Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
First of all, a big thank you to all the folk on this site who share their expertise so generously with us newbies, and bring a whole new and encouraging dimension to the fun of learning. Personally, I feel I have learnt an enormous amount here.
The recent 'learning fiddle' thread set me wondering about other beginners/post beginners' experience of being taught face to face in the 'outside' world.
How long are your lessons, and how frequent? What do you actually do in the time? Does your teacher actively praise or encourage you, or do they adopt a kindly 'could do better' approach? (I'm assuming they are not complete bastards, otherwise you would not still be going!)
What is it in the situation that most inspires you to progress? Is it the place you go to learn, what they tell you or what they show you, or just their general aura? Are you making great leaps forward, or is it hard going? To what extent do you try to model yourself on your teacher?
It would also be interesting to hear how teachers approach the process 'psychologically'- since there is not often time in the lesson to discuss this at length- and which approach has proved most fruitful, particularly with adult learners.
I'm sure this topic has been done to death many times, and that we could glean much from the archives, but I hope you will go with it, as a live thread is always a buzz.
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I take lessons at the Old Town School of Folk Music here in Chicago. My lessons are 1/2 an hour once a week. it isn't really enough, just as we are getting settled into things it's time to go, but I love my teacher and she doesn't currently have any longer slots available.
Usually we play through a couple of tunes together, work out the tougher bits of a new tune and then at the end she'll record something for me to work on that week. She's very enthusiastic and is always very positive with her comments—or rather she gives cirticisim in a very friendly way. I've been meaning to ask her if she's noticed any particular improvement since we started workign together, especially in intonation.
Improvement sometimes comes very quickly other times drags The most aggravating though is when all of a sudden I get worse at a tune! It never lasts for long and hten usually it clicks and is leaps and bounds better than it was before the trouble began. The biggest way I can predict how much I'll get better form week to week though is simply how much I practice—working full time can be a challenge to my musical development.
As for what I like the msot about it: we just have a blast. Sometimes we both have to make an effort to shut up and make music because we are having so much fun chatting talking about styles or sharing tunes with one another on our computers...
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I teach fiddle and violin, and am a full time professional player.
I assume you're talking about an adult beginner. In this case, when I initially talk the to prospective student, I attempt to lower expectations. This is because I have had adults beginners mention to me that they want to play like Mark O'Connor or Kevin Burke. Of course, this is just out the realm of possibility.
Then I tell them that violin is the hardest instrument there is. I might mention that they will probably not be as good as the artists they admire. I try and explain just why this is so. If, after this they want to begin lessons, I begin working with the person to set some reasonable goals for the lessons. A good goal would be to able play with others and achieve some enjoyment from playing the fiddle. Each person has a different tolerance for frustration, and to get good on a musical instrument, one has to learn to deal with being frustrated, a lot!
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
Hi There,
Have to second you on your opening remarks amazingly helpful bunch the whole lot of you thanks a mil.
I get 1 1/2 hours per week, and I am learning classical, why? because there's not a fiddle player for miles around, and I guess if you learn the proper way you can adjust to fiddle but vice versa is tricky, I ma working on right hand and holding the bow correctly, stance, influences on sound, which movements of the body influence the bow sound, how to deal with it, how to play a consistent sound all the time. flowing chnage from up to down and vice versa.
My teacher is Russian and she has just started teaching and is highly enthusiastic, very enjoyable!
I have no definite plan on when and just enjoy what I am doing enormously, still playing bouzouki and mandola though, but fiddle remains my favourite, sorry I didn't start years ago.....but never too late into 50s and ready to take all in.
Lots of mirror work and bowing....but I spend time on rolls, on vibrato, (though not great, I get 10 minutes a day in on this ), fingering, bowing, playing tunes, playing songs, playing long slow stokes, short strokes, happy, sad, erratic, mad etc etc
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I think any good music teacher is a saint. You'd have to be, to be patient and positive enough to get a student to learn!
