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Teachers: Loyalty, Fidelity, Bias...It Can Be A Soap OperaTeaching: Do conductors, judges, etc. have teacher-bias? What is the normal practice regarding finding and keeping the teacher who is best for the student? Is there such a thing as a Violinist Honor Code?From sandra yin Teacher #1 taught this child-now-youth steadily for 5 years. Teacher #2 taught off/on via 1-week Summer Camps and recently for several months. Over a period of years, the student would perform difficult concertos taught by Teacher #1. However he would attribute his teacher's name as Teacher #2. Teacher #1 happens to be from China and certainly charges less, possibly 50% less than the rates of Teacher #2 who is of European descent. Allegedly the student's parents were advised that only having a (well-known?) European teacher would ensure the youth orchestra acceptance, competition placement, and position/chair status they seek. Teacher #2 ordered the youth to withdraw from the recital because she did not teach the piece (Tchaikovsky Concerto in D, 3rd Movement). Teacher #1 has ended the relationship with that student and his parents, before teaching the 1st Movement as was their request. (Note this was discovered once before in year 2001, but the student & parents apologized and said they would not do it again.) Do conductors, judges, etc. have teacher-bias? What is the normal practice regarding finding and keeping the teacher who is best for the student? Is there such a thing as a Violinist Honor Code?
From Gregory Lee
Some teachers are so ridiculously possessive and selfish, it makes me sick!! Posted on June 8, 2004 at 06:17 PM Certainly students should ask permission from their teacher if they wish to have lessons with someone else. If the teacher doesn't allow that, do it secretly, but don't invite both to the same recital; that's a bad mistake. From Elena G
You took with Paul Kantor? Can you tell me a little about him?
Posted on June 8, 2004 at 07:17 PM From Stephen Brivati
Greetings,Posted on June 8, 2004 at 11:46 PM I don`t quite follow this stuff about judges bias. The honor code thing is interesting. Basically, if you want to get a sense of the kind of problems with a beginner and more than one teacher review the Trouble Sue Donimn discussed recenly and the essay found on the topic at Newbury House violin (do a google search). I think there are three main points to the question. First, the violin is so complex and requires such a personal and long range plan of teaching for each individual student that going to two teachers is going to cause major conflicts unless one is working as a kind of asisstant withb regualr consultation with the -upper- teacher. Second, a good teacher puts a huge amount of effort into each indivdual student, way beyond the scope of the lesson and I am including in this their own preparation of the students pieces, their own attendence at masterclasses to keep their level up, their own research and so forth. To go to anothe rteacher or try and second guess them is bloody disrespectful. In fact, I think most of us try to tread carefully on vilinist.com (well, a little anyway...) but it is actually very rude when someone posts a message here saying `my teacher taught me this and I don`t agree so can you give me an altenrative, what do you think?` If I had a student who posted in this way on the internet I would reconsider whether they should continue lesosns with me. This stuff relates to the third question. Violnists have reached an extraordinarly high standard these days and as Alex pointed out in a recent post it is not abnormal to be playign Tchiakovsky and paginini within four years. However, a lot of this kind of playing can be shallow and the young wizards often/usually burn out because they have \never developed the ability to question or refelct on a fragment of music as they are urged to `do more! Play faster! Play Louder!` As part of this syndrome `teacher hopping ` has bemoe very widespread. That is `Oh, Mrs X is greta for bow arm so I will study with her at summer campe,` and then at Christmas I will work on my musicianship with Mr Y. and so on. Its all very cute but there is no such things as fragented player/teacher. It is a false edifice and almost always comes crashing down at some point. If your teacher cannot teach bowing arm or musicality then they should not be teaching. Some of this syndrome can, I think be attributed to Galamian but he was smart enough to surround himself with the right colleagues and make the students learn from each other. I think his concept of teaching has been much abused and misinterpreted. From owen sutter
while i wouldnt disagree with your overall statement i would say that i have definetely found benifit with taking a few lessons from different teachers than my main one. ALso my main teacher was the one who originally suggested i take a few lessons with his friend mark.
Posted on June 9, 2004 at 12:55 AM From owen sutter
but i will say that its true one needs to have a "main" teacher or at least someone who really konws your playing, for instance mark never really detected any problems with my bow arm which i assure you there are
Posted on June 9, 2004 at 12:56 AM From Mariam Gregorian
I think taking lessons from other teachers is fine if you are doing it from an educational point of view. However, I loath the idea of "teacher shopping" purely for political reasons. I think it is really dishonest. These are the sort of people that will go from teacher to teacher until they get the answer that they want to hear. (i.e. "Am I ready to play the Tchaikovsky Concerto?" or "Can I enter a competition?")
