Performers vs Teachers

Shemi

@Jazzaferri it's a tough one, and probably the aspect of teaching I find hardest. The best I can come up with is to try and help students hear the subtleties in various aspects of playing and performance, and to really understand things like dynamics, pace, phrasing, direction, etc. I recently did a lesson with a student where I purposely chose a piece that was relatively easy and told her to go away and come back and "perform" it to me, I then critiqued the performance and drew her attention to things she could think about to add more depth to the musical delivery. It certainly opened her eyes to some new things to consider. Other than that I'm not sure how else to approach it, some people seem to naturally find it easier than others. It's a bit like poetry in that being able to write does not mean you can make beautiful poetry. I'd certainly be interested to hear how others approach it.

TheHotClubofLickMyAxe

Jon wrote: »

Maybe slightly off topic

Off of what?

TheHotClubofLickMyAxe

Bones wrote: »

I enjoyed and got a lot out of lessons with Gonzalo. I think he is an excellent teacher and obviously a great player.

That is very interesting, and I am glad that you had a great experience. Great lessons are always inspiring.

I heard two other anecdotes from two different students who attended his class during a festival, reporting the opposite about their experience.
I was actually quite chocked of their report, but since I have never attended any of his class, I do not have an opinion about his teaching skill.

These anecdotes suggest ultimately that the personal connection a student has with a teacher and vice versa, may have a preponderant role into the overall quality of the experience.

TheHotClubofLickMyAxe

vanmalmsteen wrote: »

For the record I’d like to say I love Christiaan Van Hemert’s YouTube channel. Wonderful Teacher of Gypsy Swing!

That's awesome! Would you be able to describe what you like about it and how his materials and/or pedagogic approach help you?

I am very interested to know more about this.

TheHotClubofLickMyAxe

Lot of great thoughts from everyone in this conversation so far! That feels good! Love the spirit! Thanks for starting this @Jazzaferri

TheHotClubofLickMyAxe

For my experience as a student, all my teachers were great musicians but most of them were terrible teachers, which ended up misleading me in my journey for about 10 years. Thank god I feel much better today and was able to almost fully recover from this. Still recovering though, getting there slowly!

My former teachers all had at least three things in common:

- The highest ability to tell me what my weaknesses were.

- The complete inability to tell me how to improve.

- They were all kids of musicians and started to learn music in their youngest age.

I started at age 13 and all I was hearing at home was African and Creole music and mostly 6/8 and 12/8 metrics. No instruments anywhere. Still great childhood memories though.

This lead me to understand the following:

The reason why most of my former teachers were not able to provide me with a method telling me how to improve, was because they simply never have experienced difficulties or limitations, the way I did.

Any great teacher should be able to put himself in the place of his/her student, understand where the student is at, where the student is aspiring to, and give him, or her the keys to unleash this potential, one step at a time.

Bones

DS- I had one-on-one lessons with Gonzalo. I've never attended a group lesson from Gonzalo but I've never attended a group lesson that I got much out of from any teacher. I just don't really think group lessons work that well, at least not for me.

TheHotClubofLickMyAxe

That sounds great Bones.

Is there anything specific you got from this lesson that you could share here?

This could be potentially profitable for others.

Jazzaferri

All the teachers I have had have all concentrated on technical matters. Books have given me tension/release and Music is found in the spaces between the notes. I have not found any resource that covers why playing a phrase one way has more impact than playing it another way, the whys and wherefores of artistry if you will.

I like to play a phrase several different ways with different articulations and try to figure out which one says what, which one seems to be more to my liking or has more impact on me. I am not sure if this is a rabbit hole that I am digging myself into or a tunnel to somewhere. Not ene sure if I have enough years ahead of me to find out

Bones

DS- for rhythm guitar it was mostly about technique and feel. I had bad technique so I wasn't getting the rhythm sound that I wanted. Can't really point to anything specific that has not been covered many times on this forum but at the time I was having trouble with it and needed one-on-one with someone to get me on track and fix my issues. For soloing, it was just very basic stuff, phrasing, navigating on the neck, some examples of ideas to play over major, minor, dominant, etc. as I was just beginning soloing at the time. A little bit of right hand technique (gypsy picking) but again very basic. The main benefit to me was it was the only one-on-one lessons that I've ever had in GJ and I needed that to get pointed in a good direction as I was pretty mystified by it all and had bad habits/technique that I could not seem to fix by myself. I'm not a natural musician and someone like me can really benefit from personalized lessons where a good teacher can listen/watch what the student is doing and make corrections and/or suggestions. That said, there is no magic bullet, a good teacher can lead the way but it is up to the student to put in as much time in the proverbial shed as they can and most of us cannot put in the hours required to fully realize potential but we can do what we can and still have fun, learn, and come up with their own ideas.