Doti's, Bikes and beer

I know I have just posted but I still have a little more internet time so I'll write about some of the experiences Olivia and I have had in India.

Last week we went to Munnar, a beautiful mountain region of South India full of tea plantations. We arrived their very late on Saturday night with just enough time to grab a quick meal and head to our homestay.We had a TV in our room. A luxury I've, guiltily, missed having. An evening of Kingfisgher beer and 'Die Hard 4' was planned. The 'one small beer' must have hit us really hard because we , ashamedly, knocked both of them on the floor that night. I know! The shame!

Next day, we hired a scooter. Olivia was seriously doubting my eagerness as the roads were not dissimilar to the alpine bends of the Alps and helmets were 'not compulsory'. This means they didn't have any. Seeing Olivia so worried I had to reassure her by answering her question with 'I have ridden scooters many times'. I have never been on one in my life! However, being the arrogant mountain biker that I am, I was confident it couldn't be that difficult. Luckly, for me, it n't. Olivia and I had one of the best days in India yet.

During our 6 hour bike ride I had to leave Olivia with the bike on her own on 3 occasion. Even though se was only yards away, she managed to topple the bike EVERY time! The most embaressing was on an alpine road. I was having a pee on one side and she was stood laughing at the toppled bike when a van stopped and all the men ran out to help this 'damsel in distress'. After lifting up the bike for her, I emerged from the forest, obviously just having been to the toilet and . . . wearing an Indian doti (very badly). They all laughed very hard!

On the subject of doti's, I might aswell write about it now, they have changed my life. I feel I can now contribute to a womans argument on the subject of the hardships of going through childbirth, wearing heels etc. They have never worn a doti! In all seriousness, it is the hardest thing I have ever done. The embaressment of walking down the street and having the whole thing blow in the wind and fly straight off is ridiculous. Especially in such a conservative state of India. Or even riding a scooter and a gust of wind blowing it up so that oncoming traffic have a very intimate view of me. AAH! I have been wearing mine for 3 weeks now and am still none the wiser as to how to keep it up! I will see this through to the end though. I don't know why, but I will. Must be pride!

Right! I must go now, I think I might have gone into my second hour! Gutted.

Hope everyone else in India is having a lovely time ad to my friends and family reading this. Muchos bessos and I miss you all (sometimes)

Neil x

P.S. I can't seem to access my email here so please send me atxt if it's important.

Practice makes EASY!

Hello again,

Once again profuse apologies for not blogging sooner. The electricity in Thevara is very unreliable at the moment and both computers available to us have BOTH experienced hard drive failures again! Anyway, I have managed to get some free time and I am 3 storeys up in a little cafe overlooking MG Road. (For those of you not in India, MG Road stands for Mahatma Ghandi Road. It is the name given to the main road in every large town in India)

Hannah's Blog

I must congratulate Hannah on writing an absolutely superb blog!!! Every single aspect you have talked about is evident in the students in Cochin also. I do not wish to repeat what has already been said as I probably couldn't put it as well as you so I will simply talk of my experiences with some of the students.

With our concert looming up on the 14th of August things are getting VERY hectic. Kids are returning daily for practice advice, tellings off and general questions. Our school runs on a sort of teacher-rotation scheme, so we have had to develop a slightly different approach to teaching.

The notes are generally learnt with principal piano tutor Anthony (the nicest man you will ever meet in your life). He is a very good teacher with a certain amount of stylistic awareness so the notes are not just learnt, they do have some sort of shape. However, the piece is usually lacking in any dynamics / expression / articulation etc. Normally, this is where Simi (principal of the school) would step in and teach them, by singing, how to bring out melody etc. but here lies a problem. The kids know the notes and they know that they want to biring out the melody as Simi SCREAMS it into their ears BUT . . . they just don't know how to do that. This is where Olivia and I have stepped in the most.

