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Julienne- You’ve got some good ideas there, and I understand that it would be impractical to have every student you teach practice occasionally at your house. But if you can do it(have the student practice at your house) it’s very helpful and revealing. When my very talented student came here to practice, he played for three and a half hours with not break. I encouraged him several times to take a break but he didn’t want to. At the end he said,”This is the longest I’ve ever been able to practice with no interruptions. At home there is a lot of stuff to distract me.” I called his mother that night(both his parents are VERY supportive) and told her that if he says he’s going to practice from 7 ot 8PM, that there are to be absolutely no interruptions during that hour. If a friend of his calls, tell him to call back after 8.
But also, while he was practicing, I heard him do several things wrong. When he made a mistake, he’d play it again once and then go on. He didn’t make what I call ‘variations’, for example, playing arpeggios as block chords, or running sixteenth notes in uneven rhythm, etc. When he understood that he had to practice a difficult passage 15 or 20 times, he would back up way too far to start it, instead of starting one or two beats before the problem. The point I’m making is that it can be very very helpful to hear a student practicing alone while you listen from some other part of the house. Maybe you could try it on a student who is really having trouble and not the whole studio. Maybe you could talk to the parent and ask them to put the tape recorder on for a whole practice session. Then you could listen to it as you drove someplace or whatever and analyse it, and then discuss it with the student at the next lesson.
Diane- I like your ideas very much. And they address the most common problem. That is, focusing in on the problem areas and not playing the whole page because the student keeps missing two beats in the middle of the page. Along with that I find that many students will always start from the begining of the piece and when they trip or crash, back up and play the difficult spot once and continue on. I simply can’t understand why they don’t grasp the need to play that spot 15 to 20 times in order to fix it.
Julienne- Very astute comments. One of the reasons I posted that first draft of the letter is exactly for comments like yours. My first reaction in most situations is to go for the jugular. I usually need someone else, and sometimes several people to rein me back. Thanks.
I do think that complaining diplomatically could result in some changes, if not this time, then maybe in future competitions. And it would be more effective if several people wrote to them.
Well as soon as I figure out to whom I’m going to mail my letter, I’ll let everyone know here. Those that want to voice an opinion will be able to do so. My main beef is that this choice doesn’t take into account the development of high school students or the severe constraints on their practice time.
Kim- Thanks for the reply. I think that the selection committee could, at the very least, offer one or two alternate pieces and ask the student to play one of the two or three. That’s what they are doing in the next level up and it’s standard practice in most musical competitions. Personally I think this was a terrible choice.
The scene in ‘The Bishop’s Wife’ which shows Cary Grant ‘playing’ the harp is a matt shot, and the hands that you see(really playing) are those of Gail Laughton(a man) who was a terrific pop and jazz harpist of the 30’s and 40’s. It is Gail Laughton’s playing that you hear on all of the Marx Brothers movies when Harpo plays the harp.
I just want to clarify the last sentence of my post. By ‘this instrument’ I mean the one I just finished working on. I was not passing judgement on Obermeyers or Horngachers.
