up.
That's how I can be patient. When I'm teaching, I'm not hearing a student screwing up. I'm hearing music. It may not be the music on the page, but that doesn't matter. That is totally, utterly, impossibly inconsequential. The student may or may not ever play that page correctly, and all we can do is make some changes and try again. If they do, great, if not whatever.
So they didn't play what was on the page. But what they did play... What a sound!
Sunday, June 15, 2014
The Art of Lazy
Is it possible to start with a digression? Sure, whatever. Lets do this.
I always scratch my head when I hear people complain about scientists doing research and then concluding “the obvious.” It's like these people don't know what science is. You don't know something is obvious until it has been confirmed, yo. How many times have scientists made startling discoveries that upended what we thought was obvious? I don't know the actual number, but I'm pretty sure it is “lots.”
Digression over! Speaking of the obvious, I have been wondering over some received wisdom. It goes like this: “Practice everyday. Are you practicing? No. Is it a day? Yes. Then why aren't you practicing?”
Why aren't I practicing? Maybe because, possibly, practicing every day isn't the best way to do learn something. Do I know it isn't the best way to learn an instrument? No. Is mayonnaise an instrument? That depends on how much you practice with it. Horseradish, however, is most certainly not an instrument. Get that wanna be poser outta here.
Bear with me. I may not know that practicing everyday is not the best way to use your time, but I have a suspicion. And I would like it tested. Here is how my suspicion goes.
First! Let us say you are training for a marathon. What do? You start by running not a lot, you start by running a little. And then? And then you rest. And then you run a little again, and then you rest, and then you run a little more, and then you rest, and then... No 'and then!'
I mean, there's more 'and then.' You 'and then' until you've run a marathon. But the key here is, you regularly rest your muscles as part of the training. If you don't rest your muscles, you can do some serious harm. You rest or you run until you're forced to rest. Given a choice, I would rather just rest, thank you very much.
*two hours later*
SECOND! Have you ever been working on a problem and got stuck? The answer is yes. We all have come across problems we've got stuck on. You know what usually happens? You work on the problem until you get a nose bleed. Then you give up and go do something productive like play Farmville. Then you go to sleep. Then you wake up the next day and BAM! All of a sudden you wonder why you were having trouble with your problem. It's so obvious! How did I not see that before?!
Turns out, this happens a lot in music practice, too. A particular passage, for whatever reason, just seems intractable. Then you go to sleep, wake up the next morning refreshed, and you find the passage has become tracted. Good job brain! But I've noticed that giving yourself distance from even pieces you “know” helps.
Weird.
Third! This doesn't have to do with learning so much as balance. There's more to life than music. In fact, I wonder if our musicianing is in fact hampered if you don't have a life outside of it. I once read that Stravinsky, Poulenc, and some other musical cats got into a giant drunken pillow fight at a soiree. Arnold Schoenberg played tennis. Mendelssohn traveled. A lot. Mozart partied all the damn time. And yet, somehow, they all managed to produce masterpieces, this despite wasting their time doing so many non-musical things. How 'bout that.
In any case, I'm not making any definite conclusions. I'm just sayin'. There's a physical aspect to music, and we know that physical rest is important, especially for injury prevention (Leon Fleisher is out there somewhere, finding himself nodding in agreement, to what he does not know, but he knows it is important). There's also a mental aspect to music, and we know that rest is often a crucial part of problem solving (what, you think Newton was sciencing under the apple tree? No way. He was napping). And we know that having a social life is important for basically everything (this is more for those people who are in music school practicing 20 hours a day: seriously, go home and have a drink).
So it strikes me as not only possible, but very likely that we, as musicians, do not need to practice music everyday, and that we shouldn't feel guilty if we miss a day or two. In fact, if you do miss a day, you probably did yourself a favor. But I don't know that. I'm just pondering on something obvious that may not be as obvious as it's cracked up to be.
I always scratch my head when I hear people complain about scientists doing research and then concluding “the obvious.” It's like these people don't know what science is. You don't know something is obvious until it has been confirmed, yo. How many times have scientists made startling discoveries that upended what we thought was obvious? I don't know the actual number, but I'm pretty sure it is “lots.”
Digression over! Speaking of the obvious, I have been wondering over some received wisdom. It goes like this: “Practice everyday. Are you practicing? No. Is it a day? Yes. Then why aren't you practicing?”
Why aren't I practicing? Maybe because, possibly, practicing every day isn't the best way to do learn something. Do I know it isn't the best way to learn an instrument? No. Is mayonnaise an instrument? That depends on how much you practice with it. Horseradish, however, is most certainly not an instrument. Get that wanna be poser outta here.
Bear with me. I may not know that practicing everyday is not the best way to use your time, but I have a suspicion. And I would like it tested. Here is how my suspicion goes.
First! Let us say you are training for a marathon. What do? You start by running not a lot, you start by running a little. And then? And then you rest. And then you run a little again, and then you rest, and then you run a little more, and then you rest, and then... No 'and then!'
I mean, there's more 'and then.' You 'and then' until you've run a marathon. But the key here is, you regularly rest your muscles as part of the training. If you don't rest your muscles, you can do some serious harm. You rest or you run until you're forced to rest. Given a choice, I would rather just rest, thank you very much.
*two hours later*
SECOND! Have you ever been working on a problem and got stuck? The answer is yes. We all have come across problems we've got stuck on. You know what usually happens? You work on the problem until you get a nose bleed. Then you give up and go do something productive like play Farmville. Then you go to sleep. Then you wake up the next day and BAM! All of a sudden you wonder why you were having trouble with your problem. It's so obvious! How did I not see that before?!
Turns out, this happens a lot in music practice, too. A particular passage, for whatever reason, just seems intractable. Then you go to sleep, wake up the next morning refreshed, and you find the passage has become tracted. Good job brain! But I've noticed that giving yourself distance from even pieces you “know” helps.
Weird.
Third! This doesn't have to do with learning so much as balance. There's more to life than music. In fact, I wonder if our musicianing is in fact hampered if you don't have a life outside of it. I once read that Stravinsky, Poulenc, and some other musical cats got into a giant drunken pillow fight at a soiree. Arnold Schoenberg played tennis. Mendelssohn traveled. A lot. Mozart partied all the damn time. And yet, somehow, they all managed to produce masterpieces, this despite wasting their time doing so many non-musical things. How 'bout that.
In any case, I'm not making any definite conclusions. I'm just sayin'. There's a physical aspect to music, and we know that physical rest is important, especially for injury prevention (Leon Fleisher is out there somewhere, finding himself nodding in agreement, to what he does not know, but he knows it is important). There's also a mental aspect to music, and we know that rest is often a crucial part of problem solving (what, you think Newton was sciencing under the apple tree? No way. He was napping). And we know that having a social life is important for basically everything (this is more for those people who are in music school practicing 20 hours a day: seriously, go home and have a drink).
So it strikes me as not only possible, but very likely that we, as musicians, do not need to practice music everyday, and that we shouldn't feel guilty if we miss a day or two. In fact, if you do miss a day, you probably did yourself a favor. But I don't know that. I'm just pondering on something obvious that may not be as obvious as it's cracked up to be.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Beyond Good and Bad Musicians
At a pub with a friend. Irish folk band playing Irish folk music. Music is out of tune, the singer's tone is a warbler, the bass is out of sync with the drums, and everything about the music is objectively terrible.
Friend says, “Oh god, they are terrible.”
I says, “What are you talking about? They're awesome!”
At an open mic. Some beginners are playing beginner music. The music is out of tune, the singer's singing is swinging, the bass is trying to follow the drums but this is problematic because there aren't any drums, and everything about the music is objectively terrible.
Afterward, beginner says to me, “Oh god, I was terrible.”
I says, “What are you talking about? You were awesome!”
Let me be clear. I teach music. And when I teach music, I have to point out all of the missed notes, the wonky intonation, the miscounted beats, and all the rest of that nonsense. That's what my job is, kind of. It's just that somewhere along the way, we forget that all of that is nonsense, and we miss the point entirely.
In fact, we not only miss the point, we set ourselves on a one way track towards musical masochism.
“I'm not playing good, therefore I'm not good, and therefore I can't do other stuff good, too.”
I mean, when I put it like that, learning to play music suddenly sounds like an awful idea. “But wait!” you say, putting on your best Billy Mays impression. “I don't mean the person is bad! I mean the music is bad!”