After they have a very basic grasp of the notes Olivia takes the students and makes sure they learn the entire piece, but not ignoring the dynamics or articulation. This is an important stage which was previously missed out. Learning a new piece of music should never be just note-bashing. The kids find it far more enjoyable to learn a piece when with dynamics, a sense of shape ete. After all, it's music NOT typewriting.

After they are fairly confident with te piece they are sent to me. For the first few weeks I concentrated heavily on scales, arpeggios etc. This was because EVERY student had very weak scale technique and little or NO knowledge of how to use their hands to their full potential. I used numerous daring, and hopefully innovative techniques in order for them to realise this.

Weight

Most students found the concept of weight difficult. Believe it or not, I first had to make them laugh. Experience has taught me, that they find it very difficult to really tell me what they feel if I am a 'Sir' so having a little fool around brings me down a level and they are not afraid too smile. Hooray! A smile! Having said that, due to some pupils being very uptight my techniques have become very animated and I feel some of the pupils look at me while thinking "There's the crazy guy from England who shouts and screams and makles me hit pianos and actually likes the sound etc. etc." Whatever, they now feel comfortable enough to try totally new approaches

OK, back to the point. By making them lean on the piano, use visualisation techniques, give cute names (for the younger kids) like 'Tigers paw' most of them now realise that using your body weight is much easier than stabbing at notes. Once they have grasped this I can then move onto staccato technuiques, effective thumb-under techniques, arpeggio playing etc. LIke myself, most of them hate scales and arpeggios so . . . I have taught them how to makle up their own games using rhythm, volume, tone, the WHOLE piano to make them more interesting while still getting the benefit of scale playing. It works! But still some students are scared of this as they feel they will get tld off by their other teachers for messing around. I have told Simi and Anthony about this and I have called it 'Effective Scale Practice while exploring your sound world'. This sounds very pianistic and Simi likes it. Awesome!

This may sound like am over-complicating scales but once they have this idea of weight, everything else, albeit with a little guidance, starts to fall into place. I tell them it's called 'playing the piano' NOT 'working the piano' or 'studying the piano'. The idea is to make it as EASY as possible. Practice makes easy! I show them numerous examples of myself concentrating INTENTLY and really playing HARD and another example of the same piece but with the easiest movements possible concentrating totally on my sound. The latter is always far more enjoyable to listen to AND watch! Hopefully this is hitting home.

I'll stop there for teachniques! Back to my original train of thought. After they have a new set of established ways of playing and thinking about piano music I can then show them how to apply these techniques to create different legatos, staccatos, crescendos and rallentandos.

Here was the missing link! They knew the notes and they knew what they needed to do with them they just didn't know how. Hopefully the HOURS of practice they put in will now be far more effective and rewarding! The results are promising already but it is still early days!

PRACTICE

As I have said previously, Hannah has really addressed a lot of the same issues I was set to write about but there is one aspect I have found to be very common in Kerala and in the UK too for that matter. The subject of practice. They just don't know how to do it!

Most of them will zip all the way through a piece and 'hope for the best' when they get to tricky parts. I do believe they have never been told about 'isolated practice'. Olivia and I have taken to drawing huge circles around certain points and only allowing them to play these sections, we've been tempted to rip out bars and just let the pupils take them home!!!! Drastic, but it really affects there playing. Some of the pieces are 90% beautiful with maybe just 2 bars that always go wrong. I am very glad to say, that a lot of the students are isolating their practice so hopefully this way of practicing will be carried on by them and the teachers after we leave.

NEXT TIME on Neil's WAMBLOG

A breakdown of work done with Mithali 'the schools top student'. . .

The innocence of Indian 18 yr olds . . .

