Simpedia

Robin Keehn, Washington

I saw your note and wanted to say just a couple of things. You’re right–I have one student in particular who is working on really advanced level pieces that I either don’t have time to learn or have no desire to play (some really wild video game stuff). With Jimmy, I follow along with the music and we work through sections where he needs help. I am able to help without studying up because I have practiced being a generative teacher. Because I have intentionally worked on developing this skill, I can look at music that I’ve never seen before and see the rhythm patterns, note patterns, sentences, chords, and how the treble and bass clefs relate to each other. This takes time and intentionally giving yourself projects to work on. For me, I was being held accountable to Neil to manage the completion of the Development Levels–just a bit of pressure 🙂 but it developed me (pardon the pun) as a musician in a way I had not experienced before in all my years of studying.

I think that as Simply Music teachers we ought to be constantly working on our own musicianship. Just staying ahead of your students doesn’t cut it. You need to be learning those Arrangements and learning to see the shapes, patterns, etc as you are learning. You need to work on expression. Record yourself playing Arrangements and your own improvisations and compositions and critique yourself. Play for someone else who will give you honest feedback and work on whatever needs attention. If you don’t read, get Reading Rhythm and Notes and get going on it as soon as you can. Once you’ve completed reading and have Time for More Music, start looking at the music as a puzzle to be solved. What can you find? Can you find rhythm patterns? Can you see that when you play that F# in the bass clef that you are playing the same note in the treble clef? What stays the same from one measure to the next? What changes?

If you are a reader, immerse yourself in lots of small projects where you are just looking for all those playing-based tools and strategies and start applying them and even reverse engineering those pieces from Reading to Playing-Based. Do it all the time and you’ll start to get excited about how music makes sense. Discover the joy of the journey and you’ll inspire your students. Mine probably think I am a real music geek because I have so much fun and get so excited but hey, they love it too and are great readers so I’m willing to give up some of my dignity 🙂

Remember, you bring your strengths and weaknesses to your students. I can see that my students excel in areas that I am enthusiastic about. That gives me motivation to strive for excellence in all areas.

Julia B., California

To tag onto what Robin has said, I wanted to pass on a tip that always helps me when I am taking a piece of music and trying to see the shapes, patterns etc. I put myself in the mindset of a teacher – how would I teach this using a playing-based approach? I love to make a copy of the song and draw all over it too – marking patterns, sentences etc. I like to make my own diagrams, thinking “what would be easiest for a student to understand”.

I’m with you, Robin, for me, this has been one of the most exciting things to experience in my own SM journey. When I ‘m working on a piece and suddenly I see the patterns etc I feel like something just opens up in my brain. I feel this incredible “WOW!!” and then suddenly the piece makes sense to me and is so easy to remember. (And then I have to hunt someone down to tell them about it — or better yet, teach it to them! )

I think this approach is so relational — I definitely have a stronger relationship with the instrument, but when I start to see those patterns, shapes etc I feel a connection to the composer as well. It’s like you connect a little with what may have been going on in their own mind as they created the piece. Way more fun for me than just reading notes (which frankly I’m not too hot at yet anyway).