I have an hour a week with an Irish teacher (who is also a fine player)---it starts with a few scales to warm up, then I play whatever tune I'm working on and he tells me how to play it better, whatever it needs, if there's a phrase or note I keep missing, or if my string crossings need work, if one hand needs to relax, there can be a million things. How he manages to know which one of those things to focus on, I wish I knew. Then he has me play it again until I get it (this is where the patience comes in). If I'm catching on quickly that day, he'll show me something new, like a double cut or a variation or something, and I work on that for a while. At the end if I'm ready for a new tune I'll ask him to play it for my recorder for me to work on at home.
One thing he does that I don't know if many other teachers do is he uses sheet music. It becomes a visual aid, another way of understanding the music, he points out patterns like scales and arpeggios, sometimes just one note to emphasize to get the feeling of the tune, or which places are good for ornamentation. It's pretty cool, especially because I don't read music that well and I would never see all that stuff on my own. It also makes it easier to focus on a specific phrase because he'll just point to it and say "play that part". He talks a lot, explains everything, demonstrates what to do and what not to do, and even though so much of it is well past what I'm capable of doing, eventually it filters through and I get it, even if it's weeks later.
No great leaps forward, but there is slow steady improvement, so I keep trying....I hope I can reward us both some day by playing really well!
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I started on violin when I was a kid. I didn't take private lessons, it was just a class I went to in school. The teachers were pretty much like any other school teachers: generally kind and encouraging but not deeply involved with the progress of each individual student.
I don't really think that the teacher matters all that much, unless you have an especially good or bad one. The main thing is that lessons keep you playing every day, and really that's how you learn. The teacher can guide and encouraging you, but you're really teaching yourself by playing.
Don't get discouraged, keep at it. Don't depend on encouragement from a teacher to make you feel like going on. Most people think that the instrument is too hard because it takes so long to make progress in the beginning...but it's really not that hard, it just takes some stick-to-it.
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
Good questions, P-K.
Interesting responses so far, and very differerent from my own experiences both as a student and as a teacher.
I started teaching music when I was 15 (am now 48), have taught private lessons from a music studio in a very competitive market and also group lessons at a community college.
I've taken some private lessons, though not many, and on a mix of instruments (piano, banjo, fiddle). And I've gone to a few workshops on fiddle.
I guess I've been lucky--my fiddle teachers have all been exceedingly generous, positive, nurturing people. I've never had anyone tell me that I'll never play like Kevin Burke (not even Kevin Burke told me that!). On the contrary, they've each helped me on the way to playing much better and enjoying it more than I ever thought possible myself.
I tend to like 45 minute lessons, longer as the material grows more advanced. As a student or teacher, the time is mostly spent on playing and actively listening (usually while playing). We humans learn by doing. I'll use a recording machine, sheet music, abc notation, or tablature, chord charts, even random drawings--anything to help get a point across. But music is fundamentally aural and kinesthetic--we hear it and sense it through our bodies. So that's where nearly all of the learning happens.
As a learner, I've never sought to sound just like my teacher, but I've certainly aped every subtlety of their technique, approach, attitude, etc. I could divine, just to give it an honest try and see what I could learn from it. The intent here is important: do as your teacher does, not to play like him or her, but to learn and understand what they know and apply it to your own playing.
A good example of that are the two most important thngs I think I've learned from musical mentors and from my experience as a teacher. The first is generosity. Be patient with them--they can feed you a lifetime insights, knowledge, experience, and passion. Good teachers will pace that feeding so you're not left hungry or morbidly obese. Also, be patient with yourself. These things take time. Listen most to what you do well and let that draw you forward, rather than dwelling on the mistakes and clunkers. Music is about expression, not perfection. Be generous with the music. *Play* music, don't grind it out like work. Enjoy yourself.
The second is to relax. Be effortless in your playing. Instead of categorizing concepts, tunes, and techniques as "easy" or "hard," think in terms of familiar and unfamiliar. Once something becomes familiar to you, it won't feel "hard" anymore. The more intimately you get to know it, the more familiar and natural it will feel. Then your playing really will be effortless.