Sure, but here's language being tricky again. If that's really what you mean, then why don't you say what you mean rather than hope people guess you mean what you mean. The music is awful. But we don't say, “Wow, this music is terrible.” We say, “Wow, they're bad,” or, “This composer is terrible,” or “What a shitty band!” We rarely talk about the music. We talk about the people making it.
The most common musical critique is not a musical criticism, but a moral one.
Step back a bit. If I'm paying some of my hard earned money to hear someone play music, I would rather the music be something well done than poorly performed. I get that. But that's not what I'm talking about, straw man. You and your head full of straw... no wonder you get so confused.
No, what I'm talking about is something more fundamental. Which is music, which was around for a really long time before money stepped into the picture. “How is it,” I think to myself, “that such a natural human expression as music, sung to babies, played at dances, in farm fields, in churches, on pirate boats... How is it that such musical expression has become an indictment of a person's character rather than a person's ability? Oh right, Plato.”
Actually, I don't think it's Plato's fault. I'm pretty sure he was just clearly expressing a sentiment that was widely intuited. That is to say, music alters behavior so music can be used to instill virtue or vice. To be doubly fair to Plato, I'm fairly certain he was also talking about what the music expresses rather than how well the music is expressed. It was all that “Darned kids, get off my lawn!” kind of stuff.
In short, there's no getting to the wherefores in a short blog post like this. But I can say it's taken a wrong turn somewhere along the line. I have had to assure not a few students that just because they are not playing good does not mean that they, too, as a person, are therefore not good. Few of them believe me. I know they don't believe me because after I reassure them, they nod their heads and then return to the music in wide-eyed terror or dismay.
So here's the problem, writ large for people who wear bifocals. Nobody starts good at anything. You have to learn. But the way we talk about “not playing well” is to instead say “you're bad at playing,” which if the human brain actually processed statements in their entirety wouldn't be so bad, but it usually just stops at “You're bad,” and then slinks off in shame.
If we follow that logic to its not at all distant conclusion, we must therefore acknowledge that not only are our children terrible, terrible, truly awful people for not knowing how to do much of anything well, but also that everybody is terrible because there's always something you're not going to be good at. In my case, I am not good at not ending sentences prepositions with.
Oops, I did it again.
Friend says, “Oh god, they are terrible.”
I says, “What are you talking about? They're awesome!”
At an open mic. Some beginners are playing beginner music. The music is out of tune, the singer's singing is swinging, the bass is trying to follow the drums but this is problematic because there aren't any drums, and everything about the music is objectively terrible.
Afterward, beginner says to me, “Oh god, I was terrible.”
I says, “What are you talking about? You were awesome!”
Let me be clear. I teach music. And when I teach music, I have to point out all of the missed notes, the wonky intonation, the miscounted beats, and all the rest of that nonsense. That's what my job is, kind of. It's just that somewhere along the way, we forget that all of that is nonsense, and we miss the point entirely.
In fact, we not only miss the point, we set ourselves on a one way track towards musical masochism.
“I'm not playing good, therefore I'm not good, and therefore I can't do other stuff good, too.”
I mean, when I put it like that, learning to play music suddenly sounds like an awful idea. “But wait!” you say, putting on your best Billy Mays impression. “I don't mean the person is bad! I mean the music is bad!”
Sure, but here's language being tricky again. If that's really what you mean, then why don't you say what you mean rather than hope people guess you mean what you mean. The music is awful. But we don't say, “Wow, this music is terrible.” We say, “Wow, they're bad,” or, “This composer is terrible,” or “What a shitty band!” We rarely talk about the music. We talk about the people making it.
The most common musical critique is not a musical criticism, but a moral one.
Step back a bit. If I'm paying some of my hard earned money to hear someone play music, I would rather the music be something well done than poorly performed. I get that. But that's not what I'm talking about, straw man. You and your head full of straw... no wonder you get so confused.
No, what I'm talking about is something more fundamental. Which is music, which was around for a really long time before money stepped into the picture. “How is it,” I think to myself, “that such a natural human expression as music, sung to babies, played at dances, in farm fields, in churches, on pirate boats... How is it that such musical expression has become an indictment of a person's character rather than a person's ability? Oh right, Plato.”
Actually, I don't think it's Plato's fault. I'm pretty sure he was just clearly expressing a sentiment that was widely intuited. That is to say, music alters behavior so music can be used to instill virtue or vice. To be doubly fair to Plato, I'm fairly certain he was also talking about what the music expresses rather than how well the music is expressed. It was all that “Darned kids, get off my lawn!” kind of stuff.
In short, there's no getting to the wherefores in a short blog post like this. But I can say it's taken a wrong turn somewhere along the line. I have had to assure not a few students that just because they are not playing good does not mean that they, too, as a person, are therefore not good. Few of them believe me. I know they don't believe me because after I reassure them, they nod their heads and then return to the music in wide-eyed terror or dismay.
So here's the problem, writ large for people who wear bifocals. Nobody starts good at anything. You have to learn. But the way we talk about “not playing well” is to instead say “you're bad at playing,” which if the human brain actually processed statements in their entirety wouldn't be so bad, but it usually just stops at “You're bad,” and then slinks off in shame.
If we follow that logic to its not at all distant conclusion, we must therefore acknowledge that not only are our children terrible, terrible, truly awful people for not knowing how to do much of anything well, but also that everybody is terrible because there's always something you're not going to be good at. In my case, I am not good at not ending sentences prepositions with.
Oops, I did it again.
Monday, June 9, 2014
Playing Music is Hard
Fair warning: I am about to split a hair to make a point. It is true, splitting hairs is a past time not a few find tiresome, but considering a point is a definite space of no dimensions, I would say that a split hair is entirely too generous for the task.
Alas, it must suffice.
Speaking of tiresome things, allow me to point to the point that will point to my point. I have a general sense, as a teacher, that many people have an intuitive understanding that playing an instrument is not easy. This may seem a small thing to be irked by. And it is. But it is not the mindset that I find irksome, it is the conclusion towards which such a mindset inevitably leads.
The problem is this. Saying “Playing an instrument is not easy,” really amounts to saying almost nothing at all. Because, for sure, you have said what it is not, but neither have you said what it is. I could say, for instance, “Playing an instrument is not easy, but... it's not that difficult, either.” Such a statement is a perfectly valid statement. Hence the hair. Assuming something is “not easy” is not the same as assuming something is “difficult.”
If I return to my previous statement, now with my updated assumption, I can say “Playing an instrument is difficult, but,” but I cannot follow that but with “...it's not difficult.” I mean, I can. “It's difficult but not difficult.” There, I did it! Hooray me! If you wish to stop here, I wish you the best, but I don't have high hopes for your future prospects.
For the people who continue on because they are not satisfied by statements of utter nonsense, compare “It's difficult” to “It's not easy, but it's not difficult,” and you can see how framing the problem in the positive (it is this) as opposed to the negative (it is not that) makes for a statement rather more clear.
“So what?” cries the, I must imagine, increasingly exasperated reader, who has not yet grasped my true point because I have not yet pointed it out. “So it's difficult and not not easy. No need to be pedantic. I know what you mean!” But that, there, is precisely the point. You do not know what I mean, because if you did, you'd understand why I, as a teacher, find a student who assumes learning an instrument is merely “not easy” far more difficult to teach than a student who assumes that learning an instrument is, in fact, immensely difficult.
For you see, or are about to see after I tell you, that a student who begins with “It's not easy” can slip, with great ease, into the territory of “but it can't be that difficult.” And as soon as they make that step, and they almost all do, they have started down the path which ends with the instrument being almost impossible rather than simply difficult. Because if “it can't be that difficult,” then that means it won't take that much effort, which means I don't need to practice how my teacher says I need to practice, so I won't because what my teacher is suggesting is to put lots of effort into something which, while not easy, is surely not so difficult as to require the kind of effort my teacher is requesting of me.
That logic may sound so convoluted as to be unlikely, but it happens every time. Every. Time. To illustrate, this is a summation of every teacher-student conversation ever after the student comes to the above conclusion:
“Student, did you practice your scales?”
“Yes.”
“Good, then this shouldn't take too long. Play a D major scale for me.”
“I'd really rather not. Lets play Beethoven, instead.”
“-.-”
“Ugh. Fine.” *student fails to play a D Major scale*
“Oh. Ok. Sure. Uhm. Look at this piece by Beethoven. What is its theme?”
