Introduction
I’m a firm believer in the theory that people only do their best at things they truly enjoy. It is difficult to excel at something you don’t enjoy.
—Jack Nicklaus
I am very pleased to be starting this new column for The Diapason. The subject of the column is teaching—specifically the teaching of organ, harpsichord, keyboard-playing as such, and, to some extent, anything having to do with music and musicianship. I will draw on my experience—fast approaching 30 years—in teaching those things to a large number and a wide variety of students, and also on my experience—50 years’ worth—of having had many wonderful teachers, in music and in other areas of life.
Each column will be fairly short, but the column will run every month. This will permit and encourage me to let things unfold slowly and naturally. No one column can say everything and solve all problems. (For example, I expect to devote three or four columns to the fascinating and occasionally vexing issue of the teaching of pedal-playing.) It will also make it easy to incorporate feedback. I strongly encourage readers to write to me with any and all reactions—big or small, favorable or unfavorable—and, in particular, to share any of their own experiences. I will incorporate some of these communications in future columns.
This first column will be introductory, touching on my background, experience, interests and biases, and sketching out what the column will be like—the philosophy and overall structure, including some of the specifics that I hope to cover over the first several months. I spend my days teaching organ, harpsichord, clavichord, and continuo-playing, and once in a while something about music history, theory, or instrument maintenance. I do more teaching than practicing and performing, though I try to keep my playing in good shape and to perform as much as my schedule permits. As a performer I am definitely a specialist in music before 1750; I have played later repertoire only somewhat rarely, and more in church than in concert. As a teacher I consider it important to know how to offer students real help with whatever they are interested in studying. Therefore, it is important to know how to find out about things that I don’t already know and about which I might not have much experience to date.
I grew up knowing that I wanted to teach. My parents were university professors, as were most of the adults I knew growing up; and many of the people whom I most admired were my own teachers. As I began to take music lessons—especially when I discovered the organ at age 13, and the harpsichord a bit thereafter—I cast most of my casual daydreams about a career in music in images of teaching and of being respected as a teacher, not in winning competitions or becoming a touring virtuoso. (Though very early on indeed I decided that I wanted someday to record the complete organ music of Bach!) I was a bit of a late-bloomer as a player, and it may have been partly my insecurity about the performing life that led me to think so much about teaching, but I believe that it was primarily a real, fervent joy in the idea of teaching itself.
After graduating from college, I spent some time practicing on my own, taking occasional private lessons, and beginning to play concerts and get a sense of where my life as a musician might take me, before thinking about graduate school. This allowed me to observe, as an adult, the progress of my own learning as a musician. Most of what I know about music or can actually do as a player I learned at a time when I was quite conscious of what I was learning and how I was learning it. At this time, just by chance, two people came along and requested lessons. This was in spite of the fact that I had, at the time, no teaching experience and no track record as a performer. Both of these would-be students were friends of mine, and each believed that he was so bad that it would be embarrassing to go to a “real” (i.e., experienced) teacher. That experience got my toes wet as a teacher. In effect, I spent those years teaching myself how to teach others. Partly of necessity, partly because it seemed right to me philosophically, and partly because it increasingly seemed to work, I treated all aspects of teaching as being governed primarily by common sense and by a combination of observation and logical analysis, not by any pre-existing methodology.
Since then I have taught several hundred students, including virtuoso professional performers (often looking to add an instrument, such as a pianist wanting to learn organ, or an organist wanting to learn harpsichord), very accomplished “advanced” students, adult beginners (even a few starting from scratch in their seventies), teenagers, the occasional young child, and more. I am convinced that each student has a particular combination of needs, desires, interests, pre-existing skills, aptitudes, etc., and therefore the best way to teach anyone is to approach the situation as a tabula rasa. Of course, many exercises, practice techniques, fingering ideas, etc., end up being right for more than one student, or even for most students. For example, I especially like the Bach Pedalexercitium (whether it is really by JSB or not, it’s a remarkably efficient and effective exercise). I would guess that about half of the students who have ever studied pedal-playing with me have used it. However, the priority is the student’s needs, not the exercise or my own routine.
This column will be addressed to several sorts of people all at once: very centrally to those who are starting out as teachers of organ or harpsichord, and who want help in learning “how to teach” (or want some ideas and techniques to incorporate into their own teaching); to experienced teachers who are interested in looking over some new ideas; and to students who want to take on some of the joys and anxieties of teaching themselves or of participating as actively as possible in their own learning. I will share ideas that stem from the common-sense, flexible, and in a sense, improvisatory teaching approach alluded to above. This kind of teaching is, in fact, radically anti-authoritarian: I have, as far as I know, never told a student that he or she “must” or even “should” do such-and-such, whether in choice of repertoire, technique, or in matters of interpretation or artistry. Instead, I try to help students understand the likely results of doing one thing or another, and then encourage them to make choices of their own. I believe that this approach is the most interesting and the most fun, both for teachers and for students, and gives the best practical results. I hope in this column to show that this is the case.
Next month, I will write about relaxation, hand position, and posture. I believe that physical relaxation is somewhere between the most important technical imperative in organ and harpsichord playing and the only one. I will also write about the related matter of helping experienced pianists to become comfortable with organ or harpsichord technique. Then, in a multi-part series beginning in November, I will tackle aspects of pedal-playing.
