Posted by Mary Ann on January 29, 2003 at 14:56:49:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: High Range: Drawing lips toward teeth? posted by Rick Denney on January 28, 2003 at 23:25:20:
Thanks for your input. I agree, what I read in Wind and Song seems to match with what you read.
I think the most difficult thing to do (based on my experience with trying to learn tennis) is to stop your body from doing something incorrect that is ingrained, and teach it to do something else. I actully found that I could hit a tennis ball correctly left-handed (I am right-handed) but that I tied myself up in knots trying to learn to hit it right-handed, because my right hand knew how to do things like racquetball.
The problem with "technically advanced-musically retarded" people really has nothing to do with a surplus of technique or a tendency to analyze. It has to do with an inability to be musical, and I'm not at all sure that can be trained in. I recently spent quite some time trying to teach rhythm to a person who had what I call "engineer rhythm"....he blocked out everything going on around him, including what the rest of the ensemble was doing, and followed his own inaccurate internal beat. When he did become aware that he was not with the group....he started stomping his foot, to get them back where they were supposed to be. And this is not the first person of this type I have run into; they are not all engineers, either. I think it is another variation on the "analysis is paralysis" theme...this guy's problem was not one that he analyzed too much, but that he listened too little.
To be completely honest, my major complaint with music "teachers" is that I go for lessons when I want to learn how to play the instrument. I don't really give a flip about their ideas on musical interpretation because I have my own, right or wrong. I AM musical, and my problems are technical ones, even though the teacher in question might disagree with my musical interpretation. I'm not paying them to argue with me about the music, but to show me how to make the instrument sound the way I want it to.
Ah well, I am beating a very dead horse at this point. Decomposed, even.
MA