Is the Classical Community (Teachers) ignorant or prejudice?

[MushMusic]

A great percentage of classical piano players really can't 'sight read' at speed. They read well enough to memorize their pieces, then take them up to speed from memory. The music in front of them is more of a reference at that point. Most formal piano programs require the students to memorize everything, so this is the result. The ones that do sight read at speed usually can do that because of many years of accompaniment work, not classical training.

 

 

 

[GovernorSilver]

Olivier Messaien (classical composer/musician) improvising:

 

[video:youtube]

[Daniel Heslop]

I did not have lessons as a child and I happen to have an excellent ear. I was self-taught and gigging before I learned to read a note of music. My parents finally got me in lessons when I was 16 or so, and it was a struggle to learn to read by playing very simple boring peices when I was playing Yes and ELP by ear.

 

I dropped out of highschool and applied for a job at a music store teaching guitar, however they knew I was more of a keyboard player and they needed a piano teacher, so I lied and said I could read. I had 4 months before I would start in September, so I got a teacher and worked my ass off. I've now been teaching for over 30 years. I don't have an ARTC or anything official, but I do think my 30 years have made me well qualified.

 

Now my late start at reading for sure plays a huge role, but to this day I am not a good sight reader at all, and I have to be honest, I have very seldom encountered a great sight reader who also had a great ear, or vice versa. I definitely don't think it is impossible, but I do think it is fairly rare.

 

As far as classical training methods, and ear training and improv....Royal Conservatory training does include theory, and practical exams all have both sight reading and ear training as components.

The ear training consists of three things: Identifying intervals, clapping rhythms, and copying a short passage of music performed by the adjudicator.

I don't really think it is adequate and it is certainly not where the emphasis is, but at least it is in there.

 

What I hate about the Royal Conservatory method, is that for most students, over a year, they learn about 4 pieces, and some technical things like scales, arpeggios and so on. The exams are treated much like school exams where for many teachers, parents, and students the emphasis is not on becoming a good musician, but on getting a good mark in the exam. Those 4 pieces played exclusively by most students for a year, are likely never played again once the exam is over.

It has actually been several years since I put a student in an exam for this very reason. I want my students to become good musicians, not pass some test.

To become a good musician you need to love music, not just high marks.

 

Still I see the prejudice go in both directions. Classically trained musicians may tend to look down their nose at ear players for their lack of theoretical knowledge or "proper" technique, or just that most ear players are playing more popular forms of music, but many ear players who are out there gigging consider classically trained players as stuffed shirts who couldn't get through a 12 bar blues without a book in front of them.

Like most stereotypes, there may often be truth in them, but there are also exceptions, and for myself, I admire good musicians no matter how they learned.

[Jazzwee]

I am an AWFUL reader. So 'sight' reading (at first sight) is out the realm of reachable goal for me. Blame it on guitar playing.

 

But sometimes I get away with people not knowing I can't read because I can repeat anything I hear.

 

My eyes just glaze over when there's too much stuff on the sheet. Good thing I'm an improviser. I'm going to have to stop at leadsheets.

 

When I play classical, I have to memorize it (reading slowly). So months later, I can't play it again.

[Dave Ferris]

A great percentage of classical piano players really can't 'sight read' at speed. They read well enough to memorize their pieces, then take them up to speed from memory. The music in front of them is more of a reference at that point. Most formal piano programs require the students to memorize everything, so this is the result. The ones that do sight read at speed usually can do that because of many years of accompaniment work, not classical training.

 

Very true. A lot of classical/musical theatre based accompanists are amazing. Reading aside, many can transpose an aria up or down a step or minor third. This is from the two stave piano music--not your typical pop/jazz leadsheet with chords written out.

 

I considered very seriously pursuing that end of the biz at one point...after I knew the synth wars weren't for me and the LA studio scene would never be my thing.

 

I was working on my reading up to 3 hours a day. It was pretty darn proficient. Then reality hit--I just didn't like the music enough (classical/musical theatre) to hang. I'm a jazz guy...I've got to blow.

 

These days my reading sucks in comparison to what it was then..

