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Erik van Goch -> RE: How long did you take lessons for? (Sep. 13 2012 17:02:29)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
ABout being a good teacher, my dad used to say his job as a teacher was to LOSE HIS JOB....that means to transfer all important info to the student so that his advice is no longer needed.
Ricardo
I totally agree with Ricardo's comments and the philosophy of his father is shared by both me and my father. When my father entered university of music in the 60ties as a student of classical guitar his teacher told him "what makes you so special is that i only have to tell/show you things once"! And there was lots to tell since my father never received any lessons before. He had learned himself to play from a book and despite being a very successful performer for over 10 years he basically had to start all over again. But being an excellent student he graduated cum laude within 4 years and became the main teacher of classical guitar there himself for over 40 years.
Over the years he found out that most students indeed have to be told the same story over and over and over again. One of those students happened to be me (when i entered Paco Peñas University school off flamenco in 1985 were my father was one of the main instructors as well). Unlike my father i was very lazy, i hardly bothered to study at all and it took me 8 years before i was ready to do final exam.... the solo part i could have done in 4-5 years, but the additional requirement i had to be able to accompany singing and dancing "on the spot" took me another 3 years of strugling. The first time i really spent some quality time behind my guitar i managed to reach a "i need no lessons anymore level" within 4 weeks, but before it came to that i already had received 4 years of high level lessons from my father so in all fairness you could say in my case it took me 4 year to become "independent".
As a teacher i try to make my students independent as well by showing them the mechanisms behind left/right hand techniques, the structure behind the music and on top the art of studying. Quite often a student would ask me to have another look at the falseta of the last lesson again because back home they had became completely lost in al the notes. With longterm (advanced) students i would simply reply with a "how do you think i would deal with that problem"? Then they quite often could demonstrate me al the steps i would take, starting with a few carefully selected notes, step by step adding additional notes and layers without loosing the initial feeling of playing just a couple of important notes wile adding the sub-layers in between. Within minutes they could re-play the falseta just by themself and all i said in between was "ok, what's the next step". After a couple of lessons like that i would frankly asked them " why do you still come to me every 1,2,3 or 4 weeks, only to hear me say <what's next>???? You can ask yourself that question back home as well, you don't need me anymore, go home and safe your money for concerts, cd's or a teacher that can learn you different things.
That's how i look on it. But like i said, lot's of students somehow need to hear the same thing over and over again. Some teachers even exploit that and let you pay for learning the same bloody falseta over and over again. Unlike some of them i always give the material of the lesson in written music as well, covering al the notes and every little fines in rhythm, interpretation and left/right hand fingering one can think of. All i can offer are good examples in order to try to replace bad habits by better habits and my main coal is always to make them independent on the long turn.
For the complete story i should add that i received guitar lessons from my father between the age of 9-12 as well. When i became handy enough to find my way on the guitar i soon quite taking lessons. Between 14 and 18 i studied the music of Paco Peña and Paco de Lucia. I was pretty good in ear playing melody/harmony but far less talented in rhythm and technique. Between 18 and 22 i abandoned flamenco and focused my attention on the group flairck, adapting various other instruments like 12 string guitar, bouzouki, citar, banjo and violin. When Paco and my father joined hands and started the very first university flamenco school ever i decided to get myself a proper guitar education after all. Just like my father 20 years before i basically had to start all over again. So did my father (once again) who had to learn Paco's flamenco technique and music first hand himself before passing it to us...he proved to be an excellent student/teacher in that field as well.
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