Posted by Jay Bertolet on March 20, 2002 at 23:21:11:
In Reply to: Musical disorders posted by Tony E on March 20, 2002 at 22:01:41:
The biggest "disorder" I've seen in some of my students is a total lack of awareness about what's coming out of the bell. I've often wondered if this was some sort of attention deficit disorder, especially when I hear the comments. Typically, I'll ask a student how they played on a certain concert or a certain piece. They'll typically say it went perfect. Now, I have some pretty good students these days but none of them play perfect. Hell, I don't play perfect! I don't make the mistake anymore about asking them to demonstrate for me what they did because this never comes out well. This "disorder" also manifests itself when I ask a student how their week was and they respond that they practiced a lot and they think their lesson material is really well prepared. This is almost certainly the kiss of death as we spend the next 1+ hours slogging through some etude or excerpt that is rife with problems. Usually this is so bad that we don't get past the first couple of lines.
So I wonder, is this some sort of disorder where the student really can't hear or evaluate all that well what is actually coming out of the bell? Thankfully, I don't have to deal with this too much but when it does come up, I feel it. The best treatment I've found so far is to force the student to record themselves and then listen to the recording. And I do mean force, simply suggesting this as a practice technique is advice almost never followed, at least by the symptomatic students I've had. Maybe this is some sort of personality disorder like delusion or something. I suppose it could be cureable but who's going to pay for the research? We may never know...
;-)
My opinion for what it's worth...