*student shuffles uncomfortably*
“It's a SCALE. How can you play this piece by Beethoven, which is infinitely more difficult than playing a scale, if you can't play a scaaaaaaaaale?”
And then you waste an entire lesson going over D Major again because they didn't think it was that important, and they didn't think it was important because their mindset led them to believe it was not important. Because it's not easy, but it's not hard. It's just something in between. So lets cut out all the boring stuff and short cut ahead to Magical Christmas Land where everybody only eats cake and never gets diabetes and vegetables are regularly assembled to do all your math homework.
Unfortunately for them, and every teacher who teaches them, learning to play a musical instrument is not “of middling difficulty.” It is “of excruciating difficulty.” The human brain being what it is (that is to say, both lazy and full of its own self importance), anything “of excruciating difficulty” is rather inconvenient to its notion of preconceived greatness. Also, anything “of excruciating difficulty” represents a rather uncomfortable amount of work. So I sympathize. Anything “of excruciating difficulty” represents exactly the anti-thesis of what the human brain is all about.
So the brain shoots itself in its metaphorical foot. Again. Starting from “It's not easy, but it's not hard” may seem to be a better place to start, psychologically speaking, than “It's difficult,” because if it's difficult we may not ever start at all. There is some truth to that, but it comes at the price of great harm to one's future efforts. You wind up making it more difficult on yourself than it is, which is already quite difficult. So how to begin?
Like this.
“It's excruciatingly difficult... but it's also possible.”
Once you reconcile yourself to the difficulty of the task, everything becomes possible. It becomes possible because you realize there are no short cuts, that, in fact, the short cuts take you the long ways around back to where you started. That if you sit down and do the work that is required of this difficult task, it is merely difficult. And once it is merely difficult, it is simply a matter of doing what needs to be done, and nothing more.
Start by doing what is necessary. Then do what is possible. And suddenly, you are doing the impossible.
--- St. Francis of Assisi
Alas, it must suffice.
Speaking of tiresome things, allow me to point to the point that will point to my point. I have a general sense, as a teacher, that many people have an intuitive understanding that playing an instrument is not easy. This may seem a small thing to be irked by. And it is. But it is not the mindset that I find irksome, it is the conclusion towards which such a mindset inevitably leads.
The problem is this. Saying “Playing an instrument is not easy,” really amounts to saying almost nothing at all. Because, for sure, you have said what it is not, but neither have you said what it is. I could say, for instance, “Playing an instrument is not easy, but... it's not that difficult, either.” Such a statement is a perfectly valid statement. Hence the hair. Assuming something is “not easy” is not the same as assuming something is “difficult.”
If I return to my previous statement, now with my updated assumption, I can say “Playing an instrument is difficult, but,” but I cannot follow that but with “...it's not difficult.” I mean, I can. “It's difficult but not difficult.” There, I did it! Hooray me! If you wish to stop here, I wish you the best, but I don't have high hopes for your future prospects.
For the people who continue on because they are not satisfied by statements of utter nonsense, compare “It's difficult” to “It's not easy, but it's not difficult,” and you can see how framing the problem in the positive (it is this) as opposed to the negative (it is not that) makes for a statement rather more clear.
“So what?” cries the, I must imagine, increasingly exasperated reader, who has not yet grasped my true point because I have not yet pointed it out. “So it's difficult and not not easy. No need to be pedantic. I know what you mean!” But that, there, is precisely the point. You do not know what I mean, because if you did, you'd understand why I, as a teacher, find a student who assumes learning an instrument is merely “not easy” far more difficult to teach than a student who assumes that learning an instrument is, in fact, immensely difficult.
For you see, or are about to see after I tell you, that a student who begins with “It's not easy” can slip, with great ease, into the territory of “but it can't be that difficult.” And as soon as they make that step, and they almost all do, they have started down the path which ends with the instrument being almost impossible rather than simply difficult. Because if “it can't be that difficult,” then that means it won't take that much effort, which means I don't need to practice how my teacher says I need to practice, so I won't because what my teacher is suggesting is to put lots of effort into something which, while not easy, is surely not so difficult as to require the kind of effort my teacher is requesting of me.
That logic may sound so convoluted as to be unlikely, but it happens every time. Every. Time. To illustrate, this is a summation of every teacher-student conversation ever after the student comes to the above conclusion:
“Student, did you practice your scales?”
“Yes.”
“Good, then this shouldn't take too long. Play a D major scale for me.”
“I'd really rather not. Lets play Beethoven, instead.”
“-.-”
“Ugh. Fine.” *student fails to play a D Major scale*
“Oh. Ok. Sure. Uhm. Look at this piece by Beethoven. What is its theme?”
*student shuffles uncomfortably*
“It's a SCALE. How can you play this piece by Beethoven, which is infinitely more difficult than playing a scale, if you can't play a scaaaaaaaaale?”
And then you waste an entire lesson going over D Major again because they didn't think it was that important, and they didn't think it was important because their mindset led them to believe it was not important. Because it's not easy, but it's not hard. It's just something in between. So lets cut out all the boring stuff and short cut ahead to Magical Christmas Land where everybody only eats cake and never gets diabetes and vegetables are regularly assembled to do all your math homework.
Unfortunately for them, and every teacher who teaches them, learning to play a musical instrument is not “of middling difficulty.” It is “of excruciating difficulty.” The human brain being what it is (that is to say, both lazy and full of its own self importance), anything “of excruciating difficulty” is rather inconvenient to its notion of preconceived greatness. Also, anything “of excruciating difficulty” represents a rather uncomfortable amount of work. So I sympathize. Anything “of excruciating difficulty” represents exactly the anti-thesis of what the human brain is all about.
So the brain shoots itself in its metaphorical foot. Again. Starting from “It's not easy, but it's not hard” may seem to be a better place to start, psychologically speaking, than “It's difficult,” because if it's difficult we may not ever start at all. There is some truth to that, but it comes at the price of great harm to one's future efforts. You wind up making it more difficult on yourself than it is, which is already quite difficult. So how to begin?
Like this.
“It's excruciatingly difficult... but it's also possible.”
Once you reconcile yourself to the difficulty of the task, everything becomes possible. It becomes possible because you realize there are no short cuts, that, in fact, the short cuts take you the long ways around back to where you started. That if you sit down and do the work that is required of this difficult task, it is merely difficult. And once it is merely difficult, it is simply a matter of doing what needs to be done, and nothing more.
Start by doing what is necessary. Then do what is possible. And suddenly, you are doing the impossible.
--- St. Francis of Assisi
Friday, June 14, 2013
Building Epiphanies
I finished my little summer break recently, and have started teaching again. For those who don't know, I teach private cello lessons. It's often kind challenging, and you have to be a little bit careful about well meaning but over bearing mothers who are making their kids do a thousand and one different extra-curricular activities, but... it's a lot of fun. At least, it is to me. I know other people who hate it, which makes me wonder why they're doing it. I mean, ok, money, but come on. The money isn't that good in private teaching. If you chose private teaching to make lots of money, well. You chose poorly.
Early on in my blogging, I wrote a couple of times about a book called "How People Learn." I thought it was a good book while reading it, but I'm convinced it's actually a great one. That's because I took some of the principles laid out in the book and used them in my lessons. The impact was immediate and profound. When you see a student's bow grip and bow stroke change dramatically for the better, and when even the student realizes they've hit on something good because they can feel and hear the difference, then you know you've got a winner.
All in all, they were some phenomenal lessons. When I did my post-teaching debriefing with myself (where I ask myself what I did well, what I did poorly, what was ok but could have done better, what I missed, etc.), I spent a lot of time thinking about what went right. Clearly, a lot of it came from the book, but there was something that happened that the book didn't cover very much. The students all had, within the lesson, epiphanous moments. Ah-ha moments. And I realized during my debriefing that those moments, while not consciously engineered, were not accidents either.
Either that, or we were terrifically, miraculously lucky.
Here's what I think happened.
The Will to Power
One of the biggest points "How People Learn" makes is, you don't teach the facts, you teach the principle. If you teach the principle, the facts will make sense and come naturally on their own. That's basically what the whole book is about, actually, and how to approach that fact of learning/teaching. I have puzzled over what the principles of movement are since I wrote about that particular pedagogical problem. Talking with numerous friends and a few teachers, here is what I have come up with.
1. Strength is highest in your core (torso), decreases as you move away from the core, and is lowest at the periphery (feet and hands). This is pretty easy to observe, actually. The muscles in your hand are far smaller than even the muscles in your forearm.
