The story is told of three masons who were doing the same kind of work.

A passerby inquired of each mason, “What are you doing?”

“I’m laying brick,” said the first mason.
“I’m building a wall,” the second man answered.

The third mason, in answer to the same question, replied, “I’m building a great cathedral.”

Certainly, no one will question which of the three masons lived the fuller life.

 

In Nurtured By Love Suzuki said…

“Teaching music is not my main purpose. I want to make good citizens. If children hear fine music from the day of their birth and learn to play it, they develop sensitivity, discipline and endurance. They get a beautiful heart.”

Suzuki was teaching music in order to develop the beautiful hearts of his students.

Certainly, no one will question Dr. Suzuki lived a full life.

What is it that you are doing?

 

 

 

 

“To make a resolution and act accordingly is to live with hope. There may be difficulties and hardships, but not disappointment or despair if you follow the path steadily. Do not hurry. This is a fundamental rule. If you hurry and collapse or tumble down, nothing is achieved. Do not rest in your efforts; this is another fundamental rule. Without stopping, without haste, carefully taking a step at a time forward will surely get you there.” Shinichi Suzuki, Nurtured By Love

In oder to further explore aspects of body-being I recently joined a Tai Chi class at our local martial arts school.

At my first class on Friday I began as complete beginner— and brought my friend, Jeremy, who was also a novice along for the ride. We both had some understanding of Daoist philosophy and Yoga, but not much.

We were greeted by our teacher Anthony who is an avid studier of Asian healing arts and practitioner of Aikido, Yang style Tai Ji Quan, and Qi Gong. His wry sense of humor and depth of knowledge colored his instruction, which was grounded foremost in graceful demonstrations of the form.

In an hour long session with a handful of other practitioners, Anthony guided us through four moves. Four!

Growing up in the Suzuki Method and relatively unfamiliar with activities involving choreographed body movement (I didn’t do cheerleading or dance growing up), I was content to polish these four basic moves for the entire hour. Jeremy, however, was anxious to learn more.

“I think we have these down. What is the next step?!” my friend asked.

Another classmate, one who had obviously been studying Tai Chi for many years, looked over at Jeremy. The wise student said with a smile, “Don’t worry, Jeremy, you are right on schedule.”

What a powerful statement!

Meaning of “Right on Schedule”

I sensed from the way the line was delivered, that our classmate’s comment had many meanings.

Jeremy, “right on schedule,” meant… [Read more…]

I often come back to Ed Kreitman’s four fundamental pillars of masterful teaching…

1. Mastery of the instrument
2. Ability to communicate with parents
3. Ability to communicate with children
4. A complete understanding of one’s teaching sequence, start to finish

Kreitman’s Complete Sequence

The complete understanding of one’s own teaching sequence is the pillar which appears most daunting to me.

Most teachers start their teaching journey with students who are in the middle. For example, many college student teaching programs send young music educators into public middle and high schools to teach students who have already started the instrument but are not yet masters. While this sort of teaching requires personal instrument mastery and hones communication skills, I don’t believe it really develops a music educator’s understanding of development itself.

To understand development, a teacher must move from the middle to the extremes. A teacher must come to know the way of the masters, inside and out, as well as the beautiful, beginning mind of a novice. Then, and only then, can a teacher start draw their own connective tissue from one extreme to the other.

Duke’s Holistic Vision

This idea of complete understanding is also reflected in Dr. Robert Duke’s principle of visioning the student as an accomplished learner, which I discussed a few weeks ago as a strategy to avoid “upside down” teaching.

Dr. Duke’s research shows that masterful teachers have an extremely detailed vision of exactly what the student will look like as a master. By visioning out to the very end of a student’s journey, a teacher can define student success, keep an eye out for issues that will prevent progress, and therefore make the learning process as efficient as possible.

The most important aspect of this vision of mastery, though, is that it is holistic. The vision of the student as an accomplished learner represents a moment in time in which all aspects of the student’s playing function successfully AND coherently. In other words, all components of the teaching process must meet and work with each other for the student to be successful.

If the vision itself isn’t comprehensive or holistic — leaving out any detail in the ecosystem of skilled movements, attitudes, and conceptual understandings which make up the act of playing the violin — then any sequential process you build from the vision is fundamentally misguided. [Read more…]

At the Ithaca Talent Education winter workshop this past weekend I logged over 13 hours of observation. A combination of group, master, and enrichment classes filled up Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

I had the privilege to watch and assist Ann Montzka-Smelser, an incredible Suzuki teacher from the Chicago area. After observing hours of her small masterclasses with groups of four students at a time (institute style) I started to pick up on a pattern.

