On musical education
Some 10 years ago I started to teach guitar at the Academy. When I look back to my teaching method in these days, I think in some ways I was doing a good job. In other aspects of teaching I now nearly feel ashamed of how I dealt with some situations.
In analogy to this, I expect to have the same miscellaneous feelings about my current teaching style in 10 years – hopefully to a larger extent in a positive judgement.
For now, I would like to share some ideas about teaching.
In fact, any kid or student, needs another approach. The danger of teaching-routine is that we stop seeking for the particular individuality of the pupil, while imposing on any student the same features of how we want them to play and develop.
This method results inevitably in some students developing very well, because they can recognize themselves in what is taught. Others will stop their studies prematurely, because they don’t feel supported in their initial expectations of the music lessons.
Recognizing the personality of each student is a matter of great human insight, and it needs a great deal of experience and social sensitiveness to develop it – which takes a lifetime.
However, I believe it is important we retain our own personality as musicians in our music courses, because it is also our enthusiasm in music that will provoke the interest of the student. The students will feel it instinctively that we are not entirely present while teaching without enthusiasm.
A very important issue is: how to achieve a balance between practice and knowledge in teaching beginning students? In another article ‘Ratio vs Emotion’ I write more profoundly about this antithesis.
In this context the question could be raised: Should practice precede theory or vice versa?
When we look at all traditional music styles, we can see that practice through imitation is nearly the only teaching method. When I was as a teenager in Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusía, I had some flamenco guitar lessons. The maestro simply played something and we had to imitate this.
In fact the method of imitation was also essential in classical music tradition. Bach mainly learned how to compose by listening and copying scores of the music masters at the time.
The principle of following a written method on how to learn to compose or to play, is essentially a 19th century phenomenon, although we already have music Traités of much earlier date.
The problem with learning with a method is that there is an abstract medium interfering with a teaching process. A teaching processing is direct and fluent through direct imitation.
For this, I advocate to introduce our students with the instrument without an accompanying method book – at least for a while at the beginning.
Some 10 years ago I started to teach guitar at the Academy. When I look back to my teaching method in these days, I think in some ways I was doing a good job. In other aspects of teaching I now nearly feel ashamed of how I dealt with some situations.
In analogy to this, I expect to have the same miscellaneous feelings about my current teaching style in 10 years – hopefully to a larger extent in a positive judgement.
For now, I would like to share some ideas about teaching.
In fact, any kid or student, needs another approach. The danger of teaching-routine is that we stop seeking for the particular individuality of the pupil, while imposing on any student the same features of how we want them to play and develop.
This method results inevitably in some students developing very well, because they can recognize themselves in what is taught. Others will stop their studies prematurely, because they don’t feel supported in their initial expectations of the music lessons.
Recognizing the personality of each student is a matter of great human insight, and it needs a great deal of experience and social sensitiveness to develop it – which takes a lifetime.
However, I believe it is important we retain our own personality as musicians in our music courses, because it is also our enthusiasm in music that will provoke the interest of the student. The students will feel it instinctively that we are not entirely present while teaching without enthusiasm.
A very important issue is: how to achieve a balance between practice and knowledge in teaching beginning students? In another article ‘Ratio vs Emotion’ I write more profoundly about this antithesis.
In this context the question could be raised: Should practice precede theory or vice versa?
When we look at all traditional music styles, we can see that practice through imitation is nearly the only teaching method. When I was as a teenager in Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusía, I had some flamenco guitar lessons. The maestro simply played something and we had to imitate this.
In fact the method of imitation was also essential in classical music tradition. Bach mainly learned how to compose by listening and copying scores of the music masters at the time.
The principle of following a written method on how to learn to compose or to play, is essentially a 19th century phenomenon, although we already have music Traités of much earlier date.
The problem with learning with a method is that there is an abstract medium interfering with a teaching process. A teaching processing is direct and fluent through direct imitation.
For this, I advocate to introduce our students with the instrument without an accompanying method book – at least for a while at the beginning.