For me, the bottom line is that (barring real physical impairments, which I also have some experience with) our bodies are quite capable of playing these instruments and breathing life into these tunes. What holds most of us back from our potential is mental stuff. In short, how you think and feel about playing music--your attitude about it--will determine how far your go with music, more so than any other factor.
And--like life in general--attitudes need regular reality checks and adjustments and nurturing. They can grow with us, or stagnate. They can help us, or hinder us.
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I think it's really important, from a instructor's point of view to motivate and inspire the student. You always want to end the lesson on a positive note. The more the fiddle student can listen to and watch really good players, the better.
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
My lessons are half an hour apiece, once a week. Although I often wish I had more time with my teacher, I can't deny that I've never accomplished or learned more in a half hour block than I do during my fiddle lessons. We'll generally start off the lessons either by going over my most recent tune, or by playing a more familiar tune to warm up. How I play my latest tune determines how the rest of the lesson will go - on rare occasions we'll move right on to another tune or technique or ornament, but much more often there's some bowing that needs changing, or I'll need to emphasize this passage or that one a bit more, or any number of other things. Like kennedy, I often wonder how my teacher decides just which of the several dozen things I'm doing poorly he should focus on.
My teacher doesn't like scales and such; he prefers giving me tunes that make me work on whatever aspect of technique he wants me to work on. For instance, right now I'm working on getting my right wrist to do more work and my arm to do less, so my teacher assigned me a tune with a lot of triplets in order to get me into that habit.
Carrot or stick? - well, I've noticed that after I play a tune, my teacher will respond in one of two ways: either with some superlative ("excellent!" "brilliant!" "fantastic!" - which I take to mean "you have achieved what I wanted you to have achieved by this point" as opposed to "that was an objectively good performance" - after all, I've been playing less than nine months), or by pausing for a few seconds, and then saying something to the effect of "ok. Let's try this now..." The latter is always devastating, even though it's delivered really gently. If I know I've done badly, I'll often preempt my teacher's comments by identifying something I know I did wrong. (Last week had an exchange along the lines of, "All right...the choice of ornamentation was good, but..." "- my bowing was appalling." "Well, yes.")
My teacher teaches by ear, and records the tunes. He also provides sheet music, which I don't use much these days, particularly as it's never quite the same as what he records! But it's sometimes useful when I'm trying to work out bowings.
What motivates me? Lots of things. I love the fiddle, and I spend way too much time and money on this hobby to remain mediocre at it . My teacher's wonderful, and I want to reward *his* efforts. I go to sessions every week, and they provide a pretty concrete way to measure my progress - every week there's a tune or five that I didn't play quite as well as I'd have liked, so I go home and practice it so that I play it better next time. I get frustrated, but every now and again I attain some new milestone that makes me realize that I *am* progressing, and that I'm only going to get better. (The most recent, completely unexpected development: suddenly I know what an F# sounds like. As in, if I start a tune on an F#, I can tell if my intonation is off before comparing the note I'm playing to an open string. I didn't see that one coming at all!) I'm excited about how far I've come in the last few months, but I'm even more excited about what lies ahead.
Another thing that's motivating me: I record myself playing ten tunes, chosen at random, each week. Whenever I'm feeling like I'm not improving, I play my most recent recording, and then dig up a tape I made back in August or November or January. There's a difference, all right.
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I had done a long and detailed post which has mysteriously vanished from the reply box, so I'll try to keep this brief for starters.
Much of what you guys say echoes (mirrors?!) much of my own experience. I take what Screetch says- it's the practice that really takes you forward- the teacher prompts, keeps you on the straight and narrow, but you have to want it badly enough to survive without him/her (I say this having just lost a very good teacher to relocation!).
Mando's total immersion point is valuable- listening, watching, reading, coming on this site- all of this provides essential mental reinforcement. I also see the difficulty for the teacher posed by a pupil's unrealistic expectations...
