In 2012, I am founding a student rock band for the first time. Several of my long-term students have been blossoming as musicians for years now, but I have often felt that they were missing something. By relying primarily on one-on-one instruction from myself, students may not be getting the whole picture of why they should be excited about practicing and learning music. Kids are social creatures, longing to connect. Why not give them a band context in which to explore how music affects people first hand? I’m always the theorist with my students, always thinking that if I put the right concepts in their heads, that they’ll magically become the musicians that they were born to be. I now see that I’ve been using a faulty system. I can lecture all day (and often do) but music is more than anything, a temporal experience. It’s best understood in the moment of it’s creation, not in analysis. When I am enraptured by a performance, my own or someone else’s', I “get it” in a way that transcends music theory. I feel that the highest level of musicality is to be within the present moment to the point where nothing else exists but what is being played right then. That’s not a lesson to be taught by me, it must be experienced by the musician.
The students who struggle the most are never in the moment of the music. They stumble over notes, awkwardly pecking and pulling at them. They don’t understand the big picture and they’re not flowing within the stream. I mistakenly try to explain things. “This is how you do this, don’t do that, wrong finger, blurg blah snork.” I can go on for a while, past the point at which the student can absorb the knowledge I’m so generously bestowing.
What does make a musician (or music listener) better? A musician gets better through the experience of music. For me, a big moment was the first time I played a chord one note at a time, and heard the tones of the arpeggio form and stack on each other creating a happy sheet of G-major. That was enough to hook me. Then I learned a song. Then I wrote a song. Then I was in a band, playing in church. Each transformational musical experience led me onward to another and so on up to now.
This student band that I’m starting will provide its members with crucial first-hand experience that will improve them musically, socially, and intellectually. They will work together, they will learn new songs, they will write songs, they will jam, they will try to out-do each other, and they will be encouraged to GO FOR IT. I don’t necessarily mean in the professional sense, but in the sense that if they’re going to do it, they should really bloody do it right and not be satisfied with mediocrity or anything inauthentic.
Everyone in the band will be taking turns on various instruments. Each student will end up trying some rhythm guitar, lead, bass, drums, keys, and vocals. No one will be allowed to be shy, everyone will be required to leave their comfort zones regularly. The band members will also have to think about such concerns as the band’s name, the band’s repertoire, style, and image.
My role will be very much like that of a coach. I’ll put them through their paces, make them work, ask them to play the song again, and demand that they play from their hearts.
My goal is to have the band ready to play a show in May or June of 2012. I will have them playing at least a 30-45 minute set, hopefully which will be half covers or less.
One Comment
what a GREAT idea! Kids in instrumental music in high schools work in groups and that is where they learn to keep going and what it means to be inter-dependent. It is where they learn that you are judged by how you sound overall and not by how you sound on your very best day. Practice is then motivated by becoming able to do some things RIGHT all the time. THEN you keep adding one more thing you do right EVERY TIME (OK 99% of the time). Others depend on you. AND you can get the WHOLE picture of what a future in music would be like. Because it is not just doing the things you like to do in life – it is doing the things that must be done and doing them well enough to be allowed to keep doing the things you like to do. AND finding something that brings enough joy that what you take away pays the cost for the stuff you would rather not do. BEST WISHES – Donna