2. Strength is not the same as tension, and tension must be balanced: too loose, and you'll drop your bow; too tense, and you will hurt yourself.
3. Finally, movement starts from the muscles you activate and moves outward. If the movement starts from the wrist, the hand will move; from the forearm, the wrist and hand and fingers. etc.
The principle at work is thus quite simple: effective and relaxed movement starts from strength (the core) and radiates outward; but in order for that strength to be leveraged, it must be channeled. Too little tension, and the strength dissipates, too much and the strength is blocked. While not strictly part of the above principle, it should be noted that twisting (torque) is more effective than pushing (force), and that we should strive to gain mechanical advantage (give me a large enough lever and a fulcrum, and I can move the world) wherever we can.
Learning Bug in the Teaching Web
Once I had settled on the principle, I set about trying to teach it. But I didn't start with the principle, as the book tended to suggest. I instead hid the principle at the center of discussion, and led my students around the periphery, covering a wide variety of apparently unrelated problems. I did a number of the tricks in the book: Socratic method; teasing out assumptions; testing assumptions rather than simply correcting them; creating hypotheses and testing those. Those were all quite effective.
But then, slowly, gradually, I led my student towards the actual issue, the thing that tied everything together. When we got there, a most fascinating thing happened: an epiphany. And not just a random one, either! In teaching, we don't want to rely on chance... Natural epiphanies can be enlightening, but they are rather flighty birds, to be sure. No, this epiphany was instinctively (or accidentally) constructed. As soon as the principle became clear, the student went: "Oh. Oooooh!"
Thinking about what an epiphany is should make it quite obvious that this was the most natural reaction in the world. An epiphany is simply the sudden realization that a number of unrelated facts or problems are all related by an underlying idea. And that's exactly what we made. Epiphanies. The best part? Epiphanies are some of the most powerful aids to memory we can come across. It is very difficult to forget something that comes in the form of an epiphany. In its most extreme form, think of religious conversion. Now scale it back to earthly levels, and that's exactly what we've got.
Now go out and make some epiphanies happen!
Daily Recommendation
As usual, I have a couple of pieces in keeping with the theme. The first is a little piece by Claude Debussy called "Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum." The title alludes to what is perhaps the first musical text book in Europe, "Gradus ad Parnassum" by Johann Joseph Fux. The book is a series of exercises in counterpoint (the art of writing one melody against another), and was studied by a Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart, among many others.
The second is the 4th movement of Mozart's Symphony 41. It, too, allegedly uses a motive found in Fux's text, but uses it brilliantly in a 5 voice fugetta (little fugue) featuring four themes all more or less at the same time.
Claude Debussy: "Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum," from the Children's Corner Suite.
Amadeus Mozart: Symphony 41, K. 551* 4th movement.
*Mozart's works were written before number works with an opus number was common. His pieces were all catalogued by 19th century scholar Ludwig von Köchel. Hence the "K." Like K-mart. Except klassier.
Early on in my blogging, I wrote a couple of times about a book called "How People Learn." I thought it was a good book while reading it, but I'm convinced it's actually a great one. That's because I took some of the principles laid out in the book and used them in my lessons. The impact was immediate and profound. When you see a student's bow grip and bow stroke change dramatically for the better, and when even the student realizes they've hit on something good because they can feel and hear the difference, then you know you've got a winner.
All in all, they were some phenomenal lessons. When I did my post-teaching debriefing with myself (where I ask myself what I did well, what I did poorly, what was ok but could have done better, what I missed, etc.), I spent a lot of time thinking about what went right. Clearly, a lot of it came from the book, but there was something that happened that the book didn't cover very much. The students all had, within the lesson, epiphanous moments. Ah-ha moments. And I realized during my debriefing that those moments, while not consciously engineered, were not accidents either.
Either that, or we were terrifically, miraculously lucky.
Here's what I think happened.
The Will to Power
One of the biggest points "How People Learn" makes is, you don't teach the facts, you teach the principle. If you teach the principle, the facts will make sense and come naturally on their own. That's basically what the whole book is about, actually, and how to approach that fact of learning/teaching. I have puzzled over what the principles of movement are since I wrote about that particular pedagogical problem. Talking with numerous friends and a few teachers, here is what I have come up with.
1. Strength is highest in your core (torso), decreases as you move away from the core, and is lowest at the periphery (feet and hands). This is pretty easy to observe, actually. The muscles in your hand are far smaller than even the muscles in your forearm.
2. Strength is not the same as tension, and tension must be balanced: too loose, and you'll drop your bow; too tense, and you will hurt yourself.
3. Finally, movement starts from the muscles you activate and moves outward. If the movement starts from the wrist, the hand will move; from the forearm, the wrist and hand and fingers. etc.
The principle at work is thus quite simple: effective and relaxed movement starts from strength (the core) and radiates outward; but in order for that strength to be leveraged, it must be channeled. Too little tension, and the strength dissipates, too much and the strength is blocked. While not strictly part of the above principle, it should be noted that twisting (torque) is more effective than pushing (force), and that we should strive to gain mechanical advantage (give me a large enough lever and a fulcrum, and I can move the world) wherever we can.
Learning Bug in the Teaching Web
Once I had settled on the principle, I set about trying to teach it. But I didn't start with the principle, as the book tended to suggest. I instead hid the principle at the center of discussion, and led my students around the periphery, covering a wide variety of apparently unrelated problems. I did a number of the tricks in the book: Socratic method; teasing out assumptions; testing assumptions rather than simply correcting them; creating hypotheses and testing those. Those were all quite effective.
But then, slowly, gradually, I led my student towards the actual issue, the thing that tied everything together. When we got there, a most fascinating thing happened: an epiphany. And not just a random one, either! In teaching, we don't want to rely on chance... Natural epiphanies can be enlightening, but they are rather flighty birds, to be sure. No, this epiphany was instinctively (or accidentally) constructed. As soon as the principle became clear, the student went: "Oh. Oooooh!"
Thinking about what an epiphany is should make it quite obvious that this was the most natural reaction in the world. An epiphany is simply the sudden realization that a number of unrelated facts or problems are all related by an underlying idea. And that's exactly what we made. Epiphanies. The best part? Epiphanies are some of the most powerful aids to memory we can come across. It is very difficult to forget something that comes in the form of an epiphany. In its most extreme form, think of religious conversion. Now scale it back to earthly levels, and that's exactly what we've got.
Now go out and make some epiphanies happen!
Daily Recommendation
As usual, I have a couple of pieces in keeping with the theme. The first is a little piece by Claude Debussy called "Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum." The title alludes to what is perhaps the first musical text book in Europe, "Gradus ad Parnassum" by Johann Joseph Fux. The book is a series of exercises in counterpoint (the art of writing one melody against another), and was studied by a Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart, among many others.
The second is the 4th movement of Mozart's Symphony 41. It, too, allegedly uses a motive found in Fux's text, but uses it brilliantly in a 5 voice fugetta (little fugue) featuring four themes all more or less at the same time.
Claude Debussy: "Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum," from the Children's Corner Suite.
Amadeus Mozart: Symphony 41, K. 551* 4th movement.
*Mozart's works were written before number works with an opus number was common. His pieces were all catalogued by 19th century scholar Ludwig von Köchel. Hence the "K." Like K-mart. Except klassier.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Lead by Teaching
Tickets are boughten, bags are packed, we're on the train to Valuetown. Classical musicians and music lovers have an instinctive feeling that classical music is valuable. However, we can't just assume that other people will see it in the same way, not least because the forms and harmonies which structure classical music often sound foreign and unintelligible to people who aren't used to them. So of course, some amount of teaching is assumed, even if I don't personally believe that an audience member needs to know everything going on in classical music to enjoy it.
It's like... When The Simpsons was in its prime, did people stop liking it even when they didn't get all of the multitudinous obscure or downright esoteric jokes? No. There was plenty of stuff for everybody to hang onto. But oh how you felt good when you got one of the jokes none of your friends got. It's like that.
Still, musical education in general is something we find missing in a lot of people's lives, whether it is classical or not. So lets look into some ways we can leverage what students we have to help create more societal value in what we do.