. . . and wearing the Doti (the truth)

Until next time,

Peace and Love from India (yes I know . . . Cheesy)

Neil x

After a very long time

Hi, readers and mates,

After a long silence, due to practice and being out of home most of the time, I'm back at blogging. This post is to keep you updated about the first experience at the Delhi School of Music over the end of last week. Thanks to Jaspal Singh and Mr. Banerjee, we have implemented a workshop each Thursday and Friday, which I normally take because Hannah is at her school on those days, whereby students come for an open lesson, masterclass kind of thing. I must say that after the first week there, I feel that the experience has been very positive and never have I seen students and teachers so receptive and responsive.

As far as the students are concerned, I listened to a few of them playing exam and non exam pieces, and we worked on things like phrasing and quality of sound. They all seemed pretty familiar with the notes already. The security guard was having a bit of a laugh seeing me run from one piano to the other on the room to set examples during a class in which the student and I spent about twenty minutes in the first four bars of the Moonlight Sonata, but when he seemed really puzzled about the whole thing was when I hid behind a curtain and spoke covered by it, in order to explain to a third grade kid the difference between piano and pianissimo. This kid was actually amazing, I only had to explain to him what phrasing was and he did it at first go pretty well, all out of intuition.

With teachers, two of them decided to play and participate in the workshop. With them, I worked on things like posture in order to save oneself from backache or tendinitits, or tried to convince them of the fact that having no editorial marks in Bach's keyboard works does not grant you the right to play without them but gives you the responsibility of choosing them.

Apart from the classes, Jaspal Singh, Deputy Head of the school, and I had long talks about how to make the syllabus better. I suggested the obligation of an external set of pieces of varied styles apart from the exam pieces, because the exam pieces should not take longer than 3 months and it is the fact that they only do their exam pieces which causes lack of awareness about main stream composers and repertoire. I also talked to him about implementing some kind of system whereby students be assessed publicly in faculty classes at the end of each term, the importance of self-awareness, and he also asked me for advice on a system he had created to evaluate the progress of each student from class to class, which I thought was a fantastic idea, as it gives you concrete aims and objectives for your weekly practice.

All in all, I hope they let me work there after the concert on Saturday, for which I'm already praying, he he, because I feel that, with the responsive ability that they have shown ever since we first established contact with them, they will benefit a lot from this scheme.

I liked the idea so much that I am actually going to be conducting similar workshops in my school, where up until now I have only taught one to one, so I'll make sure I'll let you know how that goes.

Best wishes to everybody, and good luck for all WAMers, whether around Delhi or down south.

Alvaro

Opening eyes and ears (Hannah)

Firstly, apologies for not updating sooner. Secondly, apologies to any non-pianists reading, as this entry covers the more technical side of things! Life here has been as busy as ever, in between moving to a different flat, getting lost in taxis, practicing for a concert and keeping up with the teaching routine!

Now that I have been here a month I feel that I am really beginning to address some of the main issues I have been faced with when teaching the students. I am very fortunate in that both the teachers and students at my school in Gurgaon have been receptive to the many new ideas I have been introducing. They have been willing to cooperate with a different style of teaching, and I have been told that the way I am teaching is completely different to their usual lessons. I was both touched and encouraged when one teacher told me that I am able to ´make the music come alive´.

This really points to the heart of the issue and the problems faced by many students I have taught. There is so much to discuss that I will attempt to split the various topics into sections as far as possible.

´Making music´ vs ´Typewriting´

One teacher drew a particularly helpful parallel to illustrate the way students in the school are taught. She explained that students here are taught the ´grammar´ of the music, i.e. the correct notes, fingering and rhythms, and all the information that can be found on a printed score. However, as with speech, it is not enough to be able to speak grammatically correctly, as without the correct emphasis and phrasing, the words will sound flat and meaningless. It is this meaning which is lost in the music, when played by students who are able to play the correct notes in the correct order, but without any consideration for the shape of phrase or the emphasis of the harmony.