 

[Jazzmammal]

Cap, I'm tempted to say that teacher is an idiot but I don't know her so whatever. I'll tell you a story about ear training. A good friend of mine is a graduate of the Warsaw Conservatory. Her family escaped communist Poland in the 60's. She has a picture of herself as a young student sitting at Chopin's piano outside Warsaw. Only sit, not touch! One of several graduation exercises they all had to pass was to sit at a desk, not a piano, a desk with blank manuscript paper and a pencil and listen to a professor play an original piece nobody has heard before and write it down, treble and bass clef. You think she has good ears?

 

She knew squat about reading fake book charts or even our way of writing chord symbols like Cmaj7. She had no idea what that was. I taught her some jazz and she taught me how to play Fantasie Impromptu.

 

One time I played her a recording of one of the classic Chick Corea tunes and asked her to figure it out. It has tons of complex Chickisms going on. She listened to the head for maybe a minute and basically played it note for note. I asked her to name the chords and she didn't know what I meant but said they were simple functions. She didn't call them chords as we do, they're functions. She played them all, augmented 11's, 13's, poly chords, slash chords, stacked fourth's all of it no problem at all and she did it in maybe a minute from listening to the record. Absolutely amazing and then there's her sight reading skills. I gave her the Maple Leaf Rag and she read it right down with no hesitation at all, I just put the paper on the piano and she started playing like you would read the newspaper. That's real classical training. I think your neighbor is a poser.

 

We're both in the LA area, there's tons of hot keyboard teachers around here. Here's a name right now, David Graham. He's in El Segundo, graduate of Berklee.

 

Bob

[marino]

Not sure why some teachers insist on black-and-white generalizations, like they proclaim a rule and categorically deny that there could be any exceptions.

Very well said. It's very sad to notice that in this day and age, with all the informations available to everybody, the academic world is so detached from the reality of a substantial side of music making. My opinion is that one side feeds the other, and that *both* reading and ear playing are essential to build a complete musicianship. For sure it helped in my case, and most good musicians I know are well versed in both reading and improvisation.

 

About that emphasis on "sight-reading", don't forget that a lot of classical musicians do *not* sight-read that often. They prepare their pieces little by little, working on single passages, etc. As others already said, the best sight-readers are the professional accompanists. I have done something in that line of work, and I must say it's a wonderful craft to have. Unfortunately, sight-reading is a skill that you have to practice constantly; it weakens very easily if not practiced for a while.

 

In these years I'm teaching a lot, and I've had quite a lot of students coming from the classical world, who are trying to get into improvisation, generally to "broaden their horizons" and perhaps having some fun in the process. Well, it's amazing how regularly these people are totally ignorant about harmony, can't keep a steady tempo, know nothing about non-classical music, etc. They have to be re-trained from the beginning, and when they realize that after 15 years of study thay are complete beginners in some important side of music, it's traumatic for them.

 

It doesn't have to be like that. Music schools should offer a broader range of choices, and a greater exposition to different aspects of music and music training. Many years ago I went to Rotterdam, Netherlands, to perform at the Conservatory, and saw how it was organized... well, not only they had a wonderful jazz department; they also offered courses and diplomas in various kinds of ethnic music, including Indian raga, Argentinian tango, Brazilian music, Spanish flamenco - with excellent teachers from the original traditions.

Of course, a student doesn't *have* to take all those courses - but they provide at least a large panorama of most aspects of music. It sounds like a very sane educational attitude to me.

 

 

[CEB]

Suzuki?

[Cygnus64]

Cap, I'm tempted to say that teacher is an idiot but I don't know her so whatever.

 

What she probably is would be a non-performer. She may have no point of reference, particularly if she has never done a "mixed" gig like Broadway that has classical strings and non-classical keys etc. In today's classical world, most players are exposed to pretty much every form of music under the sun. Even if they are only reading charts, they are sharing the stage with improvisers who can also read well.

 

About that emphasis on "sight-reading", don't forget that a lot of classical musicians do *not* sight-read that often. They prepare their pieces little by little, working on single passages, etc. As others already said, the best sight-readers are the professional accompanists.

 

For non-pianists, symphony musicians can read anything due to the amount of reading involved, and the lack of rehearsals. In the next two weeks, I have about 1,000 pages to read.

[MuzikTeechur]

I really tire of folks with a chip on their shoulders trying to find some definitive reason to shit all over traditional teaching.

If one has been taught properly, one has been taught reading, theory, history, literature, sight-singing, ear training, memorization, playing by ear, playing by sight, playing by braille...

