Experienced Student with Beginners?
Found in: Adult Students, Composition & Improvisation, Playing-Based Methodology, Students with Prior Experience
Mark S. Meritt, New York
Got a call from someone who has a masters in Composition, knows how to read sheet music, knows chords, and is looking especially for improvisational freedom in playing. She feels she composes in her head, not her hands, and she wants to get more “in her hands,” including freedom when she follows chords for pop songs to play in ways that will be stylistically appropriate for each song.
I know there are a number of stories out there about people with somewhat substantial performance experience and even advanced degrees in music who nevertheless started SM from the beginning and got a lot out of it. And I’m also clear about the value of learning the tools/strategies from the beginning. I told her all this and made the case for why all this can make it valuable for even someone with a fair amount of experience to do the full program from the start. Even though she’d balked earlier about not wanting to buy a lot of materials that she wouldn’t really need based on her current abilities, in the end she said she was interested in a group lesson.
I can’t help but wonder, though, if starting with the full program from the start is the best choice for everyone, and especially whether it’s a good/bad idea to start such a person with other adults who are genuine beginners. I’m also aware that the SM curriculum itself — at least as much as I’ve seen through Level 7, Jazz 1 and Acc. 2 — doesn’t spend much time on genre / performance styles. That’s an area where I personally have a lot of experience and have done some teaching, but on top of these other concerns I’d hesitate to start this person down a road only for her to eventually find out that in SM, and especially a group lesson, and especially with beginners in her group, she may not really get where she said she wants to go.
Any advice on how to gauge what’s best for someone in these kinds of situations?
Carrie Lozier, Michigan
I would recommend you teach her in a private lesson setting and teach her a more catered approach. I’ve had several students with prior traditional experience and if it’s extensive it’s important to get them more of what they might want right away. You could do the shared lesson however for the Foundational experience and then give her a private lesson for the extra things she wants? I have 2 students (teenagers) right now that have had extensive traditional lessons but have huge gaps in their chord and even reading ability!
Satauna, New York
Sounds like maybe a private lesson intended for purposes of assessment with this woman would be a great idea! Get a sense of where she’s at before making the decision about starting her in Foundation 1. Listen to pieces she’s written and find out what genres of music she composes. Put some lead sheets in front of her and see how she follows them. Talk about pieces in her repertoire and discover where the gaps are and what styles she’s used to playing.
My take on getting improv off the page and into the hands is that if you started her in Foundation 1, the purpose of doing so would be to utilize the vocabulary learned in those pieces to generate music that came strictly from her hands. But in a group lesson? I think if improv and stylistic ease is her goal, she might be better with a private lesson more focused on those goals. Good grief, with a Masters in comp, she hopefully knows how to get out of the key of C, for example, something that she won’t do at all in Found1 regardless of how many arrangements she learns. Ok, CMA, Ami, Cmi, it’s really all still C…
Anyway, you’d take a foundation piece, talk about its vocabulary, tools, strategies, etc., then design improv exercises to utilize that vocabulary. And make her do some of them in front of you!! You could do this in a class of beginners but maybe not at her level. How well can she move a piece from one key to another? Does she know when she’s hitting a note that sounds kind of off? Improv in the hands is as much about listening as it is playing.
I also think there’s a difference between improv’g in my head versus improv’g from the page. Which is she doing? Can she hum a melody line and then play it on the keyboard without writing it down? Maybe this doesn’t require a complete set of materials. I think it’s hard to call unless you can get a sense of how well she reads and knows her stuff. I have definitely seen a Masters level musician who said she knew chords but really didn’t… I had an ear training teacher who had degrees and couldn’t get out of the key of C! It made the class incredibly boring. Part of that, I’m sure, was that her instrument was bass. So a degree in Comp isn’t the same as knowing how to play the piano.
Neil does point out that SM is for beginning musicians and that it is not the way to learn for everyone. There is no one right way. If Foundation 1 seems like it wouldn’t be the best fit, then don’t use it!