Even taking a simple example such as Fur Elise, which I worked on with a student in the very first week, I showed her just how dramatic the music was, with the many sudden and unexpected changes of harmony that are characteristic of Beethoven. She simply had not yet had her ears opened to many expressive possibilities of the music, as I tried to demonstrate with a harmonic reduction to illustrate the changes of harmony and uses of dissonance and resolution. Three weeks later, and her playing of the piece was already starting to transform, with the left hand much more elegantly shaped as I had shown her. Most of the students play all notes with equal volume regardless of the musical texture, and this can lead to some very confused and cluttered performances, as there is little understanding of the hierarchy of parts and beats within any given bar.

Sightreading and keyboard geography

This is almost a universal weakness (as seen so often with students in the UK too), but perhaps even more so here, where most of students learn their pieces from memory before performing it, and when they do play they almost never look at the score. This unfamiliarity with aspects of the score creates an added problem, where the students are unable to pick up the piece from any given bar when requested, as they struggle to recognise the music from the page and can only play in a memorised sequence from beginning to end. This also hinders effective practice strategies, where it is both effective and necessary in longer works to divide the music into smaller sections to be worked on separately.

The necessity of looking at one´s hands while playing was highlighted to me when I was given a Grade 5 book to sightread by one of the teachers. After I had finished doing so, she asked in amazement how I was able to do so without looking down at my hands. I explained that it was necessary to ´feel´ the notes under one´s fingers, as there isn´t time to glance down to check each note whilst maintaining the continuity of the music.

The more I thought about this, the more I realised that the lack of keyboard ´geography´ (i.e., an instinctive sense of where each note lies on the keyboard and the distance between notes) was a large part of the issue, after working on some sightreading with a student who looked down to find each note, thus preventing him from ever achieving fluency in his reading. The other important principle in sightreading is of course to be always reading ahead in the music, but this cannot be tackled before the student is able to play without looking at their hands, otherwise they will never be able to read ahead and keep their eyes on the music.

I attempted to tackle these problems in two ways, first with the student who kept looking at his hands, I covered his hands with a book so that he was not able to look at them and therefore had to keep his eyes on the music. This led to an improvement in fluency as he was able to find more notes using his spatial memory than he had trusted himself with previously! Similarly, to encourage reading ahead, I covered up each bar once it had been played to prevent students from making the common mistake of ´correcting´ their sightreading, when rhythmic continuity is of greater importance. I also encourage my students to practice passages with their eyes closed, as this will increase awareness of keyboard geography as well as making it more secure, since they are no longer reliant on their sight but can play by touch alone.

Fingering

Another issue that I find myself frequently addressing is the importance of good fingering. All too often, a lack of fluency or quality of sound is the result of ineffective or worse still, unplanned fingering. Either students do not follow the printed fingering, or they follow the fingering without realising the implications it has for the movement and shape of the hand while playing. This is especially true in scale-playing, where it is essential that the correct fingering is learnt to prevent ´running out of fingers´ at the top, or a horribly awkward improvised fingering that destroys the legato line and rhythmic continuity. I tried to overcome this problem by asking students to play their scales slowly while saying the finger numbers at the same time, a form of multitasking that requires utmost concentration and awareness of which fingers are being used, so that the patterns can be learnt more thoroughly.

Just as important is the issue of the possibility for tone production inherent in each finger. While playing pieces for example, I was met with many students playing important notes with the weaker 4^th and 5^th fingers when it was both desirable and more convenient to use a stronger finger with a greater capacity to ´sing´. I have frequently found myself pointing out to students that as pianists we are all working to overcome the natural imbalances of strength in the fingers, and encourage them to avoid heavy thumbs whilst trying to weight towards the tops of chords and develop finger independence in order to achieve this balance. I was especially surprised to find an adult student who was unaware that it was not just her who struggled with a weakness in her 5^th finger, but that in fact we are all born the same way! These differences were not made so apparent by the light keys of a Clavinova, but I am sure that when faced with a grand piano many of the students would have struggled to produce a sufficient sound using this fingering.

