I haven't had much to update on here lately, and I apologize for that. I've been finding out that, while I only have one subscriber, there are actually a few of you out there who read this thing. Cool! And thank you!
So currently I have one private student under my wing. We finally got to have our first lesson of the academic year this past Monday. I have to admit, it wasn't great teaching on my part. I allowed several factors to contribute to my lack of enthusiasm:
1. We were initially planning on having lessons over the summer to work, primarily, on fundamentals. We had two lessons, and after that something almost always came up.
2. This turned into a trend. Once the year started, the student always had a reason why we couldn't meet. They were always legitimate reasons, but disheartening none the less. It makes you question if the student actually wants to continue lessons, or if they're just dragging you along.
3. It culminated in the last two weeks when he sent me a message on Labor Day asking where we would meet since the school was closed, and I replied with a location, and he didn't show up (probably didn't check his messages), and then the very next week I drove out to his school, low on gas, only for him to have already left for a doctor's appointment which I didn't know about.
I honestly considered giving him an ultimatum. I simply can't afford to drive 40-50 minutes round trip for nothing, not to mention that I could use that time to prepare for my upcoming senior recital. But he apologized and I drove out the next week (this past Monday), still not sure of whether or not he would show up.
Luckily he was there, and he was excited to get started. Of course, he also hadn't even looked at his audition etudes. I had asked for copies of the music weeks ago since I don't own the particular book they came out of, and never got them, so this was my first time seeing the etudes.
While waiting for students to clear out of the area I proceeded to warm up. Then the first cool thing happened. I sight read the snot out of two of those etudes. Considering I haven't done much sight reading in several months, I felt pretty good about it, but my student was inspired. As kids walked in and out of the area he was pointing, "Are you hearing this?" "Hey, this is my tuba teacher!" It was great to know that, while I've been struggling with many aspects of my recital music, I can nail the more traditional etudes without much effort. But it was also great to provide a model for my student. Finally, it was time to get started.
As I didn't have the music ahead of time, I didn't have much of a plan. I let him pick the starting point, and we gradually worked our way through the etude. I showed him some tricks to make learning the licks easier. In fact, that's basically how the entire lesson went. Probably not bad. He seemed to be enjoying the experience. I just didn't feel like we were making big enough strides for my taste, and I blamed myself for that. Maybe we were making some big strides. There were at least two things that happened that are pretty note worthy that I wanted to document:
The first was the coolest, for me at least. Once we got to the recap in the first etude, we understandably picked up speed. Since he was basically hitting the right notes and rhythms, even though it wasn't with a great sound yet, I decided to act on something I saw in the music. It was a stylistic thing. A musical nuance.
My lesson teacher forbids working on musical nuance until your "base line playing" is nearly flawless. He is of the school that you have to have your fundamentals down before you can get to the music. This is a debate I've read about, and all of the greatest names in the music education world seem to agree that you should teach both musicality and playing technique at the same time. With that in mind, I pointed the style out to him and modeled it for a single phrase, then had him play it back to me.
"So, what do you think?"
"Yeah, that sounds cool! I like it!"
And just like that, we had our pearl for the lesson. On his first day with one of the etudes, this student was making music, and of course, he was pumped about it. After seeing his excitement I suddenly realized that he is much more likely to practice his etudes again before our next lesson for the simple fact that he now feels excited about playing it, even if it's just that one etude for now. That will still be good progress.
The other thing was actually mentioned earlier. One of the positive things I've gained from my lessons is a set of tools to break down passages to make them easier to learn and refine. Using a variety of these tricks, I showed the student that two of the etudes really won't be as bad as he might have originally thought. He actually voiced that idea before I did, which is great. If students don't know that something is hard, they aren't as much at risk of getting in their own way, so to speak.
So really, it wasn't a bad lesson. Just not up to the standard I expect of myself. Next week will definitely be better since I have the opportunity to analyze the music and prepare. I am determined to have at least one major breakthrough this Monday in addition to good progress in as many other areas as possible.
I'll start observing at a local middle school this next week, and if the teachers don't mind then I'll probably mention some of the things I gained from those experiences in here as well. Additionally, I've been tossing around some other ideas for small school programs that I wouldn't mind discussing in here. I'm always open for discussion or ideas!
I really appreciate the positive feedback I've received from a few of you regarding this blog. Thank you for reading! If this one isn't up to snuff, I apologize, but I haven't had a lot of cool opportunities lately. I'm hoping that will change soon. In the mean time, the major take away I think is that yes, teaching music and technique simultaneously can have cool results. It certainly seems like it would be more enjoyable than being beaten into the ground for weeks at a time before you're allowed to make music!
Thanks again for reading, and until next time, take care!
Musically yours,
Mr. Cooper