However, maybe it's no bad thing if people *dream* of being Kevin or Martin or Johnny Doherty- whoever, as long as it pulls them along (like kids pretending to be their favourite footballer or whatever)- providing they are sensitive to the teacher's regular reality check. Surely even Kevin Burke, starting off, never dreamed he would end up playing like Kevin Burke
Oh how I recognise TDM's 'getting your own evaluation in first', before that dreaded 'few seconds pause', not to mention the ill-concealed discomfort in the teacher's body language- strange how somebody wincing nearby can put you off playing
In case this sounds negative, I have been very lucky with teachers, and see my time with them as the icing on the cake after long hours of practice. In the lesson, as CPT says, I try to absorb as much of their attitude, stance, drive as I can- all the intangibles (and can't help but treat them as friends). As for the technical stuff, I write down as much as I can remember as soon as I get home, and, like Kennedy, hope some of it will stick as I re-read and practise in months to come.
CPT- thanks for your good and humane advice, particularly about relaxing and enjoying it. I think I'm at that stage now- it's no longer a chore, nor something I am going to be knocked off course on, or drop- with luck, it will be there for the duration.
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
Tall Dark and Mysterious Said:
Another thing that's motivating me: I record myself playing ten tunes, chosen at random, each week. Whenever I'm feeling like I'm not improving, I play my most recent recording, and then dig up a tape I made back in August or November or January. There's a difference, all right.
Brilliant! I think I have a new habit I am going to try to get into.
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I really liked Cheshire's response. I think it gets right to the heart of the matter. I took lessons for about a year with a classical violin teacher. She was an excellent violinist, pure, expressive tone and she made it look so easy. Meanwhile, I was hacking away sounding like someone swinging a bag of cats. I finally realized that, for me, classical violin was too rule infested. I wanted to play Irish fiddle, and enjoy doing it. I tried CD lessons and Kevin Burke's videos. I still really was not getting anywhere. So, I put the fiddle away for a few years, and recently started over. That gave me a chance to get rid of bad habits, and start fresh.
There are no traditional Irish fiddle teachers here in my neck of the woods, so I am back to the CDs. I record my practice sessions and delight in small improvements. After all of this, however, I still appreciate the patience, advice and insights that my teacher gave me. God bless em' all.
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I have a fiddle lesson, usually 1 hour every other week. I would have it more often if I could afford it. The structure I have is very loose. I usually play a scale to warm up, then play the tune or tunes I learned at my last lesson. My teacher will usually comment on how I've done, tell me if I did well, and sometimes we will work on problems with the tune. After that I will either pick a new tune to learn or my teacher will give me a tune to learn. After I learn the new tune, the rest of the time I will work with my teacher on any problems, or a previous tune I have had difficulty with, or anything else. I find having a full hour for a lesson helps me progress more. Before my current teacher, I took lesson for a month with a violin teacher. It always felt like just as the lesson was beginning, it was almost over. The things that most encourage me with my current teacher are she makes me feel like I can succeed, and is very quick to see where improvement is needed. I have been making leaps, partly due to my teacher, and partly due to my amount of practicing. I iimproved more in one of two lessons from my current teacher than in 5 lessons from my first violin teacher. However, because I love playing the fiddle so much, I feel that gives me plenty of encouragement to keep going.
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
The recording tip has to be worth a try- many thanks for that. Most people seem to stress the importance of encouragement, but I suspect some teachers may feel the need not to go too far down this path in order to keep things in perspective- (hence the question)- there is always a long way to go, and instilling patience and realism in the pupil is also important for the longer term.
There is also the fact that standards overall (especially the yardstick set by younger learners in Ireland) are admirably high, and, let's face it, this is quite a difficult skill for adult beginners to acquire.
Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
First of all, a big thank you to all the folk on this site who share their expertise so generously with us newbies, and bring a whole new and encouraging dimension to the fun of learning. Personally, I feel I have learnt an enormous amount here.
The recent 'learning fiddle' thread set me wondering about other beginners/post beginners' experience of being taught face to face in the 'outside' world.
How long are your lessons, and how frequent? What do you actually do in the time? Does your teacher actively praise or encourage you, or do they adopt a kindly 'could do better' approach? (I'm assuming they are not complete bastards, otherwise you would not still be going!)