Pedalling

Although few of my students have begun to use the sustain pedal, the ones that do have little idea of how to use it effectively. First of all, some of them raise their heel off the ground so that the foot is suspended in mid-air when it should be resting on the floor, so that the heel can act as a pivot. Additionally, some lift their foot off completely when releasing the pedal so that it makes an unwanted sound upon returning to make contact with the pedal.

Most students do not seem to understand the concept of legato pedalling, and they release the pedal too early so that they are unable to connect the notes. Another problem is over-reliance on pedal, so that finger-legato is not utilised, leading to a disconnected line that makes little musical sense. In fact most students at a more advanced level play in a ´vertical´ fashion from one chord to the next, with little consideration for the musical line of a piece.

Posture and the implications for sound production

Aside from the proven health benefits of adopting a balanced posture whilst sitting, there are many musical implications for the position of the body when sitting at the piano. Far too many of the students sit too close to the piano, which does not allow their arms the freedom to move. Some sit too far away, while others perch precariously on the edge of the stool, not letting their full weight be supported by the stool. This problem is compounded by the fact that none of the stools are adjustable. Since many of the students are very young, I often find that the stools are too low, forcing them to reach up to the notes which means that their wrists hang down and they are unable to use their fingers without ´dropping´ the wrist with each note, creating a heavy and unpleasant sound, since it is the full weight of the forearm which is coming down with each note. I have tried to counteract this by encouraging students to move from the fingers alone using a variety of finger lifting exercises, however, this can never be satisfactorily realised without a correct posture in the first place. I find there is little awareness of the ´correct´ way to sit at the piano or any consideration of its importance, besides for purely aesthetic reasons!

Posture also has a direct impact on fingering as mentioned above, as students sitting too low or too far away play on the very edge of the keys and are reluctant to use the thumb whilst playing, as they let it hang redundantly away from the keyboard and are unprepared to play when they need to use it.

Similarly, for some of the older students the stools are too high and they struggle to make contact with the keys. Coming from a greater height, they put too much arm weight into the note and find it difficult to control the sound from this level, including playing deeper into the keys.

Historical and general awareness

While I recognise that students in the early stages of learning will not have a broad knowledge of musical history, the lack of stylistic awareness does become a problem later on. This is especially true when playing Baroque and Classical music, which is often played too heavily, or Romanticised, and with particular difficulty when interpreting ornaments. There seems to be some confusion on the correct interpretation of different kinds of ornament and their placing (whether before or after the beat).

This narrow range of experience only became apparent to me in a listening class where the students had not heard the sound of a cello before, or could not name a wind instrument. I believe that through exposure to a wider range of classical music, the students will have a greater idea of the variety of sounds that are possible and be encouraged to seek this in their own playing, such is the capacity of the piano to imitate other instruments which has been exploited by many composers. As more students become aware of other instruments they will be encouraged to learn to play them and so facilitate ensemble performance, which is currently sadly neglected. This can be a fun and sociable way to learn music, which has the added benefit of improving sightreading and listening skills, as it is necessary to listen to other members of the group.

Sound and imagination

One thing I have recently been encouraging students to do is to concentrate on listening intently to the quality of sound they produce. This is something that seems not to have been taught before, as quality of sound is distinct from the volume or articulation of the notes. For example, the speed at which the key is depressed as well as the part of the finger used or type of finger used can all affect the sound. Additionally, the type of pedalling used, whether una corda, half-pedal or flutter-pedal can also have a dramatic impact on the sound and open up a wider sound-palette.

Just as a sound cannot be produced before it is imagined, it is sometimes helpful to have a mental picture when approaching a piece in order to achieve a more vivid idea of its character. For example, one student played a piece about a circus in a rather uniform manner. I then asked her to play it like various characters from a circus, and she proceeded to play the piece in a number of contrasting ways, each more interesting than her original ´blank´ interpretation. This was also a useful means of demonstrating that there is not only one way to play a piece, but in fact several different interpretations may be desirable in order to keep the musical imagination alive and avoid staleness, as advocated by Chopin to his pupils.