Disclaimer
Not everybody is a teacher. Oh wow, is this ever true. If you don't like teaching, if you don't want to teach, if you can't teach water out of a plastic cup, then don't. There are far too many good/great teachers who aren't being utilized because the pay is generally too low... but that doesn't mean the gap should be filled with terrible ones. Just because you can play doesn't mean you can teach, and if you really, honestly can't, just... do what you're good at, and play awesome concerts. Trust me when I say, everyone will be much happier that way.
First, Teach by Leading
It's not enough to be a teacher if you don't know what the heck you're talking about. Like, I could have a PhD in Physics, but that doesn't make me qualified to teach a high school English course. That makes me qualified to teach a college physics course. Should be obvious, right? Well, apparently it's not obvious to some school districts which require teachers to have a master's degree, but don't require a degree in the subject you're going to end up teaching.
Like, I don't know...Imagine you're reading Grapes of Wrath, and your teacher suddenly says, "A train leaves west from station A at 45mph, and a train moves east from station B at 30mph. If station A and station B are 400 miles apart, how long will it take the Joad family to find work in California?"
Trick question. They never find work in California.
Wait, what was I saying? Right. Teach by leading. Don't just teach your students. Play for them. As often as you can. Show them that you know what you're about and that you mean business. It's amazing how quickly you earn respect that way.
Then, Lead by Teaching
So now you have a bunch loyal minions. I mean, students. What do you do? You tell them about all of your concerts. More specifically, you tell their parents about all of your concerts. This achieves a number of things. First, it puts some bodies in the seats. This is important because ticket sales.
But just as importantly, you're filling your audience with people who are slowly learning how to listen to music at a higher level. The students not only get to see you strut your stuff, but they also get to hear their own learning. Over time, they start hearing more and more from pieces they thought they knew. They start to get Haydn's inside jokes. They start to hear why Claire de Lune isn't just sparkly vampires.
They of course fail to pick up on the subtle subliminal messages put in by the Mozartian Masonites and, much later, by the Schoenbergian Fraternity of Tonebros, but that's all according to plan. If they knew what they were really listening to, it wouldn't work.
Finally, Play Music with your Students
You know what's awesome? When a teacher you really respect works with you on what is being taught/learned. It can be as complex or as simple as necessary. But there's something really cool about that kind of collaboration. Suddenly, you don't feel like just a student, and you aren't just a teacher. You're two people doing what people have been doing for tens of thousands of years. Making art. And ultimately, isn't that what's really important?
I mean, besides the pay check.
It's like... When The Simpsons was in its prime, did people stop liking it even when they didn't get all of the multitudinous obscure or downright esoteric jokes? No. There was plenty of stuff for everybody to hang onto. But oh how you felt good when you got one of the jokes none of your friends got. It's like that.
Still, musical education in general is something we find missing in a lot of people's lives, whether it is classical or not. So lets look into some ways we can leverage what students we have to help create more societal value in what we do.
Disclaimer
Not everybody is a teacher. Oh wow, is this ever true. If you don't like teaching, if you don't want to teach, if you can't teach water out of a plastic cup, then don't. There are far too many good/great teachers who aren't being utilized because the pay is generally too low... but that doesn't mean the gap should be filled with terrible ones. Just because you can play doesn't mean you can teach, and if you really, honestly can't, just... do what you're good at, and play awesome concerts. Trust me when I say, everyone will be much happier that way.
First, Teach by Leading
It's not enough to be a teacher if you don't know what the heck you're talking about. Like, I could have a PhD in Physics, but that doesn't make me qualified to teach a high school English course. That makes me qualified to teach a college physics course. Should be obvious, right? Well, apparently it's not obvious to some school districts which require teachers to have a master's degree, but don't require a degree in the subject you're going to end up teaching.
Like, I don't know...Imagine you're reading Grapes of Wrath, and your teacher suddenly says, "A train leaves west from station A at 45mph, and a train moves east from station B at 30mph. If station A and station B are 400 miles apart, how long will it take the Joad family to find work in California?"
Trick question. They never find work in California.
Wait, what was I saying? Right. Teach by leading. Don't just teach your students. Play for them. As often as you can. Show them that you know what you're about and that you mean business. It's amazing how quickly you earn respect that way.
Then, Lead by Teaching
So now you have a bunch loyal minions. I mean, students. What do you do? You tell them about all of your concerts. More specifically, you tell their parents about all of your concerts. This achieves a number of things. First, it puts some bodies in the seats. This is important because ticket sales.
But just as importantly, you're filling your audience with people who are slowly learning how to listen to music at a higher level. The students not only get to see you strut your stuff, but they also get to hear their own learning. Over time, they start hearing more and more from pieces they thought they knew. They start to get Haydn's inside jokes. They start to hear why Claire de Lune isn't just sparkly vampires.
They of course fail to pick up on the subtle subliminal messages put in by the Mozartian Masonites and, much later, by the Schoenbergian Fraternity of Tonebros, but that's all according to plan. If they knew what they were really listening to, it wouldn't work.
Finally, Play Music with your Students
You know what's awesome? When a teacher you really respect works with you on what is being taught/learned. It can be as complex or as simple as necessary. But there's something really cool about that kind of collaboration. Suddenly, you don't feel like just a student, and you aren't just a teacher. You're two people doing what people have been doing for tens of thousands of years. Making art. And ultimately, isn't that what's really important?
I mean, besides the pay check.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Teaching Orchestra Classes
Continuing with my educational theme, today I'm going to discuss orchestra as a school class. I make the distinction between a 6th grade orchestra and a college orchestra because at the college level at least the players know how to play their instruments. Although, after having lived through numerous college orchestra rehearsals, I sometimes wonder if that is a fair assumption to make.
Anyways. After hearing a student orchestra rehearse the same piece for five weeks and not really ever get better, I began to think maybe we're doing something wrong. Is it possible that perhaps we don't know as much about teaching music as we think we do? I think it is.
So lets get cracking.
Problems Facing School Orchestras
1. Class size. It is well known by now that class size is an important factor contributing to student success. Large classes tend to hinder learning, smaller classes tend to help it. Or at least, not get in the way. The book "Boys and Girls Learn Differently"(a book which I recommend with reservations... it's a whole article unto itself) says that the optimal classroom size for middle school is around 20.
Twenty.
Excuse me while I vomit out my nose from laughing too hard. I'm not saying this is unattainable, but 'good' orchestra programs, even at the 6th grade level, rarely if ever have fewer than 30-40 kids in a class. It's not surprising, as orchestra is by nature a group activity. But still.
2. Lack of teacher's aides. In absence of low class size, "Boys and Girls etc" recommends the help of one or sometimes even two teacher's aides. These teachers are able to provide individual assistance where the head teacher cannot. When staring down a battalion of 6th graders, allies will at least give some moral support. But in an orchestra, you are far outnumbered, and they can smell your fear. Just say to yourself, "This. Is. SPARTA!" and go down in glory.
No. I mean, get some additional help.
"But what about money?"
Money? Oh right. Money...
3. There are other problems, but I'm going to stop with a big one here. When learning music in an orchestra or a band, there are actually two subjects going on. There's the subject of the instrument, which is obvious. It's the thing you just dropped $500 on for a ten month rental. Then there's the subject of music. Which is less obvious, but mostly because it's so obvious nobody thinks to think about it.
See, music isn't just playing notes. It's also knowing how notes are put together. Learning patterns. Reading notes. As it is, we're teaching those kids the ABC's without teaching them how to string them into words, much less how to string words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into whole compositions. Imagine trying to read Les Mis one letter at a time, and you'll get some grasp of what we're expecting orchestra classes to accomplish.
Ultimately, it is problem number three which poses the most difficulties to a student orchestra and their director. They are really trying to learn and teach two different subjects in the same amount of time as one. Problems 1 and 2 exacerbate this problem greatly, as individual help cannot be provided to struggling students in real time, and the class is usually far too large to facilitate group discussion of music or problem solving.
So it's no wonder orchestras take so long to learn a piece. The students are reading one letter at a time without comprehending words, there are more students making mistakes than a single teacher can reasonably be expected to keep up with, and that teacher somehow has to try and divide 45 minutes worth of time into teaching instruments and teaching basic music theory. Yeesh! Even Sisyphus had it easier than school orchestra directors.
Possible Solutions
1. There's not a lot that can be done here because orchestras are, by nature, usually rather large. There are some things that immediately spring to mind, however. The first is the divide orchestra classes into sections, rather than the full orchestra. This will not only reduce the class size, but also make it easier on the teacher as he or she will not have to deal with all of the little idiosyncrasies which plague each instrument. Other than that, I don't know what to say. This is the most intractable of the problems.
