Expecting practice to take place without setting it up very carefully, is not likely to reap much of a reward. Putting energy into setting up practice will very much increase the chances of our students finding their own practice energy.

So now it’s time look at the teacher a little more closely!

It was George Bernard Shaw in his play Man and Superman who coined the fateful expression we all know as: “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” That phrase has never been forgotten. Shaw should be ashamed of himself! Well, it’s time to put that well and truly behind us.

Here’s a version for the twenty-first century: Those who can, do; those who can do better than those who just do, teach.

There is a belief that teaching is a bit of a second-class act. It isn’t. It may become so if approached with a second-class attitude, but if we desire to do the job really well then that status soon changes—teaching is an enormously important profession which should always enjoy seriously high standing in society. Teaching is, indisputably, a wonderful, fulfilling, endlessly stimulating, and hugely responsible occupation. And, just as we can aspire to be a virtuoso player, we can also aspire to be a Virtuoso Teacher.

Virtuoso Teachers are not virtuoso players who teach, though the virtuoso player may aspire to become a Virtuoso Teacher! Neither are they teachers who may teach the occasional virtuoso.

Virtuoso Teachers teach as the virtuoso player plays: with a heightened sense of awareness, with passion and energy, with profound involvement, and genuine commitment. Virtuoso Teachers teach everyone who wants to learn (from beginners onwards) in such a way that their students really do learn and really do benefit from the teaching and, as a result, don’t give up prematurely. Anyone can become a Virtuoso Teacher. It doesn’t take long to make the transition. We just have to be determined, dedicated, and prepared to spend quality time thinking and reflecting on our work.

There is, however, one major difference between the virtuoso performer and the Virtuoso Teacher—it’s to do with the nature of the interaction between the two parties. Whilst there is indeed a flow of energy between virtuoso players and their audience, the two-way energy flow between Virtuoso Teachers and their students is enduring, special, and potentially much more revolutionary. Virtuoso players play ‘to’ their audience whilst Virtuoso Teachers work ‘with’ their students. This special collaboration does indeed have the power to change their students’ destiny. Virtuoso Teachers are truly transformational—they can create the aspiration in each of their students to discover, explore, and realize his or her own unlimited musical potential.

There are further factors that help to define the Virtuoso Teacher. These include taking risks, challenging received conventions, the heightening of attention, and the deepening of awareness. Of particular importance is the need to develop a greater understanding of how people are—which means a keen self-awareness as well as really knowing and understanding our students: understanding their learning speed, their levels of motivation, what makes them tick musically. It’s those considerations that will begin to empower the ability to communicate really effectively—perhaps the most important personal quality of the Virtuoso Teacher.

All students should have the opportunity to receive teaching that ultimately gives them the confidence and ability to access the marvellous world of music entirely independently and at any level. Taking the student on the journey from dependency to freedom is the central desire of the Virtuoso Teacher.

Sound intriguing? This post was adapted from The Virtuoso Teacher, by Paul Harris.

This article was originally published on alfred.com

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They also form the driving force behind practice—but how can we set up a process where we can be sure that our students will practice?

Having inquired about the health of our student’s pet hamster (which always gets a lesson off to a good start!), maybe we then ask…

“So what have you been practicing this week?”

It’s a fair question. And here’s what might happen in a perfect world:

If the week’s practice was set up with considerable care, if our student really understood the prescribed activities and all the various ingredients involved… If, during the actual practice, our student felt a sense of achievement and understood how it fitted into an enjoyable and meaningful ongoing learning program… And if our student knows that whatever has been practiced will be duly acknowledged and will form the basis for the next lesson…

…Then we might expect the answer to be enthusiastic, informative, and filled with a positive eagerness for the ensuing lesson. But the truth is (if the answer is indeed truthful) that our question is more likely to be met with a rather negative and defensive response:

“I haven’t had time to do much …”

“I only had time this week to go through my piece last night and it didn’t go very well.”

“I couldn’t remember the notes of C sharp minor arpeggio and got annoyed.”

“I didn’t really understand what you wanted me to do and besides, I was too busy.”

Students, from time immemorial, have found endless reasons for not practicing. All the various reasons why students might not practice are covered in my book, The Practice Process—but right now I’d like to suggest a method through which we can get our students to change their attitude, and begin to think much more positively and enthusiastically about their practice.

The 3 Prongs of Productive Practice

If practice is delivered as a sort of ‘bolt-on’ at the end of a lesson or rehearsal, we certainly can’t be confident that it will be done enthusiastically, or indeed at all! We need to find a method whereby it becomes a natural extension and will always be carried out with purpose and pleasure.

We probably do have one group of students who practice with pleasure—and it’s usually more than just pleasure: this group frequently really love it. I’m thinking of our beginners. It’s all new and exciting and they often can’t get enough of it. But for many, that euphoria soon begins to fade as the novelty wears off, progress seems to slow down, and everything becomes more complex.

What goes wrong? How can we retain this enthusiasm?

The whole problem has largely arisen because we have the notion that the success of our students’ practice is mostly because of things that they do rather than things that we do. If our part in their practicing process is simply giving them a list of things to do, it’s highly likely that things will not be done. If we’re going to start a real transformation, a practice revolution, we are going to have to take on more responsibility and begin to manage their practice with more care. This doesn’t necessarily mean more work or a seismic shift in what we already do. But it will require a change of approach.

The difference is that this new approach puts practice center stage in our teaching and allows students to see it as a natural part of a vibrant, ongoing, and organic process, rather than an often tedious and only vaguely related optional extra. The basis of this approach is really very straightforward and simply requires us to make sure that three things happen. To some extent, we’re probably doing them already—it will just be a case of refining and managing them more effectively.

1. The first is that we regularly talk about, explain, discuss, and describe the practice that our students are going to do, during the whole course of the lesson. Try to use the phrase, “When you practice…” often as lessons unfold.
2. The second is that we decide what is to be done in collaboration with our students, and set it down on paper in a very clear, understandable and engaging manner. It’s not a question of telling our students what they are to practise. The actual substance of a week’s practice needs to develop as a result of a dialogue with them and it needs to be set out with imagination.
3. The third is that we assiduously generate each new lesson out of the practice that students have done.

So, in three words:

Integration, Representation, and Connection.

I call this the Simultaneous Practice Cycle and it’s a topic you can find out much more about in my book, The Practice Process.

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