Teaching by "rote."

[Jason Arnold]

I am curious. I recently came across a website that stated this as one of it's primary teaching philosophies; "Our teaching pedagogy is rhythm based. We do not teach by rote. We try to foster musical independence in our students, teaching them to problem solve so that they can internalize what they learn." Can you teach rhythms strictly on paper? I understand you don't want to spoon feed everything to students, but shouldn't they have something to chase? You wouldn't teach a lesson without ever playing for a student would you? Show me a great band director who never clapped a rhythm or counted a difficult measure in rehearsal. Interesting.

[LoyalTubist]

Ever been outside the United States in a non-English speaking country that prides itself in how well it teaches its masses the English language? Most non-English speaking countries of Southeast Asia fall into this category.

Someone will tell you she speaks English. She sounds something like this:

"What you name? My name Kiki. I happy meet you. We go together restaurant, eat rice. We friends now. You nice."

And those are the first words to come out of her mouth!

At least it's better than the children who brag to their parents that they speak English well. They bring the kids to my house to practice.

"Hello," says the child.

"Hello," I reply. "How are you?"

"Hello."

"What's your name?"

"Hello."

"How old are you?"

"Hello."

I now charge the equivalent of six dollars an hour to parents if they want their children to practice their English with me. I don't think they realize how painful and annoying it is when a kid can't say anything but hello.

Consequently, if children stop me in the street, SHOUTING "Hello," I ignore them. I used to try to humor them but I never got further than the "conversation" I posted above.

This is because ROTE TEACHING ONLY is used for teaching. You need to teach language AND MUSIC, since it, too, is a method of communication, in such a way that the student starts thinking in that language. That's hard to do with rote memorization only.

[LoyalTubist]

Let me add, if you mean a young lady like Kiki, assuming she is of age, she might be able to teach you something.

[jonesbrass]

I may get flamed on this one, but I think rote teaching is absolutely essential. No book ever written can ever describe the tone quality of a particular player or instrument as well as just five seconds of listening will. From an intellectual standpoint, I think its key that we understand that music is a multidimensional art. That being not just height (pitch) and width (rhythm), there is tone and musical expression. The last two cannot be described in a book, or sheet music, for that matter. Why shouldn't we teach music by listening? After all, music is an auditory art. Sometimes, like doc said, musicians become mere readers and button-pushers, and don't have the slightest clue about the music between the notes, the actual communication that those written notes represent. Without rote teaching and listening, we risk becoming great technicians . . . and very poor artists. Just my $0.02. YMMV.

[LoyalTubist]

And I would agree, too. However, I think you need both the repitition of rote teaching and an understanding of what you are doing. You need to do scales by rote. You need to to certain other things just so. But you absolutely need to be able to try new things. Rote teaching alone develops a sense of paranoia and shyness. Exploratory teaching alone can also develop a sense of laziness.

I think part of the problem with teaching today, in the United States, is that there are so many things students must know that, for what is deemed less important, the easy way out is taken.

[Chuck(G)]

Rote teaching has its place--you have to learn your addition and multiplication tables and your alphabet somehow. We haven't yet perfected memory by subcutaneous injection yet, so rote counts for something.

After that, however, I believe that imitation is one of the best ways to learn something. You can sit there with the music 16 hours a day in front of you practicing a Mozart horn concerto, but if you don't hear it from someone who actually knows the style, you'll never get it.

There was a study somewhere that showed that observing someone performing a task was as good a way of learning to do it as to practice it repetitively. I don't know if this applies to musical performance, but if a teacher doesn't sing or play some instrument to illustrate his points, the student and the teacher are wasting their time.

[MartyNeilan]

(practice journals )

My take on practice journals is that they are not worth the paper they are printed on. Some kids will write anything, and some parents will sign anything - and these are the ones that will need it the most. It only puts the "honest" students at a disadvantage.

.

[TonyTuba]

Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. teach that man how to fish, he eats for a lifetime.

Seems like a good philosophy, but its easier to get shiney trophies if you just spoonfeed, over and over again....aint it. Who cares if its good for 'em or not. [sic]