 

These are not mutually exclusive concepts. There is no "right" way. If what you're doing works for you, then fine. But we're all different. Some read very well, others can hear a modulation coming a mile off and are prepared before it happens, with nary a sheet of music in sight. Some do both.

I know music teachers who, in my opinion, teach very flawed methods, but it's my opinion and opinions are like anuses. Everyone has one and they usually stink.

 

Dismounting the soap box now.

[Outkaster]

Here in town I went to Hochstein Music School which has great community educational programs and started at a grass roots level. There are a lot of Julliard and Eastman grads that teach there also. One of the teachers I had used to come in a little late. One day another instructor heard me playing and called me the same night. It was in 1993. She said she got my name out of the student records and heard me playing some Little Feat. Actually I was working out something else but she said she wanted to come to see me play in the following lesson. This chick was talented and could play Shostakovitch and Rachmaninoff. To have her at my lesson was weird. I was only 25 at the time. Anyway the day came and she sat down and I was trying to explain the influence of professor longhair and Ray Charles had on music, because that is what Bill Payne told me on the phone one time. I was nervous but I dont think she could interpret what I was saying. I was showing part of Dixie Chicken to her ( or at least as much as I knew at the time!)

 

The whole thing was interesting because this teacher was in band and I eventually got her spot on keys. Come to find outs she was moving out of town. The band leader gave me recordings of her parts and while listening it seemed she could not put anything together. TO me classical people look at music as a math problem. Its not about gigging and coming up from the trenches and honing chops like most of us do here. They learn extremely hard music but it does not go outside of that and is a different world. In my experience they dont want to either. My teacher was the pianist and still is the primary philharmonic pianist here locally. Great guy but he told me what you do is very beautiful but it is not something I do I was 16-17 years old and I knew that I kind of hit a wall and eventually got a latin jazz teacher. He had some martial arts experience and told me treat your practice like a workout, dont worry about the time but the content He also told me if you practiced 7th chords for 20 minutes straight without fucking around in between you would have done something worthwhile He was all about time management if you had a busy schedule.

 

The same group class that I mentioned was being held at Eastman Music School which is tied to the University I work for. Its prestigious and very international and a lot of the students come here for conservatory training. Every time we were learning tunes, licks or hooks they would all be peering in the class to see what was going on. Its two sides of a musical coin really.

 

[Theo Verelst]

As I've made clear before I cannot for the life of me consider myself a "good" sight reader, even though I know all the symbols, flags, dots, scales and most of the annotations and such, and even though I read through the chords of a realbook in realtime, if I know the melody. I find it much easier to have an example track or MIDI file to learn a song, and maybe the chords (saves a little searching out). I can even play some parts of classical pieces pretty much after the example of an interpreter, just by listening (and watching), though of course not all.

 

I'd need to know if the classical teacher prefers Schwarzenegger over Eastwood, has certain special philosophical or religious persuasions, and about his or her character whether it is a particularly pharisaical personality we are talking about to have an impression about pride or laymanship.

 

I mean classical solo instrument players would in my experience also have to be distinguished in the male and female department, and teachers of an instrument aren't the same as as musical directors.

 

I mean does a woman piano teacher also like AC/DC ? Is a boys choir a classical community ?

 

I think intelligent classical oriented players are on average intelligent and, when I like them, open minded people, so the answer would hopefully contain more dimensions than the given ones.

 

I somewhat concur with the "entertainment" reading skill observation: but of course the types of variations in many classical pieces aren't the same as in most light music. I recall plowing through the conservatory (as it so happens I think via a Rotterdam Jazz graduate) learning books for first year sight reading practice, and I'm sure now, many years later, I again completely suck at those reading skills. However, how many proficient sight readers will distinguish a samba from a mambo in the accompaniment ?

 

Theo V.

 

[RABid]

I've always wished I had more ear training. While I could easily learn sax and trumpet parts by ear, polyphonic parts with lots of harmonics always give me trouble. I don't think I can blame site reading or classical training on that. For me it is over thinking and focusing on harmonics that throws my ear.

[ELP71]

I won't re-write some of the great points here that I agree with, but I will add this notion:

 

Anyone who says "you can't do both" must not be very good at one of the two things in question.