Latching on to, and transforming, an aspect of a student’s playing in 15 minutes or less requires honed teaching skills.

Ann’s efficient routine, obviously refined by years of experience, left parents, observing teachers, and most importantly students, satisfied after just a quarter hour of work.

This is the formula for a satisfying master class lesson, as I observed in Ann’s teaching.

1. BREAK DOWN THE AWKWARDNESS.

Figure out a way to cut through the students’ initial nervousness, either by joking around or asking personal questions. Remind the student this is not a performance, just a lesson.

2. WATCH THE STUDENT PERFORMANCE CLOSELY.

Use this time to gather as much information as possible. Walk around the student to see their posture from behind. See what red flags stand out to you. By the end of the performance pick ONE thing to work on.

3. COMPLIMENT.

Resist the temptation to start working on that point right away. First take time to note to the student what worked very well in their performance. Be extremely genuine, saying what you know to be true. If finding something to genuinely compliment is difficult, consider basic aspects of posture, tone, and musical expression to comment on. Ideally you will also choose something true but that you don’t think they would expect. For example, if it seems a student is very left hand centric make a comment about the beauty of their bow hold or comfort at the frog.

4. SUGGEST A WORKING POINT, CONDITIONALLY.

At this point in master classes I’ve seen teachers dive head first into an uncomfortable technique for the student or smatter the lesson with 25 “suggestions.” Ann on the other hand grounded her working comments by saying, “There is so much already going well, BUT I do need to choose something to work on.” She would often follow the statement up with some sort of guiding question about the working point she decided on during the performance. By starting work in this way, she lay a foundation of good will between her and the student and invited them to take ownership in the working process.

5. WORK ON ONLY ONE THING…

Ann chose just one thing to work on every student with. Sometimes the “one thing” was a giant topic such as tone or relaxed posture, others were incredibly specific such as pinkie pressure for tip support. The key is she chose just one thing, and didn’t let up until the student had success in that arena. Honestly with only 15 minutes, I am often perplexed teachers would dare choose more than one thing anyway.

By the end of the weekend I was often able to guess which aspect of a student’s playing she was going to choose. She strategically worked on THE ONE THING that most affected all other aspects of playing.

For example, she wouldn’t work on developing a particular bow stroke if there were any issues with the bow hold. She would never work on intonation issues before addressing left hand shape. Discussions of musicality could only happen if the student’s resonant tone was in good shape.

Here is a simplified list of teaching priorities in what I perceived to be Ann’s preferred order. [Read more…]

In teacher training with Ed Kreitman a few summers ago, I learned about the meaning of “right side up” and “up side down” students. A right side up student, according to Kreitman, would possess technical capabilities far beyond their own working piece. On the other hand, and “upside down student” is working piece far beyond their own technical capabilities.

The other night I witnessed Christian Tetzlaff perform four of the six Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin in one recital! Though Bach’s solo works for violin contain some of the most difficult elements of violin playing, it is abundantly obvious Mr. Tetzlaff’s technical ability is so expansive that he has the bandwidth to perform four in sequence with incredible musical endurance and sensitivity. Tetzlaff has played Bach for decades, has recorded repertoire from Vivaldi to Berg, and regularly performs to filled halls. He is also critically aware of his own capabilities as a concert violinists, and can reliably perform programs without faltering. His presentation of solo Bach the other night was an extreme example of “right-up-ship.”

Imagine, as a contrasting example, a student who isn’t even technically capable of playing Twinkle with good posture, intonation, or tone, attempting to navigate Gossec Gavotte. Not only are their skills underdeveloped, they are exacerbating the issue by playing a piece so technically out of their league. What is usually the most problematic about “upside down students” however is that they think they are successfully on track. They think because they did the work of note learning to get from Twinkle to Gossec Gavotte, that they are as accomplished as any person playing Gossec Gavotte. In other words they have the same mindset as Christian Tetzlaff, but none of the skill.

“Upside down students” dangerously measure success by the boxed number above each Suzuki piece in the repertoire books. The further they are in the book, the better they think they are. [Read more…]

Ed Kreitman broadly thinks about Suzuki Book 1-4 with the following overarching goals.

Book 1: Balanced Posture
Book 2: Tone
Book 3: Musicality
Book 4: Virtuosity

So for in my teaching career, these guideposts have been incredibly helpful.

To think about Book 1 through the lens of posture allows me to stay focused, easily assess my success, and give appropriate feedback to my students. I know when to move on because I’ve assigned (or borrowed Kreitman’s assignment) purpose to the book. If I don’t accomplish balanced posture in Book 1, there is no way I can layer tone, musicality, and virtuosity onto my student’s sets of skills. [Read more…]