Why I teach as I do……it’s not just dry musical notes!

Having taken up the double bass at the age of 10, I worked my way through grade exams until I after I had done grade 5. At that point I was obliged to pass grade 5 theory before I could continue with my double bass exams. Did the fact that I ended up going to the Royal College of Music mean that I found things like grade 5 theory easy? Absolutely not! I really struggled with grade 5 theory because the teaching I received didn’t really make sense to me. But why? See My Story… to understand more about my career as a performer.

We all think in different ways, and some of us day-dream more than others! By day-dreaming I’m referring to the propensity to think about all sorts of things, some work-a-day and some interesting, at unhelpful times such as when in class at school. I was right up there as a day-dreamer, and it was really important for me to see the bigger picture in order to engage with a subject. I needed to understand where it fitted in, to haul my mind from wandering thoughts. The starting place on the subject of key signatures for me should not have been that C major has no sharps or flats, because I would have been wondering what was the point of different keys. Or perhaps whether there is any logic to music symbols such as an upper turn. Recalling my sometimes difficult learning experience years later, has informed my present teaching style. Good teachers can tell when a concept is not yet understood, and will explain it in several ways until the penny drops.

‘Can’t see the wood for the trees’ makes the point that detail can be so in your face that you cannot understand the idea, or the wider perspective. I want my students not only to retain knowledge, but also to be well rounded in their understanding. Therefore my style of teaching is to always try to start with the broad idea, thereby creating a container into which the student can arrange their thoughts and ideas so that they are hopefully retained.

It often seemed to me during my school years that teachers were extremely reluctant to repeat themselves. I might, for example have been extremely interested in something a teacher had just said, and I thought about it for a few moments. Meanwhile the teacher continued and I probably missed something important. So as a teacher now I want to accommodate as many types of thinker as possible. I believe in the importance of making sure that students stay with me and are engaged in the subject. This might involve a brief discussion about, for example why we might want to sing/play the same piece in different keys. What does that mean? It might be totally obvious to some but a mystery to others. Sometimes the following is appropriate as an overarching plan for a lesson: tell them what you are going to tell them; tell them; tell them what you just told them.