[mate stubb]

You have to immerse yourself in something for awhile before it becomes second nature.

 

I played classical music exclusively for 10 years, and I could accompany and sight read competently.

 

Then I immersed myself in rock music and learned how to get comfortable with improvising and playing by ear.

[CEB]

Suzuki Method.

[PinkFloydDudi]

Taken out of context, that quote can very easily be argued.

 

However like some others, I can somewhat see where she is coming from. One form of playing is USUALLY more dominant per person. Those that can sight-read very well, don't necessarily need to rely on their ear to play things. On the flip side, those that can play by ear extremely well, have little use for sight-reading.

 

Can people do both? yup. Will you find many that can do it equally well? I wouldn't think so.

 

Do we know if Mozart or Bach could sit down and play some other composer's composition right away? Maybe some of them could - but weren't they considered (literally) geniuses? Finding a couple of exceptions in a few hundred years of musicians doesn't make the general statement hold no ground.

 

Lets face it - if you are sight-reading, you rely on your eyes to drive things. If you are playing by ear, you rely on your hearing. It has been shown that people who have an above-average ability in one sense, typically do not have multiple senses at that level. Similarly, losing one (such as hearing) might actually help improve other senses (like sight).

 

So while her statement at face value seems rather ignorant, if I am putting the spin she meant it with - I could see how scientific study actually defends her position - that people don't do both equally well at a very high level. (Mind you, this doesn't mean you can't do both equally poorly!)

[wmp]

I know, but I like the topic.

 

Cap, I'm tempted to say that teacher is an idiot but I don't know her so whatever.

I don't have to know her because I've met so many like her. I'll bet I hang with more of the "classical community" than she does. I've met a lot of folks who thought of themselves as concert pianists and enough real ones to know the difference. She's an idiot. There's no other way to interpret such an aggressively ignorant remark. Knowing nothing else about her other than the original post I think it's safe to assume that hubby has the $ gig and she's not very well known as a concert pianist. She probably has mad chops and reads like all get out, but that's all you'll ever be able to learn from her. If you could put up with her bs, you should ignore most of it. How much concert pianist gigging does she do and where does she teach?

 

It's true that the pit players, accompanists, and session players who read all the time build up the skills. For the music I felt like playing the store bought sheet music was most often lame, incomplete, wrong chords, wrong key. I'm wasting time reading this junk? I just turned up the radio and learned by playing along. My first and only formal piano teacher was Sister Mary Walter. She taught how to read stuff like Row Your Boat and I taught her some old time rock and roll. We covered chords, chord progressions, the pentatonic scale, and improvising as if we knew what we were talking about. She loved Fat's Domino and Jerry Lee. She was a refreshing pace from the angry penguins. Sister Josephine wasn't very good at math and she didn't like people who were.

 

For the kind of stuff I like to play and most of the paying work I've done, ears are a lot more useful than reading skills. There's most often plenty of room for me to play it as I please as long as I'm playing the same tune they're playing. When I see any written it's not very detailed. A real hand inked conductor's score is in a whole different class of "sheet music" and most of the folks under the baton get to play what's written the conductor's way. Even in those situations, soloists and featured players often get to express themselves quite a bit. It's not always classical music.

 

I met a career BSO player at one of my gigs at the Newport Blues Cafe many years ago. He watched me keep a bunch of young kids under control and on the tracks, tearing place up all night long. I couldn't believe that he was so impressed and even envious that I could "conduct" tempo, dynamics, make it up on the fly and enjoy a pint all at the same time. Some of those folks are career sight reading fools and some aren't. Some play and enjoy music that might surprise you. Either way, I seriously doubt that this piano teacher can hang in their league playing her own game.

 

Calling chords functions is new to me. I like it. Even the simplest chord presents a staggering number of possible voicings. I think in intervals rather than chords a lot of the time. There are a lot of ways to play around the scale in fourths, diminished fifths, major and minor sixths, without thinking much about all those hard to spell chords you're playing. I'll often play a flat five and let others worry about if that's a 7 chord, a diminished chord, a minor 7b5 or whatever. I'm sure I'd get a lot out of knowing why scales are made up of tetrachords and knowing what mode I happen to be playing in, but it's often only important to hear when I'm playing in the right part of the right scale and either keep moving or shut up if I'm not.

