Education: it goes without saying that a music teacher should have a degree in music from an accredited music school or be actively pursuing that degree. This means that the teacher can read music, arrange, transcribe, compose a bit, play by ear, all you would expect and in various styles – not only classical.

Experience: music is a performance art. You cannot teach someone to perform without first having performance experience yourself.

Proficiency: a music educator needs to perform frequently and be able to showcase his/her talent for the public and his/her studio.

There are many misconceptions about music teachers. I shall list a few things that are said that are ridiculous…

“I only teach beginners.” – A way for a non-educated music teacher to justify teaching for money. A nurse does not “only operate on children”. Hmm…

“I play the organ at church.” – Not a qualification for anything except playing the organ at that church.

“I used to play the piano when I was little.” – Lots of people did. I used to play baseball when I was little. I don’t coach a team for money today.

“I only charge a couple of dollars for my lessons because I’m not a teacher.” – So why are you teaching? Watch out for people trying to make a quick buck.

“My mother used to teach piano and I watched her for years.” – My father was an astronaut. NASA won’t accept that as license for me to fly to Mars.

“I only teach my own children.” – I’m not sure how to feel about this one. Some parents home school their children, so I suppose music could fit into that equation. Maybe. Kinda? Probably not.

I have taught piano professionally for over twenty years. I do not labor under the elitist delusion that my degree in piano education makes me better than anybody else. It does not. What it does give me is the legitimate right and the knowledge to teach piano professionally and give others a quality music education. The techniques teachers learn at universities about teaching and performing are extremely valuable and cannot be learned otherwise.

Over the years of my teaching I have had many students transfer from other studios, and very often I have been shocked to see that the student knows very little about their instrument or music in general. Many times it is the fault of the student and his family for not practicing and taking lessons seriously enough. Sometimes students’ problems arise from having lessons with someone who is not qualified. A mother told me once, “I cannot believe how much money we spent with INSERT NAME and my son has learned nothing.” Upon investigation it was true: the teacher had totally misguided this one child I have in mind. That’s a sad story, and it leaves a shadow over music education on whole.

When looking for a music teacher look for education, experience, and proficiency. Don’t be embarrassed to ask the teacher to play for you. If he acts offended…leave. If he can’t play well…leave. If he seems nervous or unwilling…leave. The old adage “You get what you pay for,” does not necessarily apply in this area of life. I’ve known teachers with no experience or education tell me that they teach for some inflated price, twice the area average, because they don’t want to teach a lot anyway, and if they only get a few it’s less work for some extra spending money. Expensive does not mean good.

Finding a good teacher is difficult. Do your homework.

Teachers for millions of years, yes millions, have used tricks to get students to memorize music fundamentals. Most people have heard of the bass clef space notes being learned with the sentence “All cars eat gas.” or “All cows eat grass.” Likewise the treble clef line notes are taught as “Every good boy does fine.” Other “silly sentences” are taught, too. One teacher I really respect told me once, “Hey, whatever works. And as much as we might dislike it…it works.”

Once again, as I often am with teaching and practicing techniques, I am torn between to ideas: the first idea of teaching “correctly” – whatever that is – and the second idea of  ”getting the job done by any means”. The last word on the subject should be what works for the student. I try to teach fundamentals presuming the student is smart enough to grasp it the “correct” way without a shortcut. Some shortcuts, such as “Every good boy does fine.” will stick in your head and you will never, yes NEVER, be able to name a treble clef line without reciting that mantra. But, once again…if it works…

The sandwich key? That was new to me.

There are three types of students/musicians: those who care, those who don’t care, and those who are never satisfied. Of course the best type of musician to be is a musician who cares. Musicians who don’t care are everywhere. You can hear them destroying music and playing “good enough” all over the world. These musicians don’t last long in the business or inside of lessons. The musicians who care get the job done, they practice, they make sure to be on time, they make money (usually), and they last. What I want to talk about is the oddity of the musician who is never satisfied no matter what he does.

Never being satisfied can be described as a positive by some people, and I happen to be one of those people. Striving to be better is what makes a musician, a person, great. It is an asset to any personality to want to be the best you that you can be. However, when the striving goes beyond the normal and even when the music is perfect (yes, it can be perfect) that person is dissatisfied then that is counterproductive.