What is it in the situation that most inspires you to progress? Is it the place you go to learn, what they tell you or what they show you, or just their general aura? Are you making great leaps forward, or is it hard going? To what extent do you try to model yourself on your teacher?
It would also be interesting to hear how teachers approach the process 'psychologically'- since there is not often time in the lesson to discuss this at length- and which approach has proved most fruitful, particularly with adult learners.
I'm sure this topic has been done to death many times, and that we could glean much from the archives, but I hope you will go with it, as a live thread is always a buzz.
# Posted on March 16th 2007 by Here Lyeth
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I take lessons at the Old Town School of Folk Music here in Chicago. My lessons are 1/2 an hour once a week. it isn't really enough, just as we are getting settled into things it's time to go, but I love my teacher and she doesn't currently have any longer slots available.
Usually we play through a couple of tunes together, work out the tougher bits of a new tune and then at the end she'll record something for me to work on that week. She's very enthusiastic and is always very positive with her comments—or rather she gives cirticisim in a very friendly way. I've been meaning to ask her if she's noticed any particular improvement since we started workign together, especially in intonation.
Improvement sometimes comes very quickly other times drags The most aggravating though is when all of a sudden I get worse at a tune! It never lasts for long and hten usually it clicks and is leaps and bounds better than it was before the trouble began. The biggest way I can predict how much I'll get better form week to week though is simply how much I practice—working full time can be a challenge to my musical development.
As for what I like the msot about it: we just have a blast. Sometimes we both have to make an effort to shut up and make music because we are having so much fun chatting talking about styles or sharing tunes with one another on our computers...
# Posted on March 16th 2007 by matan_fiddler
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I teach fiddle and violin, and am a full time professional player.
I assume you're talking about an adult beginner. In this case, when I initially talk the to prospective student, I attempt to lower expectations. This is because I have had adults beginners mention to me that they want to play like Mark O'Connor or Kevin Burke. Of course, this is just out the realm of possibility.
Then I tell them that violin is the hardest instrument there is. I might mention that they will probably not be as good as the artists they admire. I try and explain just why this is so. If, after this they want to begin lessons, I begin working with the person to set some reasonable goals for the lessons. A good goal would be to able play with others and achieve some enjoyment from playing the fiddle. Each person has a different tolerance for frustration, and to get good on a musical instrument, one has to learn to deal with being frustrated, a lot!
Cheers!
# Posted on March 16th 2007 by Mandolynist
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
Hi There,
Have to second you on your opening remarks amazingly helpful bunch the whole lot of you thanks a mil.
I get 1 1/2 hours per week, and I am learning classical, why? because there's not a fiddle player for miles around, and I guess if you learn the proper way you can adjust to fiddle but vice versa is tricky, I ma working on right hand and holding the bow correctly, stance, influences on sound, which movements of the body influence the bow sound, how to deal with it, how to play a consistent sound all the time. flowing chnage from up to down and vice versa.
My teacher is Russian and she has just started teaching and is highly enthusiastic, very enjoyable!
I have no definite plan on when and just enjoy what I am doing enormously, still playing bouzouki and mandola though, but fiddle remains my favourite, sorry I didn't start years ago.....but never too late into 50s and ready to take all in.
Lots of mirror work and bowing....but I spend time on rolls, on vibrato, (though not great, I get 10 minutes a day in on this ), fingering, bowing, playing tunes, playing songs, playing long slow stokes, short strokes, happy, sad, erratic, mad etc etc
Love every minute of it
Warm Regards
Shylock
# Posted on March 17th 2007 by Shylock
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I think any good music teacher is a saint. You'd have to be, to be patient and positive enough to get a student to learn!
I have an hour a week with an Irish teacher (who is also a fine player)---it starts with a few scales to warm up, then I play whatever tune I'm working on and he tells me how to play it better, whatever it needs, if there's a phrase or note I keep missing, or if my string crossings need work, if one hand needs to relax, there can be a million things. How he manages to know which one of those things to focus on, I wish I knew. Then he has me play it again until I get it (this is where the patience comes in). If I'm catching on quickly that day, he'll show me something new, like a double cut or a variation or something, and I work on that for a while. At the end if I'm ready for a new tune I'll ask him to play it for my recorder for me to work on at home.
