I think our educational system does us a disservice when it comes to private music instruction. Essentially, the former is predicated on \u201cright\u201d or \u201cwrong,\u201d and in music there is no \u201cright\u201d or \u201cwrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most people approach their music lessons as they would the taking of a math course, with the expectation of being judged and graded, and having to pass \u201ctests\u201d to show their increasing proficiency.<\/p>\n
Well, music–and especially banjo music–just doesn\u2019t work that way. \u00a0I tell my students right at the outset that I have no expectations for them: any expectations are strictly their own. \u00a0I do not hold them to some measure of improvement–all I want them to do is to have some fun.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. \u00a0In 50-some years of teaching, I have had but one beginning student who already had a gig lined up. \u00a0He was a studio guitarist who had accepted a job playing banjo for a commercial jingle. \u00a0He told me he hated the banjo but needed to learn one short piece for a studio session in six weeks (he did).<\/p>\n
Other than that, not one of the thousands of people I’ve taught was trying to learn on a timetable because he had a deadline. \u00a0Instead, everyone has said he was doing it \u201cfor himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
So to me, that means there is no pressure, and that my job as a teacher is to try to make the learning journey fun, for there is no destination.<\/p>\n
Taking music lessons is far too expensive to be a frustration. \u00a0If you want to pay lots of money to be frustrated, I recommend golf. \u00a0You should \u201cpractice\u201d your instrument because it\u2019s rewarding and fun. (I put the word practice in quotation marks because I highly recommend not regimented practicing, but playing, instead–please see my 5 June 2015 blog<\/a> on just that subject.)<\/p>\n I tell folks that if they drag their instruments out the day before their lessons, thinking \u201cOh, yeah, I guess I\u2019d better practice this thing\u201d they will never learn to play. \u00a0The folks who do learn to play are the ones who can\u2019t put the instrument down. \u00a0And why is that? \u00a0Because it\u2019s fun, not a chore.<\/p>\n So relax, have fun. \u00a0Experiment, noodle around. \u00a0Try to do that which pleases you. \u00a0And if you\u2019re not having fun, please tell your teacher–something has to change, or you\u2019ll just lose interest.<\/p>\n And that’s no fun at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I think our educational system does us a disservice when it comes to private music instruction. Essentially, the former is predicated on \u201cright\u201d or \u201cwrong,\u201d and in music there is no \u201cright\u201d or \u201cwrong.\u201d Most people approach their music lessons as they would the taking of a math course, with the expectation of being judged … Continue reading Have fun! (Or else)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeppmusic.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}