throw students into the deep end

[Egghead]

I wonder about the fun and sinister ways dedicated teachers use to throw students into the deep end, here are some interesting ideas by lostinidlewonder:

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How to "throw students in the deep end" is a long discussion. Ill be as to the point as i can though.

[1] Since a lot of musical work has to do with the visualisation of the group of notes in the piece we try to learn I ask students to discuss this in detail instead of just trying to play. I ask them to identify common shapes found within their music made by the family of chords and scales we often encounter. This common shape sense aids our memory of course a great deal and i like to get students thinking this straight away. It is easy to observe these shapes by themselves but to see them in the sheet music, in an actual piece, and to understand how and why they change requires musical logic.

I ask students to work on Bar x to y for the week for a particular peice. I ensure that they write down how they observe the patterns that they see in the score. Sometimes they say things like, bar 1 is like 2 but the G is now A which is also highlighted in the Lh Amaj chord, whatever. I think this type of observations are very impottant, seeing how each hand relates to one another through similar notes. I like to read these observations from the more beginner/intermediant students who are still trying to get their heads/hands around form at the piano because it reveals their musical logic process.

I usually spend a while discussing shape and form the student came up with for the sections we set the previous week. Contrasting their ideas to my own I offer them other perspectives as to how they should perhaps see the pattern in the score, and what other patterns can be found to further guide our memory. I guess, tricks as to how to look at the score, and how to use it to aid the memory. This contrasting of ideas expands their logical mind, and hopefully then they can understand the patterns hidden in the movement of notes clearer.

As well as being able to highlight patterns in the sheet music they should also connect those patterns to the movement groups found in their playing (i.e: when the hands have to actually move). These usually set the basis for drills used to memorise the music. One would play passages where the hand doesnt have to move without disrupting the flow, but pause between each movement group. So I ask them to play for the the drills that they created to memorise and develop a "Routine touch" (play without thinking about notes rather the physical movement to produce them) for the music. Of course i will not ask of this from advanced students, rather i will listen to their playing and observe their physical playing as a whole rather than caring about how they went about binding it all together, i assume they know how to bind, i just critique the finishing touches.

[2] A further way i throw students into the deep end is by setting them at least one very small section of a hard piece (of my choice) beyond their ability for now.  I ask them to make progress on that as if it where a peice they had to study and again write down and discuss the more indepth memory processes and visualisations that have to be gone through, also the physical technique required to produce it. They know it isnt music they have to play well, rather it is music used to demonstrate their ability to absorb music. If you can only absorb what is at your level that is never good, leaves too many mental boundaries and less room for growth imo.

What i want is not a student who is a master of playing, rather one who is a master of resource and tactics of musical study, so that they can work on anything and know if they are doing it right or wrong. The only way i find i can do that is by forcing them to make musical decisions. When I set something ridiculous often the following week I get a blank stare and its rather apparent that they where utterly lost and fell flat on their face. This is fine so long the teacher is there to guide, try this, put a bit more effort on this, this was on the right track, this wasn't etc. They begin to think more musically and see shapes in more difficult stuff, then when they look at their easier work the patterns just look so simplistic.

[3] A further way i throw them into the deep end is by playing their music they learn back to them and ask them what i did right or wrong. I make obvious errors and also not so obvious, and ask them to tell me to stop when they think there is something wrong. I will also play music they havent heard before and play it without expression or dynamics and ask them to tell me what should be done just by listening to the notes a few times.

Of course these things do not take the majority of the time in a lesson but they do come up every week.

Oh so many sinister ways to throw students into the deep end mwahahha

Any other ideas? Views on the above?

[BoliverAllmon]

well, I threw one of my students into the deep end last week. I gave him a piece that is harder than anything he had ever done. It wasn't too bad, but challenging nonetheless. I gave him a mark that he had to be at by the end of the week. It was something like 5 measures. Well, he quit. Good riddens. Gives me more time to work on my crap and students that want to learn.

boliver