Above all, the key point here is to encourage more sensitive listening skills. A particularly productive lesson was one where the student worked slowly on 8 bars of Bach, but listened intently to the sound of each note. The outcome after 20 minutes of careful, slow practice was a much greater quality of sound than his original performance, where he moved his fingers but did not listen to the sound he was producing. The more students listen to and evaluate their own playing, the faster they will be able to progress by themselves. Most of the students seem to use their teachers instead of their ears, and act only on the teacher´s instruction. It is up to teachers to encourage students to develop an ability to work independently, and to evaluate their own playing based on a sound they are able to imagine in their heads.

General impressions

As it has previously been commented upon, the students here are much more obedient and concentrated than their UK counterparts. I am impressed by their dedication, with many students coming for lessons twice or even three times in a week. This means that they have the potential to go far with the right instruction, as long as they develop alongside it an ability to question, and a curiosity that will enable them to discover things for themselves. For example, I had one student who frequently looked to me as his teacher for confirmation of approval. He could not tell for himself whether he had played the passage correctly/well, and without this ability to self-criticise he will not be able to progress as efficiently.

It is perhaps because of, rather than in spite of these challenges that the teaching has been so fun and rewarding. I am thrilled by the positive reception I have been getting, and am pleased to be able to make a difference in their musical education, however small. I am interested to know if any of these points reflect anyone else´s experiences? It would be great to hear from you.

Hannah

Sorry, forgot to include my name in the last blog.

Theo FS

Last weekend Hannah, Al and I made a wonderful visit to Agra, seeing the Agra Fort, and of course the Taj Mahal. Getting up at 5am we stood on the rooftop of our hotel as the pale dawn light illuminated the Taj Mahal in the distance. (I'll try not to make this blog TOO corny...) When we arrived at the Taj by 6am there were relatively few visitors and the buildings were simply breathtakingly beautiful.

We spent the afternoon at the massive Red Fort, the red sandstone military stronghold converted into a white marble palace by Shah Jahan (who built the Taj Mahal) - a palace in which he would later be imprisoned by his son. From the massive ramparts the Taj Mahal is visible on the other side of the city. I could write about this all day, but it's all been said before! It's just a wonderful, wonderful place.

We had dinner on the roof of a hotel at the Taj Mahal's south gate, watching the sun set on the glistening marble... ... ...

As we returned to our hotel we found ourselves caught up in an enormous Hindu water festival called Bam Bam Bullai, in which thousands upon thousands of boys and young men surge through the streets, barefoot, completing a complete circuit of Agra while dancing to Indian pop pumping from speakers at the every street corner and chucking water around. Being westerners we were mobbed every time we stepped into the street. We couldn't move without a throbbing crowd pressing against us in seconds, all wanting to shake our hands or have us take their picture. Eventually they decided I was too dry so I was promptly drenched by a cheering crowd. One of the main culprets immediately came at hugged me, as if to say "no hard feelings". There weren't any! One guy, soaked with water and sweat, put his arms around me and shouted above the crowd, "Your God, my God - same!" It was a fantastic experience to be welcomed into their festival so willingly.

As we left the hotel for our train at 5am the following morning the thousands were reduced to hundreds, some still walking (or limping), others asleep in the road.

On more piano related matters, I've found the opposite from Ruiari: the group classes are stifling as all students have different levels of ability and it's difficult to work on a level which is productive for all. Very impressed that Ruairi is making a success of it though (going to pinch some of your techniques...)