2. Get aides. No, not AIDS. The other aides. This is only problematic insofar as it requires money, but the benefits would be well worth the cost. The size of the classes almost requires additional assistance for effective teaching. And I don't just mean "Let's divide the orchestra into sections and have the assistant teach one and the head director teach the other." I mean the class is going on with two teachers: the head director giving the large scale instruction, and the assistant weaving in and out helping individuals with their own unique problems in real time.
I cannot stress this enough. Mistakes must be addressed quickly as the mistake is being made. Otherwise, it is highly likely the student will not even realize there is something wrong and keep on doing what you don't want them to be doing. Not that they weren't doing what you didn't want them to be doing in the first place, but... you know what I mean.
In addition, assistants can provide much needed moral and psychological support. "Is it me, or does Jimmy's intonation sound worse than a donkey getting eaten by a velociraptor?" "No, it's not just you. But at least his tone is good. Emily's violin sounds like it needs an exorcism. I keep expecting the scroll to twist around while spewing out obscenities about my mother." "Ha ha! I know, right?" (This is totally not an actual conversation I have had with an orchestra director. Totally not at all.)
There. Don't you feel better now? This way, you can relieve all your frustrations without ever taking them out on your students.
3. And now the radioactive elephant in the room. I mean, I don't even know where to start. However! There is some hope. At the 6th grade, beginners level, I highly doubt students need more than 15-30 minutes of practice a day. There's just... not enough to practice, you know? They know all of three notes. Only so much you can do with that.
Keeping this in mind, it is entirely possible orchestras spend far too much of their class time teaching the students how to play. Given a 50 minute class, if you divide up the class into a 25 minute theory class and a 25 minute practice, we can probably cover everything we need to cover so long as we are exceedingly efficient about it. This is still far from ideal. Music theory is a class of its own, but it is progress.
Another possibility is the use of computers. "How People Learn" describes an experiment wherein students learning physics are allowed deliberate practice through a computer-based tutoring program. The students exposed to this program were able to reduce the time it took to reach real-world performance criteria from 4 years to a paltry 25 hours.
I mean. What? Really? Is this real life? Did I seriously just read that? Well.
I can attest to the usefulness of these programs, as well. One of the private schools I teach at has several computer modules where piano students go to learn their music theory. It would not be difficult to adapt those kinds of programs to the specific needs of string, wind, and brass players (and singers who, judging from performance at the college level, seem to need help the most).
So like I said. There is hope. But we have a lot of work to do. Now lets hunker down and prepare for the onslaught. It's a long night, and Gandalf isn't guaranteed to show up.
Anyways. After hearing a student orchestra rehearse the same piece for five weeks and not really ever get better, I began to think maybe we're doing something wrong. Is it possible that perhaps we don't know as much about teaching music as we think we do? I think it is.
So lets get cracking.
Problems Facing School Orchestras
1. Class size. It is well known by now that class size is an important factor contributing to student success. Large classes tend to hinder learning, smaller classes tend to help it. Or at least, not get in the way. The book "Boys and Girls Learn Differently"(a book which I recommend with reservations... it's a whole article unto itself) says that the optimal classroom size for middle school is around 20.
Twenty.
Excuse me while I vomit out my nose from laughing too hard. I'm not saying this is unattainable, but 'good' orchestra programs, even at the 6th grade level, rarely if ever have fewer than 30-40 kids in a class. It's not surprising, as orchestra is by nature a group activity. But still.
2. Lack of teacher's aides. In absence of low class size, "Boys and Girls etc" recommends the help of one or sometimes even two teacher's aides. These teachers are able to provide individual assistance where the head teacher cannot. When staring down a battalion of 6th graders, allies will at least give some moral support. But in an orchestra, you are far outnumbered, and they can smell your fear. Just say to yourself, "This. Is. SPARTA!" and go down in glory.
No. I mean, get some additional help.
"But what about money?"
Money? Oh right. Money...
3. There are other problems, but I'm going to stop with a big one here. When learning music in an orchestra or a band, there are actually two subjects going on. There's the subject of the instrument, which is obvious. It's the thing you just dropped $500 on for a ten month rental. Then there's the subject of music. Which is less obvious, but mostly because it's so obvious nobody thinks to think about it.
See, music isn't just playing notes. It's also knowing how notes are put together. Learning patterns. Reading notes. As it is, we're teaching those kids the ABC's without teaching them how to string them into words, much less how to string words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into whole compositions. Imagine trying to read Les Mis one letter at a time, and you'll get some grasp of what we're expecting orchestra classes to accomplish.
Ultimately, it is problem number three which poses the most difficulties to a student orchestra and their director. They are really trying to learn and teach two different subjects in the same amount of time as one. Problems 1 and 2 exacerbate this problem greatly, as individual help cannot be provided to struggling students in real time, and the class is usually far too large to facilitate group discussion of music or problem solving.
So it's no wonder orchestras take so long to learn a piece. The students are reading one letter at a time without comprehending words, there are more students making mistakes than a single teacher can reasonably be expected to keep up with, and that teacher somehow has to try and divide 45 minutes worth of time into teaching instruments and teaching basic music theory. Yeesh! Even Sisyphus had it easier than school orchestra directors.
Possible Solutions
1. There's not a lot that can be done here because orchestras are, by nature, usually rather large. There are some things that immediately spring to mind, however. The first is the divide orchestra classes into sections, rather than the full orchestra. This will not only reduce the class size, but also make it easier on the teacher as he or she will not have to deal with all of the little idiosyncrasies which plague each instrument. Other than that, I don't know what to say. This is the most intractable of the problems.
2. Get aides. No, not AIDS. The other aides. This is only problematic insofar as it requires money, but the benefits would be well worth the cost. The size of the classes almost requires additional assistance for effective teaching. And I don't just mean "Let's divide the orchestra into sections and have the assistant teach one and the head director teach the other." I mean the class is going on with two teachers: the head director giving the large scale instruction, and the assistant weaving in and out helping individuals with their own unique problems in real time.
I cannot stress this enough. Mistakes must be addressed quickly as the mistake is being made. Otherwise, it is highly likely the student will not even realize there is something wrong and keep on doing what you don't want them to be doing. Not that they weren't doing what you didn't want them to be doing in the first place, but... you know what I mean.
In addition, assistants can provide much needed moral and psychological support. "Is it me, or does Jimmy's intonation sound worse than a donkey getting eaten by a velociraptor?" "No, it's not just you. But at least his tone is good. Emily's violin sounds like it needs an exorcism. I keep expecting the scroll to twist around while spewing out obscenities about my mother." "Ha ha! I know, right?" (This is totally not an actual conversation I have had with an orchestra director. Totally not at all.)
There. Don't you feel better now? This way, you can relieve all your frustrations without ever taking them out on your students.
3. And now the radioactive elephant in the room. I mean, I don't even know where to start. However! There is some hope. At the 6th grade, beginners level, I highly doubt students need more than 15-30 minutes of practice a day. There's just... not enough to practice, you know? They know all of three notes. Only so much you can do with that.
Keeping this in mind, it is entirely possible orchestras spend far too much of their class time teaching the students how to play. Given a 50 minute class, if you divide up the class into a 25 minute theory class and a 25 minute practice, we can probably cover everything we need to cover so long as we are exceedingly efficient about it. This is still far from ideal. Music theory is a class of its own, but it is progress.
Another possibility is the use of computers. "How People Learn" describes an experiment wherein students learning physics are allowed deliberate practice through a computer-based tutoring program. The students exposed to this program were able to reduce the time it took to reach real-world performance criteria from 4 years to a paltry 25 hours.
I mean. What? Really? Is this real life? Did I seriously just read that? Well.
I can attest to the usefulness of these programs, as well. One of the private schools I teach at has several computer modules where piano students go to learn their music theory. It would not be difficult to adapt those kinds of programs to the specific needs of string, wind, and brass players (and singers who, judging from performance at the college level, seem to need help the most).
So like I said. There is hope. But we have a lot of work to do. Now lets hunker down and prepare for the onslaught. It's a long night, and Gandalf isn't guaranteed to show up.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Teaching Movement
I read. A lot. One of the books I have been reading lately is titled "How People Learn." This book is amazing in so many ways. It is well researched. It is clear. It cites its sources. It's bibliography is 80 pages long. And it admits where more research needs to be done before definitive conclusions can be drawn. I mean, really. What more could you ask for from a $20 book? Almost nothing. Except what today's article is about: movement.
