I think there is a shortage of great teachers, but there is a basic inherent problem in the lute world in the larger sense that will defeat any attempt at a systematic attempt to raise the universal level of play, which is the adoption of standard music practices. Change will have to come to from the students and the conservatories, and there are some big changes now along those lines. A fast change would be the establishment of a workshop dedicated to musicianship and professional training, but there might not be takers as far as students, then again, there might. Someone would have to fund it, and the first few years of training would have to be free--most candidates for students can't afford this kind of training. A starting point would be the simple adoption of the curriculum routinely given to organists as far as musical skills, continuo & figures, style, ornamentation, improvisation, transposition, score reading, and so on. You would have to find qualified teachers outside of the lute world, which in a conservatory setting would be fairly easy. Evaluating the current teachers is very easy, just take the number of students and factor the ones who are professionals. And by professionals, one would have to apply a reasonable but not draconian standard. For example, there are only a handful of players who make their living exclusively by playing concerts, so that standard is too high. A fifty/fifty split of playing and teaching plus say at least 50 concerts per year is a reasonable standard that almost anyone can achieve. Applying this loose but reasonable standard the lute world has a very, very low rate of conversion. And I leave it up to the reader to go through any list of teachers to see what their rate is. A good conservatory might hit ten percent, and that means that anyone, no matter how bad, or how bad the teacher, is included in that figure. I would be surprised if the lute world hit 4 percent, and I suspect the figure is probably around 2 percent. On the other hand, a highly rated harpsichord teacher that I know is way, way, higher. So it is possible, and people are doing it, but I don't see anyone in the lute world doing this, except in the case of teachers who audition students and only take the best, and then only take one or two per year. Then you can get up to 40 to 50 percent. Often teachers are recommended without anyone looking at their overall track record. Any teacher with 100 students is going to crank out a few pros even if the give no lessons, a certain number of people will always succeed. The true test is to get that percentage higher. The talent base of students would easily support ten percent--lute students tend to be smart. However, it is not as simple as as a new curriculum. There are, for example, very few students willing to go to Indiana, where there is a comprehensive program--which, however, does not require the students to do the basic studies required of an organist. Until this--the student motivation issue--is understood and resolved, the problem will remain the same or be slow to change. Lute players should set the standard, and that is not the case. Another simple fix is to require basic musical skills at all lute workshops in musicianship, sight singing, score reading, notation, ligatures, hexachords and so on. Everyone takes a morning class in it. You could take the curriculum from Morley's book. It would be historical, and mirror the basic training that renaissance and baroque musicians had. Or it could be modeled on a really good program in a modern conservatory, but I prefer the historical model because, after all, singing from the hexachord gives a great insight into the music, and a rudimentary knowledge of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque paleography is also very important. The problem here is that the workshops are super competitive nowadays because there are lots of them and few students. So the curriculum has to be attractive but not demanding, and that is basically true of all workshops now. The good news is one can easily remedy the holes in one's training. My daily chore is to simply improve on the things I'm not good at. Today it was reading transposing horn parts from Handel's Opera Admeto. Can't say I got much better, but I took a whack at it. Tomorrow is the review of all the seven-based figured chords including sharp sevens and flat sevens. I've done it hundreds of times, but I easily forget.... dt __________________________________________________________________
From: "chriswi...@yahoo.com" <chriswi...@yahoo.com> To: angevin...@att.net; [1]lute-cs.dartmouth.edu <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>; Roman Turovsky <r.turov...@verizon.net> Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 6:29:44 PM Subject: [LUTE] Re: help for 'improving' lute and vihuela players Roman, Pat is indeed a great pedagogue, but only available regularly to those in NYC. Word has it that he's been working on a method book for the past 30 years or so. No plans for release in the foreseeable future, (or ever?) I'm afraid. Chris --- On Thu, 5/21/09, Roman Turovsky <[2]r.turov...@verizon.net> wrote: From: Roman Turovsky <[3]r.turov...@verizon.net> Subject: [LUTE] Re: help for 'improving' lute and vihuela players To: [4]angevin...@att.net, "[5]lute-cs.dartmouth.edu" <[6]l...@cs.dartmouth.edu> Date: Thursday, May 21, 2009, 12:18 PM Have you ever heard of Pat O'Brien? RT From: <[1][7]angevin...@att.net> > The lute world has great performers. The lute world has great teachers > for those in the more advanced states of learning. What the lute world > lacks is a great pedagogue. Some one with the depth of teaching > experience and knowledge to put together the graded series of method > books that would enable lute learning to become available to many, > instead of the diehard dedicated few. > > But indeed, perhaps there is no market. And perhaps what market there > might be has grown to expect all their lute music on line and for free.... > > Suzanne To get on or off this list see list information at [2][8]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. [9]http://us.mc550.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=angevin...@att.net 2. [10]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html __________________________________________________________________ From: Roman Turovsky <r.turov...@verizon.net> To: Lutelist <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 7:07:13 PM Subject: [LUTE] Re: help for 'improving' lute and vihuela players Not only great, but often called to undo damage inflicted by supposedly greater pedagogues. RT ----- Original Message ----- From: <[11]chriswi...@yahoo.com> To: <[12]angevin...@att.net>; "[13]lute-cs.dartmouth.edu" <[14]l...@cs.dartmouth.edu>; "Roman Turovsky" <[15]r.turov...@verizon.net> Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 12:29 PM Subject: Re: [LUTE] Re: help for 'improving' lute and vihuela players Roman, Pat is indeed a great pedagogue, but only available regularly to those in NYC. Word has it that he's been working on a method book for the past 30 years or so. No plans for release in the foreseeable future, (or ever?) I'm afraid. Chris --- On Thu, 5/21/09, Roman Turovsky <[16]r.turov...@verizon.net> wrote: From: Roman Turovsky <[17]r.turov...@verizon.net> Subject: [LUTE] Re: help for 'improving' lute and vihuela players To: [18]angevin...@att.net, "lute-cs.dartmouth.edu" <[19]l...@cs.dartmouth.edu> Date: Thursday, May 21, 2009, 12:18 PM Have you ever heard of Pat O'Brien? RT From: <[20]angevin...@att.net> > The lute world has great performers. The lute world has great teachers > for those in the more advanced states of learning. What the lute world > lacks is a great pedagogue. Some one with the depth of teaching > experience and knowledge to put together the graded series of method > books that would enable lute learning to become available to many, > instead of the diehard dedicated few. > > But indeed, perhaps there is no market. And perhaps what market there > might be has grown to expect all their lute music on line and for free.... > > Suzanne To get on or off this list see list information at [21]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://lute-cs.dartmouth.edu/ 2. mailto:r.turov...@verizon.net 3. mailto:r.turov...@verizon.net 4. mailto:angevin...@att.net 5. http://lute-cs.dartmouth.edu/ 6. mailto:lute@cs.dartmouth.edu 7. mailto:angevin...@att.net 8. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%7Ewbc/lute-admin/index.html 9. http://us.mc550.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=angevin...@att.net 10. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%7Ewbc/lute-admin/index.html 11. mailto:chriswi...@yahoo.com 12. mailto:angevin...@att.net 13. http://lute-cs.dartmouth.edu/ 14. mailto:lute@cs.dartmouth.edu 15. mailto:r.turov...@verizon.net 16. mailto:r.turov...@verizon.net 17. mailto:r.turov...@verizon.net 18. mailto:angevin...@att.net 19. mailto:lute@cs.dartmouth.edu 20. mailto:angevin...@att.net 21. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%7Ewbc/lute-admin/index.html