I teach students who cover a range of ages from five-years-old to retirement age. Once in a while I enroll a student who is never satisfied and shakes his/her head and moans and groans after performances that others would be shouting and blogging about. This type of student makes me nervous because I never know what he’s thinking! If the music is played well, with no mistakes, with everything intended performed then what’s the problem? I asked a student today what the problem was after one of these almost-perfect performances and he could not tell me. I would have loved to have heard the student expertly explain something he missed in the music that I did not hear, but that never happened. Often when students begin an instrument when they are already experienced playing another instrument the frustration of being a beginner again is too much to fathom. I think that was the case with the student I have in mind. Identifying the problem is the start to correcting it. GI Joe would agree. Knowing is half the battle.

To end this blog I leave you with these tidbits of thirty-eight-year-old wisdom. 1) If you played it correctly, played it perfectly, be happy and move on. 2) If you are always dissatisfied figure out why and fix it. 3) Picking up a new instrument always assumes a learning curve no matter who you are.

Disclaimer: these bits of wisdom in no way apply to myself within cello lessons, for I am usually completely dissatisfied with myself. HOWEVER, this forces me to practice more so I say, “Leave me alone in my muddy discontent.”

I teach music to students of all ages. One of the great things about studying music is the ability to use your study to escape from ordinary life for a while and get totally enveloped in something else. I was working with a student today on a piece of music and talked about how there is much more in music than just the notes and rhythms. The notes and rhythms are on the very surface of the study of any piece regardless of genre or difficulty. The dynamics, articulations, tempi, phrasing and interpretation is always there waiting for us to bring them out. That is where the real music is. That is where you can “lose yourself” in the study of music and escape for a while.

It takes a vast amount of concentration to go beyond the notes and rhythms and begin to play Music. Eastern (European) music education would have students tack on dynamics, articulations, etc. after the notes and rhythms are learned. Western (USA) music education is more likely to have students study everything, all the elements of performance, concurrently  – the big picture, if you will. In either fashion of learning you sooner or later get the opportunity to lose yourself and become totally absorbed in what you are doing.

I have been learning cello for 13 months now, and I find that I can get totally engrossed in my study immediately simply because there is so much going on. From intonation to bowing to phrasing, not to mention reading the music, there is enough to take me far away into the study. I blink and it’s been about 45 minutes since I began practicing. The ringing of the telephone sometimes disturbs me, but I can get right back into the depths of study in a few minutes.

Music education, at any level or at any age, can be an amazing and rewarding escape. After the time is done and you are back into normal life you may feel displaced for a moment, but the result is that all the cobwebs have been cleaned from your brain hole. And everyone needs their brain hole cleaned once in a while. Use music.

I have so much to say about this video! Let me begin.

First of all, and getting immediately to the main point of this blog post, you cannot give a virtuoso a terrible, horrible, ugly piece of music and pass it off as Music. Or can you? Apparently I have been proved wrong just by posting this video. Someone had the great idea to play this piece at Obama’s inauguration. So obviously you can take a wretched piece of ear damaging, nervous system paralyzing, intelligence insulting lines and dots (music) and convince people to say, “Hey, that’s magnificent!” if Yo-Yo Ma and Perlman are playing it. Now, if I went to our local coffee shop, The Porch, and played this piece I would get my butt kicked. My wife would begin the attack. Trip would be laughing too hard to join the violence. Sarun would be videoing and posting to The FaceTube. Someone would lose a pink umbrella, and the night would be over. (Sorry for the inside jokes.) It would not work under any other circumstances than Yo-Yo Ma and Perlman playing it. Wow. I was completely underwhelmed.

Second, it bothers me that accomplished musicians can say how wonderful this is when, obviously, it is horrific in every way. And believe me, it’s not the musicians. These guys are “pretty good” musicians. (Cynical remark.) I have no idea what this piece is, and frankly, I don’t care. You have got to judge music on the music and not the musicians or the composer. I say this – even if this piece was written by Ludwig van Beethoven himself it is still refuse. I continue…

Third, and this is funny at least to me, look how annoyed Obama looks and look how amused Biden looks. I love their reactions, and I love that Obama doesn’t know whether to watch, or not watch, listen, not listen, turn around, smile…he is totally confused. As am I. I agree with Obama. This piece needs Change.

Forth, look at Yo-Yo Ma. Is his expression one of happiness, amusement, or simply a silly expression because he cannot believe someone selected this piece for this event. I’m sure he’s happy to play this and get applause instead of a straight jacket. That has to be fun. Whomever selected this piece, and I refuse to research any of this based on how much the piece irritates me, could have very well selected it to annoy the crowd and Obama. Why not? Who’s going to argue? Yo-Yo Ma and Perlman are playing it: it has to be amazing. Really?

Fifth, don’t read anything into Perlman’s expression. He always looks like that.

