WHY A NEW APPROACH?

The Need for an Alternative: From Fantasy to Reality
• Joey’s First Concert
• A Musical Sleepover
• Danny and Lisa
• The Abyss

Tales of Woe

Traditional Lessons

Myths
• Musicians/ Non-Musicians
• Tone Deaf/ a Tin Ear/ Carrying a Tune
• Note-reading
• The “Empty Vessel” Theory/The Lazy Child

Traditional Lessons

“When teachers tell me what to do all the time, I feel like monsters are closing in on me. When they let me figure it out for myself, the monsters go away.”
H. T., Age 7

In a traditional music lesson a child goes to a teacher to study one particular instrument. The goal of the lessons is to learn how to play the instrument and each lesson is designed to move the child forward along that path. The child is taught the names of the notes, how to read them and how to find the corresponding note on the instrument with the correct hand position and fingering. He is taught to count meter and rhythm and to play according to a steady beat. Then, of course, the child must learn how to produce a good tone and play with appropriate dynamics and phrasing. These are the basics of learning any instrument. However, there are aspects of this structure that make it unsuitable for many, if not most, children.

Olives, Anyone?
First, there is the matter of deciding which instrument a particular child should learn. If you have never tasted any food and I offer you olives, saying that from now on you will eat only olives and nothing else, it makes no sense. Then why does it make sense to offer lessons on one instrument to a child who has not had broad musical exposure? I have never had a feel for playing wind instruments. If someone had handed me, at age nine, a clarinet and proceeded to evaluate my musical ability based on my progress with that instrument, the consensus would have been that I wasn’t particularly talented. There are many ways to be musical and the choice of an instrument must reflect one’s personal expressive needs. It is essential that an individual be exposed to many types of musical experiences before she can make this choice.

Your Own Self
Learning to play an instrument not only requires acceptance of a particular learning structure, but of certain attitudes about learning as well. To learn to play an instrument, the student must learn certain skills in a certain order.  There is little or no place for experimentation and exploration and the child’s individuality and natural creativity seem irrelevant. Impulses that don’t pertain to developing and improving those skills are unwelcome, and the needs of the instrument take precedence over the needs of the individual. One gets the feeling that there is a right and wrong way to do music. I heard a child say that he doesn’t like lessons because there’s no chance to put his “own self” into it.

Only Part of the Picture
Suppose you took a giant sheet and covered one of Picasso’s paintings, exposing only a tiny section. If a person unfamiliar with the painting were told that by looking at this tiny section, she was seeing a Picasso, she would know that she isn’t because she sees that a sheet is covering the rest of it. Allowing a child to believe that learning to play an instrument is the way to learn all about music amounts to the same thing, but worse, because the child can’t see the sheet. For a child with no musical background, unaware of the countless ways to make and be involved with music, it is wrong to let her think that taking lessons on an instrument paints the whole picture. What about singing, moving, composing, improvising, orchestrating, conducting and experimenting with sound? An experienced and honest mentor needs to validate any activity that meets the musical needs of the individual, and who is in a better position to do this than the music teacher?

Someday ...
Children have an essential need to be in the present moment, and they derive great satisfaction from activities that allow them this. Activities that children choose for themselves – puzzles, songs, stories, baseball games – enable the child to start and finish something in a relatively short span of time. It is unrealistic and unfair to expect a child to see the long-term benefit of something he is doing now, yet this is exactly what music lessons require of him. Studying an instrument is based on rewards you will receive at some point in the future for the work you are doing now. Even the reward itself is vague – What will it feel like to be able to play this instrument? The child doesn’t really know. This, by the way, is one reason that adults who decide to study an instrument later in life often have a far more satisfying experience. The requirements are more in sync with the adult’s sense of time. For a child, it is a shame to never have the incomparable experience of an exciting and uplifting musical moment now – an experience complete in itself.

Practicing
Then there is practicing. Material introduced in the lesson must be reinforced at home through focused and efficient practicing, but in truth, it is unreasonable to expect most children to practice an instrument on their own. Practicing requires tremendous discipline, understanding of the process, and organizational skills that few of us have even as adults. When these elements are missing, practicing is nothing but a series of rote gestures that accomplish nothing. The child feels frustrated and resistant, and the issue of practicing becomes a battleground for parents and children. When the student does not practice, she is criticized by the adults and is likely to feel guilty, that it is somehow her fault that she is not making progress, and worst of all, that she is a musical failure.

Discipline
There are those who will say: It’s human nature to be lazy, to not want to work hard, to struggle with practicing. Of course kids don’t want to practice, they say, but it’s good for them to develop discipline through routine, even when it involves suffering. I strongly disagree. I have never seen a child develop true discipline, which is self-discipline, before he is ready. I have, however, watched many people develop a strong dislike and rejection of potentially wonderful musical experiences because of an association with something that they, as children, were made to do. Discipline and perseverance emerge organically when someone is passionately committed to what he is doing, and attitudes toward learning music will shape attitudes about learning in general.

 But What If ...?
“But what if my child is a genius? If she doesn’t take lessons, how will we know?” Do not worry. Genius insists on revealing itself, and if your child is the next Artur Rubinstein, she will find a way to let you know! A happy, encouraging environment that includes a variety of musical stimuli will be invaluable to a budding talent. When genius is ready to be shaped and channeled it will announce itself in no uncertain terms.

Is there a place for traditional lessons? Yes, but not for everyone, and then only after lots of exposure to many kinds of musical involvement. There is a pressing need for an alternative to traditional private lessons where children can have a deeply satisfying musical experience. A child needs to broaden his musical world through exploring all the exciting ways to be involved with music, and thereby discover his unique musical self.