The Way We Teach Music is Totally Backwards

Over the past few years of private woodwind instruction to elementary, middle, and high school students, I've re-familiarized myself with public school classroom methods.

First, let me say that these music teachers are my heroes: they start with a classroom full of kids who are new to their instruments, they have so little time, are under-staffed, and have almost nothing in the way of resources.

And yet they are expected to meet district expectations, holiday concert performances, learning curves, tests, and so on. I think they do amazing work.

But are they teaching their students to play music?

Not really. Here's why:

Think back to when you started school in kindergarten. This is generally where most of us first learned to read words in a structured setting.

Your teacher probably had you touch pictures and words, and put them together into little sentences by saying them out loud.

But way before you ever got there, you already knew how to talk, right?

And you learned to talk by doing what?  By imitating your older brothers and sisters, the television, and your adult models.

But -- when we teach music, (especially in the group classroom setting,) we reverse the process. We do it backwards, and that is wrong. In effect, we teach the alphabet (in this case, musical notation, etc) way before we teach kids how to speak (or play notes.)

As a result, none of my students can play anything that is not written on a page. None of them know the full range of their horn. Their music educations are generally limited to knowing only what they need to know to meet expectations, and in this way, the advance at a snail's pace.

Or slower.

Is there a better way to learn music? Yes.

How? Through imitation.

Naturally, a beginner must learn to make reliable sounds come out of the sax/clarinet/flute, and learn what the keys do and do not do. That goes without saying, and the rudimentary methods available in the classroom are designed to do just that in an efficient manner that works for the lowest common denominator.

But this kind of teaching leaves out the most valuable of tools -- playing an instrument.

Practice is one thing. But playing is another.

And the best way to learn the difference is through imitating sounds and songs.

Right about now I can see young and new woodwind students cringing as they read this.

It's not that hard. You already do it.

The world is filled with sounds and music, and countless songs, many of which are already embedded into our consciousness such that we do not have to work very hard to recall them and then sing them.

"Happy Birthday," for example.

Go ahead. Sing out. Nice, huh?

And so, in addition to working on school projects, in my lesson plans the kids play that old wonderful song from memory.

Is it hard? Yeah, at first for some. But they get the hang of it in a way that looking at sheet music can't and won't ever even begin to approach.

In playing from memory/imitation, they begin to open up that inner pathway of expression that goes directly from their minds (and hearts, if you will,) to their fingers.

We start on middle C, (which is the 5th note of the F major scale.) When they have that version completely memorized, we go up a half-step and start on middle C#....which is the fifth note of the F# major scale.

As a music educator, I saw that this was not only fun for my beginners, but a totally engaging way for my intermediate students to learn the different keys ...without having to memorize scales by rote in ascending/descending patterns -- which also can eventually hamper a student improviser.

I got that from Kenny G once when interviewing him for a magazine. At the conclusion of the interview, I asked him for a quick lesson, and he showed me how he practices scales by playing one over the phone (he had his trusty soprano sax with him.) It was an intricate, clean, challenging combination of all the notes in the C major scale arranged to give him a workout.

Why?

Because Dave, he said, You will never ever play a C major scale (or any scale) to an audience... so why would you practice playing one?

Point well made.

Now, go and play "Happy Birthday" from memory. Start on middle C, and make it beautiful.