One thing he does that I don't know if many other teachers do is he uses sheet music. It becomes a visual aid, another way of understanding the music, he points out patterns like scales and arpeggios, sometimes just one note to emphasize to get the feeling of the tune, or which places are good for ornamentation. It's pretty cool, especially because I don't read music that well and I would never see all that stuff on my own. It also makes it easier to focus on a specific phrase because he'll just point to it and say "play that part". He talks a lot, explains everything, demonstrates what to do and what not to do, and even though so much of it is well past what I'm capable of doing, eventually it filters through and I get it, even if it's weeks later.
No great leaps forward, but there is slow steady improvement, so I keep trying....I hope I can reward us both some day by playing really well!
# Posted on March 17th 2007 by kennedy
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I started on violin when I was a kid. I didn't take private lessons, it was just a class I went to in school. The teachers were pretty much like any other school teachers: generally kind and encouraging but not deeply involved with the progress of each individual student.
I don't really think that the teacher matters all that much, unless you have an especially good or bad one. The main thing is that lessons keep you playing every day, and really that's how you learn. The teacher can guide and encouraging you, but you're really teaching yourself by playing.
Don't get discouraged, keep at it. Don't depend on encouragement from a teacher to make you feel like going on. Most people think that the instrument is too hard because it takes so long to make progress in the beginning...but it's really not that hard, it just takes some stick-to-it.
# Posted on March 17th 2007 by Marklar
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
Good questions, P-K.
Interesting responses so far, and very differerent from my own experiences both as a student and as a teacher.
I started teaching music when I was 15 (am now 48), have taught private lessons from a music studio in a very competitive market and also group lessons at a community college.
I've taken some private lessons, though not many, and on a mix of instruments (piano, banjo, fiddle). And I've gone to a few workshops on fiddle.
I guess I've been lucky--my fiddle teachers have all been exceedingly generous, positive, nurturing people. I've never had anyone tell me that I'll never play like Kevin Burke (not even Kevin Burke told me that!). On the contrary, they've each helped me on the way to playing much better and enjoying it more than I ever thought possible myself.
I tend to like 45 minute lessons, longer as the material grows more advanced. As a student or teacher, the time is mostly spent on playing and actively listening (usually while playing). We humans learn by doing. I'll use a recording machine, sheet music, abc notation, or tablature, chord charts, even random drawings--anything to help get a point across. But music is fundamentally aural and kinesthetic--we hear it and sense it through our bodies. So that's where nearly all of the learning happens.
As a learner, I've never sought to sound just like my teacher, but I've certainly aped every subtlety of their technique, approach, attitude, etc. I could divine, just to give it an honest try and see what I could learn from it. The intent here is important: do as your teacher does, not to play like him or her, but to learn and understand what they know and apply it to your own playing.
A good example of that are the two most important thngs I think I've learned from musical mentors and from my experience as a teacher. The first is generosity. Be patient with them--they can feed you a lifetime insights, knowledge, experience, and passion. Good teachers will pace that feeding so you're not left hungry or morbidly obese. Also, be patient with yourself. These things take time. Listen most to what you do well and let that draw you forward, rather than dwelling on the mistakes and clunkers. Music is about expression, not perfection. Be generous with the music. *Play* music, don't grind it out like work. Enjoy yourself.
The second is to relax. Be effortless in your playing. Instead of categorizing concepts, tunes, and techniques as "easy" or "hard," think in terms of familiar and unfamiliar. Once something becomes familiar to you, it won't feel "hard" anymore. The more intimately you get to know it, the more familiar and natural it will feel. Then your playing really will be effortless.
For me, the bottom line is that (barring real physical impairments, which I also have some experience with) our bodies are quite capable of playing these instruments and breathing life into these tunes. What holds most of us back from our potential is mental stuff. In short, how you think and feel about playing music--your attitude about it--will determine how far your go with music, more so than any other factor.
