Linda Worsley asked: > >So here's my question: (at last) Faced with this daunting task, what >would you do? What materials, books, methods, etc. would you employ? >I have taught babies and adult beginners and everything in between, >and I know about how to take a student sequentially from point A to >point B and beyond. But I have no CLUE as to materials for someone >like my student, who jumped over all the basics and started writing >huge "scores". I have a few ideas, but I thought I'd throw this at >the group, and try to get some guidance and recommendations.
Linda: You've already had some excellent practical advice, assuming that you really want to follow through with this. But let me ask a more preliminary question: Does HE really want to go through all of this, or do YOU want him to because you think he needs to? Learning music theory is boring! Always has been, always will be, even when I learned it from my Mom, who was a great teacher. It takes a long time just to internalize the basics, and longer to begin to put them together and understand the higher order relationships. I've been doing it since at least Jr. High School, and I'm still appalled at how much I don't know! At his age, will it be worth it? Irving Berlin not only survived but flourished not being able to read or write a note of music. He could play what he wanted (supposedly only in the key of F#, and I guess the pianos rigged with movable keyboards to let him do this are right there in the Smithsonian), and he hired musical secretaries to take down his songs and put them into notation. Sure, it's cumbersome, and I'm sure could be frustrating at times, but for him it worked. If the man is a retired CEO he can presumeably afford to hire a skilled music theory grad student to assist him. After all, did he type all his own letters, do all his own accounting, or act as his own lawyer when he was a CEO? No, those aren't what CEOs are hired for. He undoubtedly had experts to do the mechanics for him. Can someone who doesn't read or write her language produce beautiful poetry or gripping prose? Sure! The language is NOT the notation, and it isn't in music either. Epics and fables and folk wisdom have been passed down for centuries in many different cultures by illiterate storytellers, including the Old Testament. Language is a spoken art, not a graphic art. I've worked with country musicians who didn't know a lick about reading music or music theory, and couldn't even tell me what chord they were playing, but they were very fine musicians and knew EXACTLY what they were doing in terms of the music itself. I sense that you want to guide him, and that he's resisting it. In the long run, he'll have to learn by trial and error, just like everybody else. (Except, perhaps, Mozart. I'm not sure he EVER made any errors!) I'm convinced that you can't teach creativity; you can only encourage it, and teach the mechanics that make it easier to share it. But unless he WANTS to learn those mechanics, he won't! Just a thought. As a teacher I too have run into students who want to create but have never buckled down to learn the basics. I've felt sorry for them, but at least they were young enough to double back and learn what they needed. Perhaps your guy isn't. Perhaps he'd actually be happier running things and being opinionated just as he always has been. And making the mistakes he will surely make, with or without your guidance. And, hopefully, learning from them. After all, Charles Ives was a little unconventional, too. Let us know when his first show opens on Broadway! John John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