Specifically, skilled movement. Stuff like walking, dancing, typing... playing an instrument. You get the idea. "How People Learn" focuses mostly on knowledge based learning, like math, history, science, language. Great! Thank you! This is very helpful when I am teaching my kids music theory! It does absolutely bupkis for movement based learning. Or does it? I don't know. That's the problem. The book just doesn't talk about it. Maybe it's the same, maybe it's not. I have a feeling its similar, which is an evasive way of saying "they're different." But today I am going to assume they are the same. Or at least similar enough you can generalize principles of knowledge based learning towards movement based learning.
Three Aids to Learning
The introduction of the book provides three keys to learning something well. They are as follows:
1. Students enter learning with preconceptions about a topic/task. That is to say, the "blank slate" philosophy of learning is totally wrong. If a student is coming in with incorrect assumptions, and you don't ferret those assumptions into the open, learning will be very difficult.
2. To develop competence, you must have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, understand those facts in the context of a conceptual framework, and organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application. In other words, you have to know a lot of stuff, that stuff has to be related into a larger scheme, and it has to be organized in a way that the brain has easy access.
and 3. A "metacognitive" approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them. So it's best to help the students "get outside of themselves" as they are learning, thereby increasing their ability to learn without aid from a teacher.
Application to Movement
Warning: Hypothetical Territory Ahead
The book goes into a fair amount of detail applying the above principles to knowledge based learning. Here's where I move into an area which I have not specifically read research about. I am merely operating under the assumption that the three principles will work in the same way for movement as they do for knowledge.
1. Assumptions. Believe it or not, students do assume things about how movement works. One of the first assumptions I have come across is that because movement in other areas of life is easy to them (walking, opening doors, etc), learning how to play the instrument should also come easily to them. They are quickly disabused of this notion, and I need to do very little to help them realize how wrong that is.
Another assumption is 'Learning an instrument is different from other physical tasks." This can make things quite difficult for the student as they start to move in very unnatural ways that they would do for other tasks (like walking, opening doors, etc). One of my friends, Brandon Sterrett, reminded me of Mr. Miyagi. When the Karate Kid is first learning, Mr. Miyagi makes him wax cars and paint doors. Why? Because the basic movements in karate are similar to the basic movements in other, simpler tasks. I have found discussing similar movements helps students better understand what is required for the instrument.
A more subtle assumption is "The body moves in blocks." That is, the arms move in one large chunk. This leads to other unnatural movements as they tense up the wrist and elbow and end up moving their arms only from the shoulder. A related assumption is "More tension equals more power," which is pretty much exactly wrong. Tension is necessary, but power comes from relaxed, fluid movement that is coordinated across the whole limb.
There are more assumptions, I am sure, but you get the idea. Moving on.
2. Creating a conceptual framework for movement is proving to be very difficult. I do have some ideas, however. One of the first things I have noticed is: strength starts high in the center (the core) and decreases as you move towards the extremities (hands and feet). The wrist muscles are naturally less strong than the chest muscles. The thigh muscles are stronger than the calves. This is one of those obvious observations that I have never heard anybody point out. It has dramatic applications for something like the cello, because it leads directly to the next concept.
Movement should start with strong muscles and "ripple" out towards weaker muscles. I myself have fallen prey to using weak muscles for movement, particularly in the left hand where the intricate fingering is done. Mark Landson, a wonderful violinist colleague of mine, helped make me aware of other possibilities. Using the weight of the arm in conjunction with the stronger shoulder muscles to depress the strings, for example. What this concept also says is, the weaker muscles should respond to the impetus provided by the stronger muscles. Take advantage of physics, not fight it. I guess this concept could also be phrased as "Let your your body do what it is good at." Wrist muscles are not good as sustained effort, but the larger muscles are. The larger muscles are not good at precise movement, but wrist and finger muscles are. Etc. Etc.
3. Metacognition is an important part of learning. This is a fancy way of saying "being aware of yourself." Metacognition in movement is pretty difficult. I have noticed most of my students are hardly aware of their bodies at all. I have had some success, however, by asking them to focus on specific movements. Move the wrist this way, then that. Notice how it feels when the wrist is flexed. Move your wrist while moving your elbow. Tense your hand, now relax it, feel the difference. Etc.
I have also had some success by using external objects to force the student into playing correct form, like wrist guards for the left hand. Guiding the bow back to center while the student is playing. Etc. It is also helpful to ask the student to play incorrectly, because it makes them aware of what the body needs to do while playing "wrong." In fact, asking the student to play incorrectly often leads to the student playing correctly. When this happens, I often point it out to them: "If it feels wrong, you're probably right." Usually, they return the next week much improved.
Conclusions
It is difficult to draw conclusions at this point. It does seem, however, that applying the three principles outlined in "How People Learn" will help students both with knowledge based and movement based learning. Without experimentation, however, there's no way to know how well it all applies. Still, in the absence of a better way, it seems to work pretty well.
I hope this helps you teach better! Please, share any comments, constructive criticisms, and ideas you may have. If teachers don't help each other teach better, we're doomed. Doomed, I say! So stop sitting in the back row pretending you're not playing Angry Birds and interact!
I read. A lot. One of the books I have been reading lately is titled "How People Learn." This book is amazing in so many ways. It is well researched. It is clear. It cites its sources. It's bibliography is 80 pages long. And it admits where more research needs to be done before definitive conclusions can be drawn. I mean, really. What more could you ask for from a $20 book? Almost nothing. Except what today's article is about: movement.
Specifically, skilled movement. Stuff like walking, dancing, typing... playing an instrument. You get the idea. "How People Learn" focuses mostly on knowledge based learning, like math, history, science, language. Great! Thank you! This is very helpful when I am teaching my kids music theory! It does absolutely bupkis for movement based learning. Or does it? I don't know. That's the problem. The book just doesn't talk about it. Maybe it's the same, maybe it's not. I have a feeling its similar, which is an evasive way of saying "they're different." But today I am going to assume they are the same. Or at least similar enough you can generalize principles of knowledge based learning towards movement based learning.
Three Aids to Learning
The introduction of the book provides three keys to learning something well. They are as follows:
1. Students enter learning with preconceptions about a topic/task. That is to say, the "blank slate" philosophy of learning is totally wrong. If a student is coming in with incorrect assumptions, and you don't ferret those assumptions into the open, learning will be very difficult.
2. To develop competence, you must have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, understand those facts in the context of a conceptual framework, and organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application. In other words, you have to know a lot of stuff, that stuff has to be related into a larger scheme, and it has to be organized in a way that the brain has easy access.
and 3. A "metacognitive" approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them. So it's best to help the students "get outside of themselves" as they are learning, thereby increasing their ability to learn without aid from a teacher.
Application to Movement
Warning: Hypothetical Territory Ahead
The book goes into a fair amount of detail applying the above principles to knowledge based learning. Here's where I move into an area which I have not specifically read research about. I am merely operating under the assumption that the three principles will work in the same way for movement as they do for knowledge.
1. Assumptions. Believe it or not, students do assume things about how movement works. One of the first assumptions I have come across is that because movement in other areas of life is easy to them (walking, opening doors, etc), learning how to play the instrument should also come easily to them. They are quickly disabused of this notion, and I need to do very little to help them realize how wrong that is.
Another assumption is 'Learning an instrument is different from other physical tasks." This can make things quite difficult for the student as they start to move in very unnatural ways that they would do for other tasks (like walking, opening doors, etc). One of my friends, Brandon Sterrett, reminded me of Mr. Miyagi. When the Karate Kid is first learning, Mr. Miyagi makes him wax cars and paint doors. Why? Because the basic movements in karate are similar to the basic movements in other, simpler tasks. I have found discussing similar movements helps students better understand what is required for the instrument.
A more subtle assumption is "The body moves in blocks." That is, the arms move in one large chunk. This leads to other unnatural movements as they tense up the wrist and elbow and end up moving their arms only from the shoulder. A related assumption is "More tension equals more power," which is pretty much exactly wrong. Tension is necessary, but power comes from relaxed, fluid movement that is coordinated across the whole limb.
There are more assumptions, I am sure, but you get the idea. Moving on.