And--like life in general--attitudes need regular reality checks and adjustments and nurturing. They can grow with us, or stagnate. They can help us, or hinder us.
# Posted on March 17th 2007 by Will Harmon
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I think it's really important, from a instructor's point of view to motivate and inspire the student. You always want to end the lesson on a positive note. The more the fiddle student can listen to and watch really good players, the better.
# Posted on March 17th 2007 by Mandolynist
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
My lessons are half an hour apiece, once a week. Although I often wish I had more time with my teacher, I can't deny that I've never accomplished or learned more in a half hour block than I do during my fiddle lessons. We'll generally start off the lessons either by going over my most recent tune, or by playing a more familiar tune to warm up. How I play my latest tune determines how the rest of the lesson will go - on rare occasions we'll move right on to another tune or technique or ornament, but much more often there's some bowing that needs changing, or I'll need to emphasize this passage or that one a bit more, or any number of other things. Like kennedy, I often wonder how my teacher decides just which of the several dozen things I'm doing poorly he should focus on.
. My teacher's wonderful, and I want to reward *his* efforts. I go to sessions every week, and they provide a pretty concrete way to measure my progress - every week there's a tune or five that I didn't play quite as well as I'd have liked, so I go home and practice it so that I play it better next time. I get frustrated, but every now and again I attain some new milestone that makes me realize that I *am* progressing, and that I'm only going to get better. (The most recent, completely unexpected development: suddenly I know what an F# sounds like. As in, if I start a tune on an F#, I can tell if my intonation is off before comparing the note I'm playing to an open string. I didn't see that one coming at all!) I'm excited about how far I've come in the last few months, but I'm even more excited about what lies ahead.
My teacher doesn't like scales and such; he prefers giving me tunes that make me work on whatever aspect of technique he wants me to work on. For instance, right now I'm working on getting my right wrist to do more work and my arm to do less, so my teacher assigned me a tune with a lot of triplets in order to get me into that habit.
Carrot or stick? - well, I've noticed that after I play a tune, my teacher will respond in one of two ways: either with some superlative ("excellent!" "brilliant!" "fantastic!" - which I take to mean "you have achieved what I wanted you to have achieved by this point" as opposed to "that was an objectively good performance" - after all, I've been playing less than nine months), or by pausing for a few seconds, and then saying something to the effect of "ok. Let's try this now..." The latter is always devastating, even though it's delivered really gently. If I know I've done badly, I'll often preempt my teacher's comments by identifying something I know I did wrong. (Last week had an exchange along the lines of, "All right...the choice of ornamentation was good, but..." "- my bowing was appalling." "Well, yes.")
My teacher teaches by ear, and records the tunes. He also provides sheet music, which I don't use much these days, particularly as it's never quite the same as what he records! But it's sometimes useful when I'm trying to work out bowings.
What motivates me? Lots of things. I love the fiddle, and I spend way too much time and money on this hobby to remain mediocre at it
Another thing that's motivating me: I record myself playing ten tunes, chosen at random, each week. Whenever I'm feeling like I'm not improving, I play my most recent recording, and then dig up a tape I made back in August or November or January. There's a difference, all right.
# Posted on March 17th 2007 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I had done a long and detailed post which has mysteriously vanished from the reply box, so I'll try to keep this brief for starters.
Much of what you guys say echoes (mirrors?!) much of my own experience. I take what Screetch says- it's the practice that really takes you forward- the teacher prompts, keeps you on the straight and narrow, but you have to want it badly enough to survive without him/her (I say this having just lost a very good teacher to relocation!).
Mando's total immersion point is valuable- listening, watching, reading, coming on this site- all of this provides essential mental reinforcement. I also see the difficulty for the teacher posed by a pupil's unrealistic expectations...
