I love the water. I was a competitive swimmer for about seven years. I spent many long summer hours in the backyard pool with my siblings, playing "Silent Marco Polo." (Basically, calling out "Marco!" and answering "Polo!" made things too easy in a small pool, so we just hunted and caught each other listening to the sounds of the water moving.)
Swimming is my athletic saving grace. I have lame-o monocular vision, so trying to catch and hit spherical objects is tough, y'all. Also, running...nope. I get all burning in the throat and lungs and it's not pretty. Yes, I do get that feeling as well while swimming laps, but I dunno. In the water, it just doesn't feel like I'm going to collapse and die afterward. And as soon as they invent something as super fun as swim fins for running, then maybe I'll try it out.
Besides, water reacts in a much more entertaining way while I'm expending energy. The splashing! That fun dum-dum-dum that your feet make while kicking. The plip-plop. The splish-splash. Lovely! I spent a fantastic evening this summer after a walk, lying on the deck of the pool in my apartment complex with my feet dangling in the water and staring up at the sky. I think I entertained myself for at least an hour making splashy noises in the water. Ah.
Swimming makes me feel powerful. Swimming makes me feel graceful (something I did not start to achieve on land until I took fencing). Swimming makes me feel peaceful. It's so nice and quiet down there, where I can just focus on breathing, and stretching and making that flip turn as smooth as possible.
If you need me, I'll be at the bottom of the diving well. At least until I have to come up for air.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
In which I discuss why music teachers need to stop hating fun
Tonight I went to a performance of a play in which one of my voice students was participating. The production was very well done and much of the acting was excellent--which is pretty impressive for young high school students. The play (The Ballad of the Sad Café) took a bit to draw me in and was unfortunately one of those works of art where the whole theme is "Life is nasty, brutish, and short", but I'm still glad I went.
But! That's all just set-up for the conversation that formed the genesis of this post. After the show, I got to meet my student's parents and talk with them a bit about her progress. I asked them at one point about other instruments that she had studied and they mentioned that she had taken piano for about 3 years with an IU music education major. While the girl had enjoyed her lessons and her teacher for quite a while, she became disillusioned with piano when her (assumedly well-meaning) teacher had declined to let her practice and play jazz--instead wanting the student to stick with "the standards", i.e. Classical music.
The result? She quit.
Another music student lost because of this, frankly, ridiculous notion that only the traditional Western Classical canon of music is worthy of study.
Sigh.
Now, I realize that I don't have the whole story here and there may have been other factors that led the girl to stop taking piano lessons, but still. This anecdote bespeaks an attitude that makes me absolutely furious.
As far as I can tell, this student has no intention of majoring in music. She just likes music and performing in plays and musicals. Why on earth would you squelch a student's budding love for music by refusing to let her play a genre that she actually loves and has an interest in? It was even JAZZ, for pity's sake.
It is this kind of narrow-minded nonsense among some classically-trained musicians and teachers of music that I think underlies all the hand-wringing about the always-imminent death of Classical music we often hear about. While I think a lot of that rhetoric is seriously overblown and alarmist, I DO believe that it could be a very real scenario if we as musicians continue to insist upon teaching our students nothing but the canon, especially if all they are is amateurs interested in music-making.
So, music teachers. Get off your high horses. Letting your student play or sing jazz, pop, etc. isn't going to kill them or their technique. It is not beneath your dignity as a pedagogue. Music is about expressing emotion. Music is about fun. And your obligation to that student is letting them do just that.
But! That's all just set-up for the conversation that formed the genesis of this post. After the show, I got to meet my student's parents and talk with them a bit about her progress. I asked them at one point about other instruments that she had studied and they mentioned that she had taken piano for about 3 years with an IU music education major. While the girl had enjoyed her lessons and her teacher for quite a while, she became disillusioned with piano when her (assumedly well-meaning) teacher had declined to let her practice and play jazz--instead wanting the student to stick with "the standards", i.e. Classical music.
The result? She quit.
Another music student lost because of this, frankly, ridiculous notion that only the traditional Western Classical canon of music is worthy of study.
Sigh.
Now, I realize that I don't have the whole story here and there may have been other factors that led the girl to stop taking piano lessons, but still. This anecdote bespeaks an attitude that makes me absolutely furious.
As far as I can tell, this student has no intention of majoring in music. She just likes music and performing in plays and musicals. Why on earth would you squelch a student's budding love for music by refusing to let her play a genre that she actually loves and has an interest in? It was even JAZZ, for pity's sake.
It is this kind of narrow-minded nonsense among some classically-trained musicians and teachers of music that I think underlies all the hand-wringing about the always-imminent death of Classical music we often hear about. While I think a lot of that rhetoric is seriously overblown and alarmist, I DO believe that it could be a very real scenario if we as musicians continue to insist upon teaching our students nothing but the canon, especially if all they are is amateurs interested in music-making.
So, music teachers. Get off your high horses. Letting your student play or sing jazz, pop, etc. isn't going to kill them or their technique. It is not beneath your dignity as a pedagogue. Music is about expressing emotion. Music is about fun. And your obligation to that student is letting them do just that.
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