Solo lessons I'm finding much more rewarding, and it's great to see some kids actually smiling in lessons - something which I feel they're not used to. One lesson recently was particularly satisfying. A girl played me her exam piece and was clearly unexcited by it, understandably - it's a very boring piece. However, underneath I could see she was quite musical and just needed and opportunity to enjoy some music in order for her natural musicality to come out. "So do you like this piece?" I asked. "No." They're usually not so honest. "How about this one?" and I played her a short, punchy and fun piece by CPE Bach which was well within her capabilities. "Much better!" After 45 mins of slow methodical practice, one minute before the end of the lesson she played it for the first time all the way through with both hands, turned round and gave me a high five. It wasn't a very technical lesson, but seeing her transformed for boredom to genuine enjoyment and satisfaction was immensely fulfilling. I'm feel I'm making similar progress with other pupils.

Hi everyone,

First of all, apologies on behalf of myself and Olivia for not 'blogging it' sooner. The computers we normally use have both experienced hard-drive failures and there are NO internet cafes in Thevara!!!! Anyway, 60 km away from Thevara, I'm sat in a small interenet cafe sweating like mad trying my best to touch-type, for the first time I might add, to finish this as quickly as I can so I can get out and breathe!!!! So . . . I'll just stop rambling and get on with it . . .

As well settling into our laid back, relaxed, possibly even chilled morning routines (just for you Ruairi (",) we have also settled into 5 hours of teaching for 6 days a week. Monday is guitar for me followed by four days of piano and finally the three vocal ensembles on Saturday.

SINGING

One of the major battles I have had to overcome from the start is the sheer enthusiasm of the owner of the school. She firmly believes that if you put your passion into singing, it's more than enough. It is an absolutely beautiful way of thinking that I don't condone at all but given the level of technical skill she wants from her students and they want for themselves it is rather difficult so . . . How do I introduce technical exercises but make them 'passionate'?

I use a diversion tactic not dissimilar to those used in card tricks. I disguise the technical aspect e.g. moving the larynx, by talking of how we may want to put more or less 'emotion' (or tone) into a note. As for sliding up and down scales while altering the larynx, I had to talk about this in terms of 'intensity' and 'emotional climax'. It sounds drastic but it seriously was my only option at this point. ITseems to work a treat and . . . now that she is sufficiently happy that I am working on 'emotion', I drop the bomb and reveal it is in fact a technical exercise and very good for the voice. She loves this idea! Hooray! I then try to push it further by saying that to some extent, we have to detatch ourselves from putting all our emotions into music when practicing and act as a sort of 'technician' so that in performance when certain feelings ARE to be conveyed to the audience we have the technical ability and fallback to do so. She is not so keen on this idea and replies with 'if there is no emotion in practice then the song is dead'. I leave it there, but I am sure that with a few more weeks our viewpoints will meet somewhere in the middle.

GUITAR

The students here have been learning guitar, on average, for about 1 year. However, I discovered that most of them couldn't read music OR even Tablature. They were set on just learning the chords to deifferent songs.

On talking to most of the older pupils I realised that they were in fact frustrated as they LOVED guitar songs but just thought the sound was a bit DULL when THEY played them. Hmm . . . Not sure what they meant. By fluke I was playing along with one of the students and I started inprovising over the top and the student asked me how to do it. On showing him how I use a scale to improvise he wasn't that impressed. I took another angle. I showed him how I used chords AND my knowledge of scales to create added/suspended notes, though for now I just call them EXTRA notes, he loved it. This is what the guitarists wanted! They wanted to learn HOW to find the chords and HOW to change them to make them more interesting. I focused on this aspect in the next week and the change in attentiveness and eagerness of the pupils was dramatic. I am NOT going to try and teach them notation in 7 weeks as I don't feel I will be using my time effectively. As they have been taught by ear and most of them can recognise mistakes/added notes, even if they don't know what they are, I hope to, in the remaining 6 weeks, give the pupils an undersanding of HOW to find Chords and scales and move it around the guitar to get different colours and possibilities, but also HOW to carry on discovering the guitar after I've gone. My BIGGEST challenge in this deparment I feel.

PIANO to follow soon, unfortunately my connection is about to an end and I have some elephants to visit. Goodbyyyyyyyyyyye for now,

Neil x