However, maybe it's no bad thing if people *dream* of being Kevin or Martin or Johnny Doherty- whoever, as long as it pulls them along (like kids pretending to be their favourite footballer or whatever)- providing they are sensitive to the teacher's regular reality check. Surely even Kevin Burke, starting off, never dreamed he would end up playing like Kevin Burke
Oh how I recognise TDM's 'getting your own evaluation in first', before that dreaded 'few seconds pause', not to mention the ill-concealed discomfort in the teacher's body language- strange how somebody wincing nearby can put you off playing
In case this sounds negative, I have been very lucky with teachers, and see my time with them as the icing on the cake after long hours of practice. In the lesson, as CPT says, I try to absorb as much of their attitude, stance, drive as I can- all the intangibles (and can't help but treat them as friends). As for the technical stuff, I write down as much as I can remember as soon as I get home, and, like Kennedy, hope some of it will stick as I re-read and practise in months to come.
CPT- thanks for your good and humane advice, particularly about relaxing and enjoying it. I think I'm at that stage now- it's no longer a chore, nor something I am going to be knocked off course on, or drop- with luck, it will be there for the duration.
# Posted on March 17th 2007 by Here Lyeth
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
Tall Dark and Mysterious Said:
Another thing that's motivating me: I record myself playing ten tunes, chosen at random, each week. Whenever I'm feeling like I'm not improving, I play my most recent recording, and then dig up a tape I made back in August or November or January. There's a difference, all right.
Brilliant! I think I have a new habit I am going to try to get into.
# Posted on March 17th 2007 by matan_fiddler
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I really liked Cheshire's response. I think it gets right to the heart of the matter. I took lessons for about a year with a classical violin teacher. She was an excellent violinist, pure, expressive tone and she made it look so easy. Meanwhile, I was hacking away sounding like someone swinging a bag of cats. I finally realized that, for me, classical violin was too rule infested. I wanted to play Irish fiddle, and enjoy doing it. I tried CD lessons and Kevin Burke's videos. I still really was not getting anywhere. So, I put the fiddle away for a few years, and recently started over. That gave me a chance to get rid of bad habits, and start fresh.
There are no traditional Irish fiddle teachers here in my neck of the woods, so I am back to the CDs. I record my practice sessions and delight in small improvements. After all of this, however, I still appreciate the patience, advice and insights that my teacher gave me. God bless em' all.
# Posted on March 17th 2007 by pearse
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
When I saw the title I thought it referred to this sort of music-making: http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/musical.html
# Posted on March 18th 2007 by RichardB
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
Brilliant, Rich! God Bless the Aussies! If only, I'd known, I'd have taken up playing the carrot years ago...
# Posted on March 18th 2007 by Here Lyeth
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
I have a fiddle lesson, usually 1 hour every other week. I would have it more often if I could afford it. The structure I have is very loose. I usually play a scale to warm up, then play the tune or tunes I learned at my last lesson. My teacher will usually comment on how I've done, tell me if I did well, and sometimes we will work on problems with the tune. After that I will either pick a new tune to learn or my teacher will give me a tune to learn. After I learn the new tune, the rest of the time I will work with my teacher on any problems, or a previous tune I have had difficulty with, or anything else. I find having a full hour for a lesson helps me progress more. Before my current teacher, I took lesson for a month with a violin teacher. It always felt like just as the lesson was beginning, it was almost over. The things that most encourage me with my current teacher are she makes me feel like I can succeed, and is very quick to see where improvement is needed. I have been making leaps, partly due to my teacher, and partly due to my amount of practicing. I iimproved more in one of two lessons from my current teacher than in 5 lessons from my first violin teacher. However, because I love playing the fiddle so much, I feel that gives me plenty of encouragement to keep going.
# Posted on March 19th 2007 by enirehtac
Re: Fiddle Teaching and Learning- Carrot and Stick approach?
The recording tip has to be worth a try- many thanks for that. Most people seem to stress the importance of encouragement, but I suspect some teachers may feel the need not to go too far down this path in order to keep things in perspective- (hence the question)- there is always a long way to go, and instilling patience and realism in the pupil is also important for the longer term.
There is also the fact that standards overall (especially the yardstick set by younger learners in Ireland) are admirably high, and, let's face it, this is quite a difficult skill for adult beginners to acquire.
# Posted on March 19th 2007 by Here Lyeth