Texas Bandmasters Association
Bandmasters Review • April 2016
13
Teaching an Old Art Form
in a Modern Age
Wallace Dierolf
Our worldmoves very quickly today.
So quickly that I fear we often lose
our sense of perspective, or direction,
and in the framework of this article
our reason to teach music. I strongly
feel that our species needs the arts
more today than ever in the history
of our civilization and that as music
educators we have a very important
responsibility. The responsibility is to
not to rush the process, but to slow
down and embrace what is so unique
and important about teaching music
in today’s fast paced world. It begins
with us. We are the pace setters in the
rehearsal.
We are teaching a very old art form
in a modern age. It takes as long for
a young person, indeed a person of
any age, to learn how to produce a
centered, characteristic sound on a
musical instrument as it did someone
hundreds of years ago. The amount
of time, patience and correct practice
to achieve this one simple objective
has not changed. True, we have
some technology available that has
proven to help in various aspects of
music education and one could even
argue that improvement in the design
and construction of certain musical
instruments makes some musical
achievements easier today. However
the basic human species has not
changed. The tools yes, the species no.
Achievement in basic musical
objectives such as pitch recognition,
feeling for pulse and the reading of
music notation still takes the same
effort, time and patience as it always
has. What a wonderful gift to offer
our students—the timeless gift of an
old art form in a modern age. Music is
still today an educational experience
that offers the joy
of achievement that
comes from slowly
and methodically
training the body
and mind. I believe
that today in our
fast paced high tech
world this is an
important reason
why the inclusion of
music in a person,
especially a young
person’s education is
more important than
ever.
As simple as
it may seem we
often overlook this
important aspect
when
teaching
music. We tend to
speed up the process
of basic musical
achievement when
in truth we should be slowing down.
Because when we rush the process
of music education, we lose the very
essence of its beauty and we often
deny the student some of the greatest
educational value to learning music.
Educational values such as patience,
self-discovery,
self-discipline,
repetition and a wonderful blend of
body, mind and emotion, all can be
lost when we rush the process of
music education. And when we rush
the process we fail to provide our
students with the truths of an old form
in a modern age.
Let’s take a look at
a few specific areas
of music education
and
see
how
rushing the process
can deny students
a much higher level
of achievement.
The process of
tuning an ensemble
is a wonderful
opportunity
for
students to learn
a great lesson in
fundamental ear
training. Most of
the time directors
over use a tuning
device of some
type. Or perhaps
each student has
such a device on
their music stand
or attached to their
instrument. They learn to adjust their
instrument while looking at lights,
arrows, dials etc… They are “seeing”
pitch rather than “hearing pitch”. The
same thing happens when a director
is tuning the students via a tuning
device. The director informs them
that they are sharp or flat and then
they adjust their instruments, posture,
Achievement in basic
musical objectives such
as pitch recognition,
feeling for pulse and
the reading of music
notation still takes the
same effort, time and
patience as it always
has. What a wonderful
gift to offer our
students.
Music is still today an
educational experience
that offers the joy
of achievement that
comes from slowly and
methodically training
the body and mind.