 

Some Latin Caribbean friends thought of everything relative to the key of C in Italian syllables. The key of mi flat was Eb. They were from all over Central and South America, Cuba, and Puerto Rico and seemed to have a common language. Their band leader could play any instrument in the band. He could easily hang with me playing material and could barely touch his. Classical guitar and piano self taught by ear. A very accomplished well rounded musician.

 

 

[Daniel Heslop]

I really think there is likely little or no evidence that human brains are wired to only allow for certain skills if other skills are lacking. So in a literal sense it is nonsense.

 

However like water we tend to follow the path of least resistance, and if we find it easier to learn by ear than reading, or vice versa, we will tend to do that and probably do less of the other.

Those with more self discipline will probably fare better at developing a skill that comes less naturally.

Because of this, I still feel that while a blanket statement is wrong, it is still often true that many people who excel at one skill will tend to use it more, and thus will continue to improve more with that skill and an unused or rarely used skill will not improve to the same extent.

[Jazzmammal]

<>

 

I have a similar story. There's a nice over 55 community I do several gigs at each year. One big gig was a Xmas party and part of it was a retired 70 something pipe organist from a local church needed my Kurzweil to lead the singers for carols. His name is Henry and when he came up to do his thing I had a nice pipe organ patch set up for him. He was just great. Played his ass off and lead everybody beautifully. He usually shows up at most of the functions and I would ask him to come up and play something. Even though it's mostly a jazz gig and I'm doing the B3 left hand bass thing, it would be a contrast and he would have gone over great. I know those oldsters would like to hear him do one or two things but he always begged off. One day a friend of his came up to me to say Henry is totally intimated by what I do and just doesn't want to come up. I'll telling you, the guy is a very good classical organist and I've conmplimented him and told him how much I enjoyed what he did at that party but there's an example of the difference between the two worlds.

 

Calling chords functions must be an old school European thing, you can probably find some websites about it. I vaguely remember her playing an Ebmaj7 and she called it the 2nd function of something or other. I even played scale tones and told he what we call them and she agreed with the note names but not the chords and then said a Db note in Eb is not a dominant 7th, she never heard that term, it's a function. I never got into it with her because she wanted to read fake book charts so I was explaining the scale tone chord names and she didn't know what a simple Eb7 was.

 

Bob

[Outkaster]

Yeah it's weird when someone appreciates you that actually plays technically better than you do. Just like my story above. I think I fretted meeting that teacher before I met her a couple days.

[CEB]

Some of the Eurpean lingo has thrown me off in the past. The first time I heard someone talking about semiquavers I was like .... what the heck are you talking about.

[Joe Muscara]

I prefer tone and semitone to whole step and half step.

[wmp]

I was a Quaver a few times. That was a cop's country band. I had no idea what it meant until I downloaded MuseScore and watched a few of their tutorials. The band I played with in Newport that night was Mary Jane and The Smoking Section and it took me a while to figure that one out too. I'm a little slow and I don't give that stuff much thought. Where's the gig and how much?

 

Yeah it's weird when someone appreciates you that actually plays technically better than you do.

Especially when the mismatch is as extreme as the BSO guy. I obviously can't touch what he does, but he watched me do a lot of stuff he can't do on an unusually good night for that. I was twenty years older then the band and obviously helping the band leaders up front keep a room full of drunks into it all night long. Changing the set order and arrangements on the fly. One more time if they're all singing along. Most people who read what's written and little else either admire or resent the freedom of expression ear players enjoy.

 

Playing band leader it's suddenly become more important to understand each person's combination of book learning and street smarts, what they know, how they learn, how they write for themselves. My vocalists like lyric sheets with italics where the harmonies go. Each one underlines their part if that's necessary. They might write in their note on the first word of a line and some notes about the form. I can get away with text files with bars, chords, and sparse notes about who plays what where.

 

Being a hard leaning ear player and a lousy sight reader has cost me a lot of good gigs. Developing the ears, instincts, taste, and vocabulary has been enough to get me the gig over schooled players with much better chops enough to survive. I've been playing with technically better players for a long time. I'm the lamest in my band by far in just about every way; playing, singing, reading, education, quantity and quality of pro experience. I don't think I could get away with this if I had a narrow minded attitude on book learning and language skills.

 

You have to feel sorry for the OP's piano teacher.

