David, --- LGS-Europe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Lutes and guitars _are_ difficult instruments. > Guitar pupil of mine of about > 12, doing well after three years of lessons, > enjoying it and studying > regulary at home (!), performed his piece on this > year's pupils' night. Congratulations! Sounds like the kind of student you wish all your other students could be more like. > He > really did well, no obvious mistakes, played through > the whole piece without > stopping, it was musical, he had some tone and > volume. Afterward his mother > comes up to me: "Is that all?" Ouch! Frustrating! But, as you went on to say, there are reasons for this attitude. Nowadays, I don't deal so much with true beginners, but I took over a guitar program at a college that had lagged for years. I set about recruiting new students and did fairly well in raising enrollment, but many of these kids, though enthusiastic, had not learned under a systematic approach. It was a real test of patience and humility at the beginning. For one thing, I was "the new guy" among the faculty. Then, on the string juries I'd have to sit through a sophomore violin student's nice rendition of a Mendelssohn or Bruch concerto movement or a cello student's several movements of a Bach suite, not to mention lightening-quick scales. Meanwhile, some of my most advanced students might be able to follow them with something like Lagrima or a short Chilesotti piece which they had been striving to master for the entire semester (or longer). They could just about struggle through a major scale doing triplets at MM=60. The bowed string players would take up the whole 20 minute exam time, while my students would be done in 5. Happily, things have improved dramatically since then and standards have been raised, but I wonder what the other teachers thought about guitar. > She just started on > piano and was > disappointed with her son's result, as she's already > doing much better after > the few lessons she's had. No wonder, try playing > the opening of Fuer Elise > without piano lessons, my bet is you'll do fine. Try > to do the same on a > guitar, my bet is that it'll take several years to > come anywhere near the > percieved perfection and easy of your first try on > piano. Frederick Noad talks about this same point in the preface to his "Solo Guitar Playing, vol. II" book. I was so glad when I read it the first time. I wish he would have included it in volume one so that more beginners would read it. Very encouraging. Chris - Once learned an entire two-minute Bach invention on piano, but couldn't do it today if you held a gun to my head. > > Of course, piano music will be much more complicated > for the advanced > student, so by that time it's a matter of different > areas of difficulty. > And, obviously, the real test of mastering an > instrument is being able to > express yourself musically on it, not to play the > difficult pieces > technically well, but that's not the argument here. > > David - cannot play beyond the opening phrase of > Fuer Elise on piano > > > **************************** > David van Ooijen > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > www.davidvanooijen.nl > **************************** > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Shape Yahoo! in your own image. Join our Network Research Panel today! http://surveylink.yahoo.com/gmrs/yahoo_panel_invite.asp?a=7
