Teachers' Corner

[Peter]

Sorrano, that makes sense to me.


The best students, I imagine?, are the ones who have a deep passion for the music and, more importantly, have a good feeling for the music at hand. If you have a student without an ear it is much harder for them to appreciate and better yet learn about the music, it seems.

Yes, obviously the most productive relationship is a good keen student with a good thoughtful teacher and the most harmful, a good student with a bad teacher - fortunately most talented kids recognise early on the assets or short-comings of a teacher.

[Quijote]

A bit more "talking shop" so to speak: had a good Bach choral harmony lesson today. Last week we saw certain forbidden intervals (the augmented second is a case in point, e.g. F natural-G#). Here is a case in point (about inner ear ability) with one bright student : he asks me why the interval is forbidden in the écriture, as it is similar in effect to a minor third (e.g. F-Aflat)*. He was able to hear the written augmented 2nd interval as a minor 3rd, and couldn't see (or hear) the harm.

[Quijote]

The answer is of course about choosing the melodic minor (ascending/descending), and not the harmonic minor. I am not about to undertake a trawl through the 371 Harmonized Chorales to find the exception to this rule, but please go ahead if you wish, and please, make sure you let me know if you find one!

[Chris]

The fastest way to get sharps, flats, etc. into your posts is to simply copy and paste them from some website. You can also remember the HTML codes and use those, but that's a lot of trouble.

[Quijote]

Back to shop talk : some students even had the temerity to ask me why parallel fifths and octaves are forbidden in harmony (forget Pérotin et al, OK?).
Just before I mowed them down with my Kalashnikov (scheck [sic] spelling), I mentioned aspects of contrapuntal integrity. Contrapuntal integrity? What's that, you ask? (They are not. Ed.You're fired.)

[Quijote]

Well yes, parallel (and exposed, or "indirect") 5s and 8s undermine the contrapuntal independence of the line, innit?

[Chris]

The answer is of course about choosing the melodic minor (ascending/descending), and not the harmonic minor.

That's a solution but not the answer. If minor thirds can sound good, why do augmented seconds pose a problem?

[Sorrano]

That's a solution but not the answer. If minor thirds can sound good, why do augmented seconds pose a problem?

I would have to say that has everything to do with the voice leading. A minor third can sound like an augmented second depending on how it is approached. There is an awkwardness in the sound, at least to my ears, if the voice leading is not handled "properly".

[Quijote]

That's a solution but not the answer. If minor thirds can sound good, why do augmented seconds pose a problem?

It's an arguable point (sonically) but unless I am mistaken in terms of Bach chorales, JS would never let a voice take (in A minor, for sake of facility) a line that goes F (natural)-G#-A. He would rather write F#-G#-A (melodic minor ascending). It is akin to punctuation : a semi-colon may have the same effect as a comma, but they are not interchangeable. An augmented second (in the contrapuntal line) is misused "spelling", to labour the grammatical point of écriture.

[Megan]

Yes, obviously the most productive relationship is a good keen student with a good thoughtful teacher and the most harmful, a good student with a bad teacher - fortunately most talented kids recognise early on the assets or short-comings of a teacher.

It is like gold dust finding a good teacher who doesn't charge around £20 per 1/2 hour.

[Peter]

It is like gold dust finding a good teacher who doesn't charge around £20 per 1/2 hour.

Yes, though it depends where you live - London is very expensive and teachers can charge £50 upwards per hour. It may sound a lot, but when you consider the amount of skill and work involved it is actually quite reasonable - a good music teacher takes on many roles and spends time preparing a lesson properly tailored to the needs of each individual student. A teacher who works solely privately is not paid during the holiday period for around 3 months and may have to rely on a relatively small number of pupils. I'm always amazed at the number of prospective pupils whose parents seem to expect us to be a charity - we have to make a living!

[Quijote]

Fully agree. The purely "taught-hour" price includes (for me as a part-time harmony teacher) preparation (a good hour, often more), homework correction (can be two hours per group, depending on the complexity of the exercise given), final exam marking, associated paperwork (the French love that, bloody bureaucrats they are) and various faculty meetings. Not to mention the fact that I often stay behind after my lessons are finished to offer "counsel" and further guidance.

[Quijote]

By the way, I often spend a good part of my summer vacation preparing the next term's lessons, as I don't simply repeat what I did the last year (taking into account student feedback, honing and improving my pedagogical approach, looking for fresh material to use and so on (because if you simply repeat what you did the previous year you become stale and jaded with the same material).

[Sorrano]

The ability to stay on top of a preferred field gives a teacher great advantage over others. There are always changing viewpoints, theories, and technology to challenge the student as well as the instructor and I do admire those who can keep up with the latest schools of thought (not necessarily giving into each whim but at least knowing what is happening in that field). I think those here that are in teaching fields have demonstrated that they do care about what they do and that makes all the difference in the world to the student.

[Quijote]

We do care Sorrano, as you say. What could be worse than an indifferent teacher? Well, an indifferent surgeon, I suppose! Or an indifferent dentist playing around with his/her instruments of torture! Nah, you have to want to do a good job, that's all, as far as I'm concerned.