[RABid]

I really think there is likely little or no evidence that human brains are wired to only allow for certain skills if other skills are lacking. So in a literal sense it is nonsense.

 

...

 

I think anyone involved with education would disagree. Some students can be great a language but no amount of training and effort will make them good at calculus. Physics and calculus was always easy for me but as some people here have noticed, spelling is my Achilles heel. It always frustrated my teachers that I was the top of my class in reading and two grades behind my class in spelling. The best lawyer is not the one who has memorized the most books. It is the person who can also manipulate people and facts. There are chess players who memorize openings the way lounge pianists memorize song books. That does not make them a good chess player any more than memorizing a thousand songs makes you a good pianist. You might get by, but it takes something else to be great. Something you are born with that cannot be taught, only developed.

[wmp]

The best lawyer is not the one who has memorized the most books. It is the person who can also manipulate people and facts. There are chess players who memorize openings the way lounge pianists memorize song books. That does not make them a good chess player any more than memorizing a thousand songs makes you a good pianist. You might get by, but it takes something else to be great. Something you are born with that cannot be taught, only developed.

And the best band is the one who can sell the most beer and best control the behavior of the enthusiastic young ladies drinking it.

 

Three years of French plus one dose each of summer school and night school and I only know enough to ask the very essentials. Legitimate learning disability? Apathy about stuff that doesn't interest me? Probably more the latter in my case, though written languages have always been tough for me. Astigmatism doesn't help dyslexia. Especially reading music.

 

It's a complicated equation involving stuff like attitude, interest, discipline, ability and disability.

[Cygnus64]

 

Especially when the mismatch is as extreme as the BSO guy. I obviously can't touch what he does, but he watched me do a lot of stuff he can't do on an unusually good night for that. I was twenty years older then the band and obviously helping the band leaders up front keep a room full of drunks into it all night long. Changing the set order and arrangements on the fly. One more time if they're all singing along. Most people who read what's written and little else either admire or resent the freedom of expression ear players enjoy.

 

 

I doubt that anyone good would resent anything. There's a reason that guy is in the BSO: It's not just that he can play the shiat outta his axe, he's a good musician to boot. He's also playing with pop guys all the time since part of his job is to play in the Boston Pops. The good musicians are usually very appreciative of other good musicians, regardless of genre. It's the same language.

 

One of my Facebook "friends" is Itzhak Perlman. He recently posted a picture of himself and "his good friend Dave Grohl", then said "I wonder if he'll hire me for the next Foo Fighters" album?" He gets it, most good musicians do.

[David Loving]

. no point

[wmp]

I doubt that anyone good would resent anything. ... It's the same language.

He didn't resent anything. He admired the control over the bounce of the drinking girls quite a bit. All of that is the same language and you can learn it, do it, and make up all kinds of interesting ways to talk about it and write it down even if nobody shows you how.

 

He was just for contrast to the OPs piano teacher acquaintance support my suspicions. I think she might have some resentment. A lot of people who teach shouldn't. The local classical lady made a reading machine out of a friend of mine. His teacher when he was older was a Berlkee guy who taught him theory, ear training, real book, and such. Both failed him miserably in the time and feel department. He'll drop a beat, add a beat or two, fractions thereof. He needed a metronome more than anything else. A little work on feel and dynamics would have gone a long way too. He has more chops than anybody needs and no idea what to do with them. He can't play with a good band, but he does dazzle them at cocktail hours in his tux.

 

You'd know better than I what the BSO / Pops overlap is these days. In Fiedler's time it was like getting sent down to the minors. I never cared for them much back then. I like Keith Lockhart's stuff lot better. Probably because he's a Deadhead.

 

Dave seems like very a nice guy, but I'd want to get paid and be in an iso booth to play with him. Sir Paul must be a very good friend. I'd need big money, ear plugs and a pint or two to do that.

 

 

[Theo Verelst]

I suppose a teacher, classical or not, can talk to someone they perceive as double-minded, too ambitious, or downright bigotting, in a bit condescending way, an possibly be wrong.

 

I'd worry more about people who take music to bring it down a path where the meaning of the musical idiom, phrases and poetic meaning is made into some sort of ugly symbolistical hell, where bizantique troubadours are holy and good in comparison. Irrespective of being a classical or a hip person, though the slang will vary..