I think there is a shortage of great teachers, but there is a basic
inherent problem in the lute world in the larger sense that will defeat
any attempt at a systematic attempt to raise the universal level of
play, which is the adoption of standard music practices. Change will
have to come to from the students and the conservatories, and there are
some big changes now along those lines. A fast change would be the
establishment of a workshop dedicated to musicianship and professional
training, but there might not be takers as far as students, then again,
there might. Someone would have to fund it, and the first few years of
training would have to be free--most candidates for students can't
afford this kind of training. A starting point would be the simple
adoption of the curriculum routinely given to organists as far as
musical skills, continuo & figures, style, ornamentation,
improvisation, transposition, score reading, and so on. You would have
to find qualified teachers outside of the lute world, which in a
conservatory setting would be fairly easy.
Evaluating the current teachers is very easy, just take the number of
students and factor the ones who are professionals. And by
professionals, one would have to apply a reasonable but not draconian
standard. For example, there are only a handful of players who make
their living exclusively by playing concerts, so that standard is too
high. A fifty/fifty split of playing and teaching plus say at least 50
concerts per year is a reasonable standard that almost anyone can
achieve. Applying this loose but reasonable standard the lute world has
a very, very low rate of conversion. And I leave it up to the reader to
go through any list of teachers to see what their rate is. A good
conservatory might hit ten percent, and that means that anyone, no
matter how bad, or how bad the teacher, is included in that figure. I
would be surprised if the lute world hit 4 percent, and I suspect the
figure is probably around 2 percent. On the other hand, a highly rated
harpsichord teacher that I know is way, way, higher. So it is possible,
and people are doing it, but I don't see anyone in the lute world doing
this, except in the case of teachers who audition students and only
take the best, and then only take one or two per year. Then you can get
up to 40 to 50 percent. Often teachers are recommended without anyone
looking at their overall track record. Any teacher with 100 students is
going to crank out a few pros even if the give no lessons, a certain
number of people will always succeed. The true test is to get that
percentage higher. The talent base of students would easily support ten
percent--lute students tend to be smart. However, it is not as simple
as as a new curriculum. There are, for example, very few students
willing to go to Indiana, where there is a comprehensive
program--which, however, does not require the students to do the basic
studies required of an organist. Until this--the student motivation
issue--is understood and resolved, the problem will remain the same or
be slow to change. Lute players should set the standard, and that is
not the case.
Another simple fix is to require basic musical skills at all lute
workshops in musicianship, sight singing, score reading, notation,
ligatures, hexachords and so on. Everyone takes a morning class in it.
You could take the curriculum from Morley's book. It would be
historical, and mirror the basic training that renaissance and baroque
musicians had. Or it could be modeled on a really good program in a
modern conservatory, but I prefer the historical model because, after
all, singing from the hexachord gives a great insight into the music,
and a rudimentary knowledge of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque
paleography is also very important. The problem here is that the
workshops are super competitive nowadays because there are lots of them
and few students. So the curriculum has to be attractive but not
demanding, and that is basically true of all workshops now.
The good news is one can easily remedy the holes in one's training. My
daily chore is to simply improve on the things I'm not good at. Today
it was reading transposing horn parts from Handel's Opera Admeto. Can't
say I got much better, but I took a whack at it. Tomorrow is the review
of all the seven-based figured chords including sharp sevens and flat
sevens. I've done it hundreds of times, but I easily forget....
dt
__________________________________________________________________
From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]; [1]lute-cs.dartmouth.edu
<[email protected]>; Roman Turovsky <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 6:29:44 PM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: help for 'improving' lute and vihuela players
Roman,
Pat is indeed a great pedagogue, but only available regularly to
those in NYC. Word has it that he's been working on a method book
for
the past 30 years or so. No plans for release in the foreseeable
future, (or ever?) I'm afraid.
Chris
--- On Thu, 5/21/09, Roman Turovsky <[2][email protected]>
wrote:
From: Roman Turovsky <[3][email protected]>
Subject: [LUTE] Re: help for 'improving' lute and vihuela players
To: [4][email protected], "[5]lute-cs.dartmouth.edu"
<[6][email protected]>
Date: Thursday, May 21, 2009, 12:18 PM
Have you ever heard of Pat O'Brien?
RT
From: <[1][7][email protected]>
> The lute world has great performers. The lute world has great
teachers
> for those in the more advanced states of learning. What the lute
world
> lacks is a great pedagogue. Some one with the depth of teaching
> experience and knowledge to put together the graded series of
method
> books that would enable lute learning to become available to many,
> instead of the diehard dedicated few.
>
> But indeed, perhaps there is no market. And perhaps what market
there
> might be has grown to expect all their lute music on line and for
free....
>
> Suzanne
To get on or off this list see list information at
[2][8]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
--
References
1. [9]http://us.mc550.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]
2. [10]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
__________________________________________________________________
From: Roman Turovsky <[email protected]>
To: Lutelist <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 7:07:13 PM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: help for 'improving' lute and vihuela players
Not only great, but often called to undo damage inflicted by supposedly
greater pedagogues.
RT
----- Original Message ----- From: <[11][email protected]>
To: <[12][email protected]>; "[13]lute-cs.dartmouth.edu"
<[14][email protected]>; "Roman Turovsky"
<[15][email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 12:29 PM
Subject: Re: [LUTE] Re: help for 'improving' lute and vihuela players
Roman,
Pat is indeed a great pedagogue, but only available regularly to those
in NYC. Word has it that he's been working on a method book for the
past 30 years or so. No plans for release in the foreseeable future,
(or ever?) I'm afraid.
Chris
--- On Thu, 5/21/09, Roman Turovsky <[16][email protected]> wrote:
From: Roman Turovsky <[17][email protected]>
Subject: [LUTE] Re: help for 'improving' lute and vihuela players
To: [18][email protected], "lute-cs.dartmouth.edu"
<[19][email protected]>
Date: Thursday, May 21, 2009, 12:18 PM
Have you ever heard of Pat O'Brien?
RT
From: <[20][email protected]>
> The lute world has great performers. The lute world has great
teachers
> for those in the more advanced states of learning. What the lute
world
> lacks is a great pedagogue. Some one with the depth of teaching
> experience and knowledge to put together the graded series of method
> books that would enable lute learning to become available to many,
> instead of the diehard dedicated few.
>
> But indeed, perhaps there is no market. And perhaps what market there
> might be has grown to expect all their lute music on line and for
free....
>
> Suzanne
To get on or off this list see list information at
[21]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
--
References
1. http://lute-cs.dartmouth.edu/
2. mailto:[email protected]
3. mailto:[email protected]
4. mailto:[email protected]
5. http://lute-cs.dartmouth.edu/
6. mailto:[email protected]
7. mailto:[email protected]
8. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%7Ewbc/lute-admin/index.html
9. http://us.mc550.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]
10. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%7Ewbc/lute-admin/index.html
11. mailto:[email protected]
12. mailto:[email protected]
13. http://lute-cs.dartmouth.edu/
14. mailto:[email protected]
15. mailto:[email protected]
16. mailto:[email protected]
17. mailto:[email protected]
18. mailto:[email protected]
19. mailto:[email protected]
20. mailto:[email protected]
21. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%7Ewbc/lute-admin/index.html