2. Creating a conceptual framework for movement is proving to be very difficult. I do have some ideas, however. One of the first things I have noticed is: strength starts high in the center (the core) and decreases as you move towards the extremities (hands and feet). The wrist muscles are naturally less strong than the chest muscles. The thigh muscles are stronger than the calves. This is one of those obvious observations that I have never heard anybody point out. It has dramatic applications for something like the cello, because it leads directly to the next concept.
Movement should start with strong muscles and "ripple" out towards weaker muscles. I myself have fallen prey to using weak muscles for movement, particularly in the left hand where the intricate fingering is done. Mark Landson, a wonderful violinist colleague of mine, helped make me aware of other possibilities. Using the weight of the arm in conjunction with the stronger shoulder muscles to depress the strings, for example. What this concept also says is, the weaker muscles should respond to the impetus provided by the stronger muscles. Take advantage of physics, not fight it. I guess this concept could also be phrased as "Let your your body do what it is good at." Wrist muscles are not good as sustained effort, but the larger muscles are. The larger muscles are not good at precise movement, but wrist and finger muscles are. Etc. Etc.
3. Metacognition is an important part of learning. This is a fancy way of saying "being aware of yourself." Metacognition in movement is pretty difficult. I have noticed most of my students are hardly aware of their bodies at all. I have had some success, however, by asking them to focus on specific movements. Move the wrist this way, then that. Notice how it feels when the wrist is flexed. Move your wrist while moving your elbow. Tense your hand, now relax it, feel the difference. Etc.
I have also had some success by using external objects to force the student into playing correct form, like wrist guards for the left hand. Guiding the bow back to center while the student is playing. Etc. It is also helpful to ask the student to play incorrectly, because it makes them aware of what the body needs to do while playing "wrong." In fact, asking the student to play incorrectly often leads to the student playing correctly. When this happens, I often point it out to them: "If it feels wrong, you're probably right." Usually, they return the next week much improved.
Conclusions
It is difficult to draw conclusions at this point. It does seem, however, that applying the three principles outlined in "How People Learn" will help students both with knowledge based and movement based learning. Without experimentation, however, there's no way to know how well it all applies. Still, in the absence of a better way, it seems to work pretty well.
I hope this helps you teach better! Please, share any comments, constructive criticisms, and ideas you may have. If teachers don't help each other teach better, we're doomed. Doomed, I say! So stop sitting in the back row pretending you're not playing Angry Birds and interact!
Monday, May 20, 2013
First!
EDIT: There used to be a couple links in here. They went to Leroy Anderson's 'Typewriter' recorded by the BBC, Dvorak's 'Silent Woods' performed by Jacquelyn du Pre, and Miyoko Shida balancing a feather on a bunch of sticks. Alas, they are copy written material, which AdSense does not take kindly to. I'm not complaining, it's reasonable, but I wanted to make a note so if you wanted to find this stuff, you can.
I started a blog. It is going to be about music. And teaching. And maybe other random stuff. But mostly music and teaching, because I play music and I teach. Specifically, I play and teach cello, the best of all possible instruments. There are some who will disagree with that on personal grounds. I don't care about them so much. There are some who will disagree on philosophical grounds, because Dr. Pangloss. Those people may have a point. Upon further reflection, however, they are still wrong. Why do I say this? No particular reason.
So music. Classical music blogs are woefully lacking. I don't know this for sure. Maybe they are hiding. It amounts to the same thing. I'm positive this is not such a good thing. There's so much wonderful music to be heard, and I know from personal experience many people want to hear it. But they don't know where to look. Well, look no further. I will discuss classical music here, hopefully in a clear, non-pedantic, non-judgmental manner. Ok. Maybe a little judgmental.
What will I discuss? Mostly composers, classical music culture, and other things that come to mind. Also contemporary musicians/performers/composers, because an art only survives if it is alive, and it is only alive if new compositions are created and performed. Otherwise it's a museum. There is a difference between a museum and a gallery. Mostly money. But partly the artist's age, give or take a few centuries. Granted, both are important, just for different reasons. Right now, classical music is only museum music, or mostly so in the large cultural centers. This must change.
But why? You don't hear anything about the dwindling Grateful Dead audience. It's a catastrophe, really, when you think about it from the Grateful Dead's point of view. They're hemorrhaging audience members faster than a patient losing blood in an episode of House. Do people still watch House? I don't know. I don't. Some of you know what I'm talking about. That's the important thing. Where was I. Right.
Because classical music is better than the Grateful Dead. Deadheads will disagree, but their nickname implies, well... I don't want to judge too much. Everybody has their thing. Go have some fun watching Grateful Dead cover bands. What does it mean, 'Classical music is better.'? It means it has more depth. It has more interesting things hiding under its surface. Its more clever, sometimes too clever by half. It has more variety. Sometimes it has more of everything. Like, sometimes it uses a typewriter.
Not to say it's all better. Classical music also tends to be long. And require focus. And possibly some amount of knowledge to fully appreciate it. Possibly. I'm not 100% convinced of that. Probably. But I go to an Open Mic dedicated almost exclusively to classical music. Almost nobody in the audience is a trained musician. Other than the musicians, who are highly trained. But other than them. Few of them know much about classical music, or music at all other than the Top 40. And yet they love it. And they come back. And they tip.
As it turns out, people like seeing things that are done well. It really doesn't matter what that thing is. It could be somebody balancing twigs on a feather. Or sports. Or anything, really. As long as it's done well, people will like it. But you also have to show it to them. You have to let them know it exists. You have to bring it to them. That is a full article in itself, but really: You cannot expect your audience to come to you. You must go to them. Symphonies are quite poor at making this happen. Maybe that is why symphonies are failing.
Ok. That's enough. Now go listen to music.
I started a blog. It is going to be about music. And teaching. And maybe other random stuff. But mostly music and teaching, because I play music and I teach. Specifically, I play and teach cello, the best of all possible instruments. There are some who will disagree with that on personal grounds. I don't care about them so much. There are some who will disagree on philosophical grounds, because Dr. Pangloss. Those people may have a point. Upon further reflection, however, they are still wrong. Why do I say this? No particular reason.
So music. Classical music blogs are woefully lacking. I don't know this for sure. Maybe they are hiding. It amounts to the same thing. I'm positive this is not such a good thing. There's so much wonderful music to be heard, and I know from personal experience many people want to hear it. But they don't know where to look. Well, look no further. I will discuss classical music here, hopefully in a clear, non-pedantic, non-judgmental manner. Ok. Maybe a little judgmental.
What will I discuss? Mostly composers, classical music culture, and other things that come to mind. Also contemporary musicians/performers/composers, because an art only survives if it is alive, and it is only alive if new compositions are created and performed. Otherwise it's a museum. There is a difference between a museum and a gallery. Mostly money. But partly the artist's age, give or take a few centuries. Granted, both are important, just for different reasons. Right now, classical music is only museum music, or mostly so in the large cultural centers. This must change.
But why? You don't hear anything about the dwindling Grateful Dead audience. It's a catastrophe, really, when you think about it from the Grateful Dead's point of view. They're hemorrhaging audience members faster than a patient losing blood in an episode of House. Do people still watch House? I don't know. I don't. Some of you know what I'm talking about. That's the important thing. Where was I. Right.
Because classical music is better than the Grateful Dead. Deadheads will disagree, but their nickname implies, well... I don't want to judge too much. Everybody has their thing. Go have some fun watching Grateful Dead cover bands. What does it mean, 'Classical music is better.'? It means it has more depth. It has more interesting things hiding under its surface. Its more clever, sometimes too clever by half. It has more variety. Sometimes it has more of everything. Like, sometimes it uses a typewriter.
Not to say it's all better. Classical music also tends to be long. And require focus. And possibly some amount of knowledge to fully appreciate it. Possibly. I'm not 100% convinced of that. Probably. But I go to an Open Mic dedicated almost exclusively to classical music. Almost nobody in the audience is a trained musician. Other than the musicians, who are highly trained. But other than them. Few of them know much about classical music, or music at all other than the Top 40. And yet they love it. And they come back. And they tip.
As it turns out, people like seeing things that are done well. It really doesn't matter what that thing is. It could be somebody balancing twigs on a feather. Or sports. Or anything, really. As long as it's done well, people will like it. But you also have to show it to them. You have to let them know it exists. You have to bring it to them. That is a full article in itself, but really: You cannot expect your audience to come to you. You must go to them. Symphonies are quite poor at making this happen. Maybe that is why symphonies are failing.
Ok. That's enough. Now go listen to music.
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