Focus on form or let it be?

[green]

At what stage do you begin looking at form and technique, and I'm talking about with talent, students who are able to play at a high level from an early age, perhaps 7-12. I have two or three students, and I'm thinking of this 10 year old who flys through music, and if I do focus on technique, he has reverted back to normal from the previous week, and I see what a task it will be to keep coming back to this. I would tend to say that form must come first, that he has already past a point where that should have been dealt with, and now his awareness is purely on the music (but with sloppy technique). I think I will just go with the flow, forget about what his fingers are doing for the moment, and move him through the music he wants to play.

In language teaching this would be focusing on 'communication' as opposed to grammar, pronunciation, etc. 

I suppose in theory, and personal experience, I do say that technique follows intention and not the other way round, that is to say, the intensity with which you 'hear' will usually produce a correspondingly economical and technically efficient manner to achieve that result. In retrospect you might say, ah yes, so that's how I did it, but the clarity with which you hear always precedes that.

[green]

So in teaching there is the external which affects the inner hearing, and the inner which affects the form. Finding that balance I suppose is what this is about.

[keypeg]

In language teaching this would be focusing on 'communication' as opposed to grammar, pronunciation, etc. 

I'm not sure what that means.  You certainly don't start with grammar unless you're doing the old dead language approach which never yielded fluency.  It is integral, and I imagine that music is integral too.

[outin]

If I undetstand your question correctly I think it would be quite a disservice to a student to let it be. Yes, focusing on form will revert him back. I think it has almost stopped me from getting anywhere with music for the last two years. But I still think it needs to be done no matter how painful and how much I sometimes question my teacher. If it's the way to be able to play what i want to play then it must be done. Would be much easier to do when you are 10 than at 40 something.

[brogers70]

Maybe find something that he wants to play but which he won't be able to play unless he uses good technique.

[nyiregyhazi]

I suppose in theory, and personal experience, I do say that technique follows intention and not the other way round, that is to say, the intensity with which you 'hear' will usually produce a correspondingly economical and technically efficient manner to achieve that result. In retrospect you might say, ah yes, so that's how I did it, but the clarity with which you hear always precedes that.

? Surely everything you wrote previously serves to disprove that myth? This stuff becomes true AFTER you learn good form, not before. What makes you think that if you leave him to use any old technique that listening will fix it later? His habits will only become more strongly wired in and harder to make adjustments to.