Post by Steve Hopwood on Oct 13, 2006 22:13:06 GMT
We have moved some distance from possom's original posting, into different learning styles. I hope you don't mind, possom.
Here are some further thoughts, inspired by my teaching tonight.
I taught sisters Sophie (9) and Izzy (8) tonight.
Sophie reads fluently but panics at the thought of even finding middle C without seeing it written down first. Izzy learns everything from memory; you could beat her over the head with a score depiction of mid C and she would still say, "Eh?"
Sophie loves it when I say, "Here is a new piece. Try it through first, then I will play it and go through it with you." She joyously has a bash and loves hearing how it should really have gone. Guess what? I do this often.
Do this to Izzy, and it goes a long way to wrecking her lesson and making her very unhappy. Guess what? I don't do this to her.
Imagine the scenario of both girls staring the same piece at the same time. At the end of lesson 1, Sophie will have read all the way through the piece and be happy to practise the whole thing. Izzy will have managed about half of it.
Lesson 2: I correct the mistakes in Sophie's misreadings and finish off helping Izzy memorise the rest of the piece.
Lesson 3: some musical 'polishing' with both of them.
I prefer elementary pupils to spend no more that a fortnight on a piece, but this pattern does not suit these two. Two pieces every three weeks works best for them.
In reality, the girls play different pieces, but the process I describe is the same. They started playing at the same time and are pretty much the same standard 18 months further on.
At the other end of the scale, take my honorary daughter, Kathy, a former sholarship winner to the Birmingham Conservatoire.
Kathy's favoured method of learning pieces was to listen to them on a cd and pick them out at the piano. She used the score merely to confirm textual accuracy. I heard her give some fantastic recitals; nobody could have ascertained her learning strategies from her playing.
Horses for courses is what I am saying here.
Steve
Here are some further thoughts, inspired by my teaching tonight.
I taught sisters Sophie (9) and Izzy (8) tonight.
Sophie reads fluently but panics at the thought of even finding middle C without seeing it written down first. Izzy learns everything from memory; you could beat her over the head with a score depiction of mid C and she would still say, "Eh?"
Sophie loves it when I say, "Here is a new piece. Try it through first, then I will play it and go through it with you." She joyously has a bash and loves hearing how it should really have gone. Guess what? I do this often.
Do this to Izzy, and it goes a long way to wrecking her lesson and making her very unhappy. Guess what? I don't do this to her.
Imagine the scenario of both girls staring the same piece at the same time. At the end of lesson 1, Sophie will have read all the way through the piece and be happy to practise the whole thing. Izzy will have managed about half of it.
Lesson 2: I correct the mistakes in Sophie's misreadings and finish off helping Izzy memorise the rest of the piece.
Lesson 3: some musical 'polishing' with both of them.
I prefer elementary pupils to spend no more that a fortnight on a piece, but this pattern does not suit these two. Two pieces every three weeks works best for them.
In reality, the girls play different pieces, but the process I describe is the same. They started playing at the same time and are pretty much the same standard 18 months further on.
At the other end of the scale, take my honorary daughter, Kathy, a former sholarship winner to the Birmingham Conservatoire.
Kathy's favoured method of learning pieces was to listen to them on a cd and pick them out at the piano. She used the score merely to confirm textual accuracy. I heard her give some fantastic recitals; nobody could have ascertained her learning strategies from her playing.
Horses for courses is what I am saying here.
Steve