I think I’m going to record something like this just for fun and post it on FaceBook and see all the crazy responses I get. My “non-musician” friends would lambast me. Half of my “musician” friends would hate it and spit on me (rightfully so), but…but!…the other half would comment things like, “Interesting use of the blah blah blah in the blah blah,” and try to appear intelligent. Would they? Would they? Mother Mary, I hope not.

I suppose that all of these points express fully my disdain. My nausea. My discontent with society’s view of what constitutes Music. I’ll give it this: it does evoke an emotional response, and that response is emotional vomit.

I’m being really delicate with my opinions, aren’t I?

So comment away all you people who are going to say that I’m musically illiterate and closed-minded and incorrect on every point. You will still be wrong after anyone listens to this piece. It is undeniably in the “prank” category at iTunes. I welcome any insults or debates. PLEASE. Keep in mind, I do not hate you, simply this piece, and our debate will be clean and intelligent and non-insulting. I shall immediately delete any personally insulting (to me) comments, but reply immediately to any half-way intelligent thoughts. Also, most of my remarks will begin with, “But it’s so darned ugly!” So we begin.

Two hours later: I’m very sad to report that it seems nobody realizes that this post is a joke. Of course this is not the real audio…here’s the real audio/video…a great performance…

Today was the second lesson I taught to a new student, Ronnie. He is a transfer student from another studio that teaches group lessons – which I am not a fan of, but that’s for another blog post. Within the first two piece we covered he did very well. When beginning the last piece of his assignment Ronnie said that he had not worked on it, so I said that was okay and that we would work on it together. After working for a while on the first two measures, hands separately, Ronnie broke down into tears. I asked what was wrong and Ronnie said, “I don’t know this.” “Right, I responded…” and continued to explain about new pieces, learning, mistakes, and how I was not upset or disappointed in him so he shouldn’t be, either.

Students are diverse people. Some can play carelessly and botch dozens of notes and do not notice or care. Others can play perfectly and be disappointed with their performance. I can say from twenty-plus years of experience that I would much rather teach the students who get frustrated and care and want to achieve than the ones who never blink and the notes may as well be penguins. At least penguins would be interesting…and tasty.

When students are high achievers and young, they don’t always understand why they cannot understand and play well immediately when approaching new material. It is your job as a teacher to identify that personality trait and address the issue. Students need to understand that learning is a process and wrong notes are expected. They also need to understand that usually the pieces in their method books will become harder every time they turn the page. This cannot frighten them, so you try to explain how exciting it is that there is always something harder to play and that there is always something new. Difficult pieces mean that you are learning and becoming better for each one you conquer.

Hang in there, Ronnie. You’re only six.

Last night was the first rehearsal. The music is easy and the conductor is professional but relaxed. We’ll see how relaxed she is a week before the concerts begin…but for now, she’s relaxed. The folder consisted of selections, all simplified, from Beethoven, Mozart, Verdi…and Elton John. There were some Irish folk song medleys thrown in and other such compositions. Whether or not you enjoy a certain type of music has nothing to do with performing it. I find it is always rewarding to play anything with an ensemble. I forgot how much I enjoyed playing with an ensemble. Since college I have played piano or bass or sang with church groups, but a secular band or orchestra is a totally different thing. Hearing the other instruments around you and getting that feeling is something you can never understand unless you play with an ensemble. I think that students, even college-age students, take that for granted. I know I did.

Like I was explaining about “categories” of musicians, there were musicians of all ages. I had hoped that there would not be many children in the group. There were only a few, except for the second violins, a bunch of them, that were all from one violin teacher’s studio. Kudos to her for bringing them…but they were screechy. Hopefully the kids will get their act together because everybody else sounded pretty good for the first rehearsal of a community ensemble. There is another rehearsal tomorrow night, but I’m not going because of the hour-long drive and my teaching schedule. The bonus to driving all the way to Lafayette to an orchestra rehearsal is that my wife rides with me and on the way home, one block from the rehearsal, is a terrific sushi restaurant. Win win.

Next, step “C”, is playing with the Beaumont Community Orchestra in the Fall. “D” through “Z” to follow. Hopefully we can find a good sushi place there, too.

I also had the problem of the pegs popping out from the body thus releasing one of the strings completely. It was a cold winter night and I had left my cello with a peg simply touching an exterior wall of my studio. The temperature outside was below freezing, and the transfer of temperature through the wall and into the peg shrunk the wood. The tension from the wound string caused the slightly smaller peg to turn just a little and then release from it’s place in the scroll. Nasty.

