"We teach best what we need to learn most."
What happened most recently to you that confirmed teaching is the best way to learn?
In my course called Jamming for Advanced Beginners, a message I try to convey to guitar students early on is to avoid thinking of any improvised note as "right" or "wrong". Better - I coach them - to consider the notes they intended to play vs. those they didn't intend to play. I strongly believe any student who fully internalizes this critical lesson will be a more relaxed improviser from the start. In addition, having this kind of attitude about one's own improvising is a surefire way to ensure that person will be far less likely to harshly judge what other people play in their early attempts at improvising.
If I could borrow that HG Wells contraption, I know what point in time in my life as a musician I'd return to. I'd go back to my start as an improviser and hear my own words endlessly repeated back to me: "There are no wrong notes, Pat, only notes you didn't intend to play." Perhaps those words would have given me enough confidence to ignore anyone who cringed at something I tried.
But time machine fantasy aside, what I've seen - as a teacher - is that each time I repeat this message, an unsurprising thing happens; my own improvising gets a little more relaxed and natural. And that's when Buddha's words are confirmed for me, yet again.
Love that quote.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous; Thanks for the comment. I've used that quote at least five times across the 2500 posts I've published since 2011. It has such wide applicability.
DeleteHey Pat. Having taken the course you mention, I can add that it is a very good approach to learning as much, if not more, as it is a good approach to teaching. I've done my share of training over the course of my career and have found various tools that have assisted me. Not the least of which is based on the quote you use. Over the years I have also found that much is learned, or can be learned, through mistakes made, as long as they are looked upon in the correct way and not as negative judgements. So, for me, and I know for a number of others that have shared in your classes, Thank You. And if I were able to go back ... I'd hopefully take the knowledge that sticking with it, not giving up, not allowing so many distractions to take away what I am now finding to be so much fun.
ReplyDeleteThanks again and Be Well,
Bob
Bob; Your comment - coming as it does from someone who has actually taken the class mentioned in the post - is gratifying; thanks. I also appreciate how you took the time machine and extracted a lesson from your own past just as I did. Wouldn't it be cool if we could actually climb into that machine from time to time?
Delete