Posted by my own reply on June 18, 2002 at 14:52:35:
In Reply to: types of teachers posted by Mary Ann on June 18, 2002 at 10:09:56:
Well, I asked this because I, of course, have a preference.
Maybe because I'm older, already have a degree in music from way back, etc.
But when I learn a new instrument, I go to a teacher because I want to learn how to play the instrument. The music, a trained ear, ensemble skills, I already have. The sound, I know what I want, usually, from having listened. I visit a teacher because my body has not figured out how to get that sound despite a lot of work on my part. That is, I am at a brick wall, technically. My engaging someone for $$$ is specifically to see if they can help me scale that brick wall.
So far, the teachers who have been of huge benefit to me have been the ones who were able to say something specific about what I was doing incorrectly, physically. Like, a trumpet teacher told me that my high range was absent because my set had my lips apart instead of touching. Then a horn teacher told me I needed to pucker my lower lip, specifically, to make more of a cushion to put the rim of the mouthpiece on. That got the pressure off my upper lip. Someone else pointed out that in order to form the correct shape of aperture, I needed to pull my corners in farther. Someone else showed me how to play einsetzen. From another book I got the idea of using an air bump to jump up in pitch. Another source talked about the need for a slight pivot between ranges. etc. .... without _all_ of these, I would not have a high range on the horn.
I went through a similar, but not as lengthy, process to learn the low range on the horn. The midrange, I was able to get by myself, more or less, because my incorrect techniques did not get in the way.
For "natural" players, who produce without attention to what they are doing, this might have been disastrous. For those of us who are not natural players, this kind of analysis is not paralyzing at all; instead, it is freeing, because we can do what is suggested, get the feel, form a habit, and then not think about it again. (Until we start having a string of bad days, and then we have the remembrance of what we have learned, to fall back on when we find that somehow we have teleported to the other side of that wall again.)
$.02