Wittner Geared Cello Pegs

The one solution I hit upon solved two problems. Wittner makes a set of geared cello pegs that you simple insert like traditional solid wooden pegs. The difference is that once these amazing pegs are in place there are gears inside that turn smoothly and allow you to fine tune without actually needing the fine tuners at the bottom of the instrument. Yes: wow. They hold amazingly well, and unless I travel with my cello I only need to tune every couple of days. I do check, yes, and it stays in tune (says my Seiko tuner) for that long. The geared pegs totally handles the problem of the pegs popping out of the scroll. So what about the bridge moving?

If you alternate tuning with the fine tuners at the bottom of the instrument and the newly installed geared pegs in the scroll you apply equal amounts of tension and movement to the bridge keeping it in place better than pulling/tuning from only one end. This way you minimize the risk of the bridge pushing out of place. It may still happen, but not as quickly or as drastically.

(You can get these geared pegs from my store, Bearden’s Music, for $99 if you say you read this blog. Call us at 1-888-889-9594 to order. All credit cards accepted.)

Weekend Practice

If you’ve been following this blog, and there are a couple of you, you’ll know that I’ve been playing cello (and taking lessons privately) since August of last year. So This makes about nine months of study. I’ve experienced leaps, road blocks, instrument malfunctions…you name it. I’ve played with a cello choir at a couple of small performances and a few months back even played a piece at Trinity Baptist with a guitarist and a vocalist. The problem is, I want to be a cellist right now. That obviously cannot happen after only nine months of study. It’s rather depressing sometimes – like right now. I don’t want to wait.

To get some experience I’m going to drive to Lafayette once a week to the community orchestra rehearsals and concerts. This particular community orchestra is made up of middle school to older adults at all levels of experience. I can’t say I’m looking forward to the literature or the vast range of ages and levels involved, but I must gain some experience playing with a larger ensemble on cello. The only expense is fuel. There are a couple of weeks of rehearsals and then a couple of community concerts and it’s over for the Summer.

In the Fall I’m planning on getting into the Beaumont community orchestra. I have no idea what that one is all about, but I believe it is up a notch from the Lafayette one. We’ll see. At least the mileage isn’t as bad.

I have a couple more years until I can hope to audition for the Lake Charles Symphony – but that is my goal. I am at the end of the third Suzuki book but my actual level, so I’ve been told, is a little higher than that.

Some days I feel good about my playing and some days I don’t. On the good days, which there are a lot of, I feel like I am accomplishing a great deal quickly and I’m proud of my progress. On the bad days I know that things will get better, and I never feel like giving up. So if you’re a musician learning a new instrument or just a guy who bought a used guitar at a pawn shop wanting to learn some country songs my advice is this: look long-range, don’t give up, and enjoy the “process” of learning. If you can do that no matter what the outcome your time was not a waste and therefore you are and were successful.

Now go practice.

When I was younger, and by younger I mean in college and earlier, I enjoyed the praise of my instructors. It lifted me up, made me practice more, gave me what I needed from a nurturing standpoint. Now that I’m older, and by older I mean thirty-seven, well, not so much. I don’t know if it’s that I don’t need the praise or that I don’t want the praise. It’s good to hear you’re doing well. It’s good to hear that you’re improving. This way you can judge how your practicing is paying off and how your progress is, well, progressing. My cello instructor, who will probably read this and wonder what in the world is wrong with me, is great about praising and she is also great about telling it like it is. “You’re better than this,” was a welcome assessment once when I knew I had not performed well in a lesson. I want truth. That’s all. If it’s good it’s good; if it’s bad I do not need to hear that it was good.

Most people do not want to hear something was “terrible” or “horrible”. Most people want the rainbows and butterflies that a lot of teachers enjoy giving away – because that keeps students enrolled. Me – I don’t care about that stuff. I’m never rude, but I’m always honest. If it’s bad, it’s bad. You need to hear it’s bad. You can tell a student something was horrible in a nice way that will not demoralize him. You can also give praise to a student without the rainbows and butterflies that I abhor. Children dig the rainbows and butterflies, and some adults do, too. You have to know who is whom. Who is who? Whom? I don’t know. I’m a musician.

I think I’d like to recreate Sheri, my teacher, into a fierce Russian or German instructor who is never pleased with anything, always picking away at the scab that is “your lesson” and smiling with a Janos Starker knowing smile. Waiting to pounce. Waiting to insult. A complement from Janos, from the videos I’ve watched, is something like, “Yes,” with a little smile. I love it. But then Sheri would not be Sheri, and therein lies the problem.

So, we can’t change our teachers – even if nothing is wrong with them or something is or we’re strange ourselves. We just have to change how we feel about the praise or correction.

Practice.