Posted on June 9, 2004 at 02:44 AM From Stephen Brivati
Greetings,Posted on June 9, 2004 at 02:56 AM Mariam and Owen, I agree with you both. What I dfid not add in original post was thta it does have soemthing to do with the level you are at as a player. For a beginner student this is a problem. For more advanced students it becomes more of an issue of courtesy and cooperation. Good teachers would rarely hesitate to suggets or encourage students to get extra input. But let us not lose sight of the basic issue here. Neither of you would claim that extra help as being@your teacher` right? Cheers, Buri From sandra yin
thanks for responding. it helps to see this through more eyes. someone asked what my role is: I am wife of Teacher #1, mother of our 2 violinist children, and "manager" of a youth orchestra where I volunteer administrative assistance and fund raising. Posted on June 9, 2004 at 02:55 AM We can understand the student is free to lessons from whom they choose. But then lie about it? The devastating point is the student used (parttime) Teacher #2's name when in public, despite performing the pieces taught by Teacher #1. Teaching violin involves giving from deep within. Is racism the only excuse for not recognizing the teacher, or are we missing something? As the dust settles, I think this student would not be able to perform this concerto in the future without emotional difficulties. So wanting to play this piece or that will require the soul, and not just shopping around for the technical recipe. At the end of the day, the parents of this child say they are only interested in chalking up points to get him into the college of choice - not as a music or performance major, but in science. From Stephen Brivati
Greetings,Posted on June 9, 2004 at 03:32 AM Sandra, I am sorry you have had such a bad experience. You and your husband did nothing wrong and are quite justified in being enraged (although is soemthing of a waste of energy). I would be a litlte hesitant to attribute it solely to racism. That is part and parcel of the package but racism and other -isms penetrate the music scene at all levels. I was reading an interesting description by Lieberman of the hosatility she faced at Julliard when trying to introduce music other than western classical to students on progrmas the Insititute itself had created. It might be true that these parents had got hold of the idea that a Eurpean teacher was better but I would try and see it in terms of name dropping rather than cultural superiority or you might end up carrying around someones elses personal problems for a long time. There is a story about two Thai Monks who got to a river and found a lady who wanted to cross but was too weak for the dangerous current. One monk picked her up and they crossed safetly. Given that the act of touching women was forbidden to them the second stewed for about ten kilometers and then exploded `What the heck were you doing back there?` The first replied `I carried her fiver meters, you carried her for the last two hours` Cheers, Buri From sandra yin
THANKS, Buri, for that monk story! i'll try to google your other reference later...Posted on June 9, 2004 at 04:26 AM cheers -- Sandra From Sue Donim
Buri, I agree with you entirely about the student's level being of great importance; once you are advanced and at college level, it's not uncommon to dabble with different teachers as Owen does, but it should be done with your previous/primary teacher's blessing - and, if possible recommendation (and if you don't trust them to guide you in this, why are you with them?). Posted on June 9, 2004 at 05:32 AM The real problem comes at beginner level. Take a look at a cross-section of beginners' mannuals - let's say, String Builder, Eta Cohen, Sheila Nelson, Stepping Stones and A Tune A Day. All good, reputable guides, and they all teach roughly the same stuff - *but in different ways and in a different order*. When adhered to, each method will produce approximately the same violinist. However, if you start trying to mix and match, you will undoubtedly end up contorted and befuddled. Like these books, each teacher uses a hotchpotch of different schools, game-plans and methods. As violinists most of us know that to mess with this is a huge error... but I've found out to my cost that most students and their parents don't know this. And let's be reasonable here - why should they? They know nothing about violin playing. That's why they're clients. But in answer to the title question, it does seem to me that an across-the-board code of violin teaching practice would be beneficial to all, e.g. Don't Interfere With Someone Else's Student. Only about the things we all agree on, of course... but there's the rub: as with most issues raised on this site, these are few and far between, if existent at all... From Sue Donim
By the way, my two-timing student is still with me; I eventually decided to do nothing and hope for the best, and the parents removed the child from the school ensemble, thus leaving the third party teacher. However, the whole incident - long-running as it was - has left the student in a state of disrepair. I can't realistically start him again from scratch - it would be complicated and demoralising - but I must say that the technique I am now left struggling with is a sorry contrast to the confident and fluid playing this student produced in the early stages of learning. Of course the student doesn't appreciate that there are many methods of violin teaching out there, and the doubts about my methods planted by the enforcement of Teacher 2's regime remain, severely rupturing my relationship with the student. Like his technique, I fear the breach of trust has placed this relationship beyond repair.
Posted on June 9, 2004 at 05:46 AM From Amy X
I think it's very possible that conductors and judges have biases. If they don't like the teacher or aren't familiar, they'll probably stick the kid further back.
Posted on June 9, 2004 at 02:19 PM From Alex Belai
wow..soap opera is right!! lol
Posted on June 9, 2004 at 08:37 PM |
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