I've reached an interesting point in my teaching career. After nearly seven years of teaching I finally have a batch of book 4-becoming-semi-advanced level students. From a teaching perspective it means that I am finally faced with the task of producing an artist rather than just someone who plays with a very basic level of control.
This is a daunting prospect.
It's one thing to start a beginner. The worst I could do is render the student frustrated and unable to play. It's quite another thing to try and explain to a twelve-year-old how this sonata she is playing needs more emotional depth. Where does one even begin?
I ask these questions rhetorically, of course. Like just about everything else in teaching there's never one clear solution to a problem. But as I explore different ways to help a student learn musical depth I've noticed that it's actually starting to change my playing.
Like every other twelve-year-old on the planet, I never gave much thought to the contours and shape of the music I was playing. Even through college I would sort of blindly imitate recordings, totally oblivious to the musical story I was trying to tell. It wasn't until I had to coach students through these concepts that I began to think, "Oh wait, there are layers to this piece."
I suppose it really is true when they say: to teach is to learn twice.
This is a daunting prospect.
It's one thing to start a beginner. The worst I could do is render the student frustrated and unable to play. It's quite another thing to try and explain to a twelve-year-old how this sonata she is playing needs more emotional depth. Where does one even begin?
I ask these questions rhetorically, of course. Like just about everything else in teaching there's never one clear solution to a problem. But as I explore different ways to help a student learn musical depth I've noticed that it's actually starting to change my playing.
Like every other twelve-year-old on the planet, I never gave much thought to the contours and shape of the music I was playing. Even through college I would sort of blindly imitate recordings, totally oblivious to the musical story I was trying to tell. It wasn't until I had to coach students through these concepts that I began to think, "Oh wait, there are layers to this piece."
I suppose it really is true when they say: to teach is to learn twice.
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