New challenge

[kayre]

Two of my piano students are Indian- both born in India, but they've lived in English-speaking areas long enough that language is no issue (except with the parents!). They are both quick and interested, but not very disciplined about practice so their progress hasn't been fast. The older one told me about 6 months ago that she really wants to be able to play chords, to use lead sheets, so we've been working on that. Lately she's been preparing three songs to play with a little garage band, and stretching beyond what we've done so far.

One of the three songs is a Christian Contemporary song-- from India. So it's utterly unfamiliar to me, and she hasn't been able to find sheet music for it, just chords. She's doing remarkably well on it, but she's singing, and wasn't finding the melody for a key phrase. I asked her to play me the recording of that spot a few times, poked at the keys a bit, and then said "Okay, here it is!" and played the troublesome phrase. She exclaimed "How did you do that?? I've been trying to figure it out for a week!" She immediately incorporated what I showed her, and it helped tremendously. (I think she has mostly learned to sing from choir directors pounding out the part on piano, so hasn't developed her ear to hear a vocal line clearly.)

So.... I've asked her to choose a couple more similar songs, and we'll choose one of them and work on it together. In addition to teaching her chords and theory, I'll help her with those listening skills and some basic voice. And I'll learn the song with her, and maybe we can ultimately do it together in church. Fun stuff! A bit scary-- I'll be teaching skills I was never formally taught, but mostly figured out for myself. But there are lots of reasons why I'm the person to teach her, rather than looking for someone more qualified.

Comments

[amaebi]

Oh, brilliant! And fun for you! I'm thrilled.

With regard to formal qualifications:

You know, yesterday my son's * skating teacher was talking with me about how she wants to transform the way people teach skating and train skaters. And in the course of conversation I asked her whether she had formally studied kinesiology. She lit up-- she hadn't done any kinesiology courses, but she'd read some kinesiology to check the understanding of the physics and musculature of human movement that she'd thunk. But she balked at saying anything about kinesiology in working to explain and get support for her program.

But she *uses* kinesiology. Integrally. There's no need for her falsely to claim a degree in kinesiology, but for people who are at all aware of the field, to say that her method is based on kinesiology is simply and accurately descriptive.

And so many people with formal training in something can't seem to *think* in it: they have Received the Holy Lists and can wave them about and tick items off them.

In short, I think you're brilliantly qualified.


* Politically problematic.

[silkensteel]

Holy Lists: When I was working on a paper to present to the Society for the Study of Philosophy in the Martial Arts, at the 2008 APA conference, my Hapkido instructor - also a professor of Asian Philosophy at Cosumnes River College, said to not only be not intimidated at being a high school grad/butcher in front of a bunch of post-grads, but to celebrate "(you're) not encumbered by the curse of pedagogy."

The gift is in learning a skill in order to teach it, not in having a paper that declares you "competent."

[hitchhiker]

that's very neat :)