January 2008

How much have you needed to be TAUGHT, as opposed to LEARNT

January 7, 2008 03:25

I've just had a 3 hour lesson that started with me saying I wanted to be ale to play abar in the Handel Sonata (1#3 in A) without it getting all legato on me. And that led to a thorough exploration of keeping the elbow moving, arm up, shoulder relaxed, weight out of the bow then transferrred on the down bow, not emphasising the up bow, connecting the hooked bowings, and feeling the tilt of the bow across the lower strings and catching it. My teacher has talked about these things previously, so I was annoyed at myself for having not integated it. And despite three months now of careful, accurate practise, I'm still not able to produce a vibrato, and I won't even go there tonight about how frustrating that is.
I guess I'm just wondering how much actual 'instruction' has been needed by people here for various skills they have learnt, and how long did it take to integrate these things.
The videos taken of our recent ensemble performance showed a lot for reference since I was seated directly behind my teacher and i can compare our playing, but until the lesson on Friday, I couldn't identify specifically the difference was between my teacher and I. Only that she looked better. So I guess I'm not much at that visual sort of learning.
little bit of playing
Now I wonder if there things that nearly all people nearly always stumble over, maybe there's just some trick to teaching the hard stuff, or maybe only certain people can learn it - they're the ones that progress. I find myself wondering that if there is some trick for each person, maybe the light switch goes on 'flick' and they can do say sautille, or vibrato, or get their arm weight right.
And if something takes months and months to learn, does that ususally mean that it will never really be a competent component of that player's style?

Can you hear the panic creeping into my writing?

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January 2008

How much have you needed to be TAUGHT, as opposed to LEARNT

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