My only prior experience with music lessons was private instruction, one-on-one, before delving into UPs (piano and highland pipes). The group lesson “circle of death”, as you call it, struck me immediately as terribly time consuming and inefficient. However, I have found there are classes that get pulled off well. (I am a teacher by trade, so method is something I’m interested in).
Even in classes where there is a wide gap in proficiency between students, skilled teachers (Brian McNamara comes to mind, but there are others) keep the time spent per student down while increasing the success rate of each by limiting the size of chunks taught at one time and by being able to quickly deduce WHY the student was making the error he was and offering a means to correct it. Proficient musicians who are not proficient teachers just attack this situation by repeating the target phrase until the student gets it or gives up with “I’ll have to work on this later”.
I have discovered I can benefit from watching my classmates as from the instructor. When he corrects a problem for my neighbor, he corrects a problem to which I may be vulnerable at some time while practicing. When I see 4 people execute it correctly, it reinforces the proper movements for me. Students should never feel like they are wasting their time waiting for their turn: there is much to learn from others.
The absolute worst classes I have had were with two well-liked pipe teachers (I’ll omit their names out of respect). One spent so much time with 3 of us that the rest of the class had no chance to participate. The other instructor is methodically and methodologically useless. He spends a lot of time telling stories of the famous pipers he once knew or met. He distributes sheet music prepared in advance. He plays through it as a group (so if you cannot read music fluently, you’re out). If the music he chose in advance does not fit the group’s proficiency level, too bad (while the effective teacher will have the flexibility to adjust the tune or embellishment difficulty level to the group on the fly). After noting some interesting points on a few measures, you’re off the tune and that’s that. He half-heartedly invites questions and answers few. He rarely listens to any student actually play or offers constructive comments on it. They’re terrible classes.
At the upper intermediate and lower advanced level, the best teachers are approaching issues of technique, expression and musicality rather than just teaching tunes. For example, Brian McNamara once brought out a phrase in a jig and we generated 8-9 different ways to express it. The worst teachers at this level are spending inordinant amounts of time on things like backstitching or a lot of time talking about playing.
I think an issue that remains unaddressed so far, and one which could be addressed in group lessons, is tone. I know instructors are afraid to touch anyone’s reed, but lessons in pitch and balancing octaves and adjusting reeds really needs to start coming out in lessons right from the beginning classes (maybe there moreso). I know, there are always reed making classes, but reedmaking could meet music more directly.
I would also repeat an opinion I have expressed here before that self-assignment of classes is probably not the best bet. Modern technology allows most people to submit a recording to the organizers. Agreed, it’s a lot of extra work to have people listen to and judge some 50 recordings, but perhaps the “juice would be worth the squeeze”. Or, a grading system could be developed of some sort, perhaps not based on the GHB competitive model but in which students get some time with individual insstructors at the end of a Tionol to have a listen and mark a current-performing-level on a chart or something. Such a proposal entails increased work, however I think it would be worth it.
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)is sufficient for a lesson.Wrang.
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, it was supposed to be a PM and I posted without noticing it