Sigh... I do teach some music privately as well as at the tertiary level, it is something that most musicians will do, even if they do derive most of their work from performing. And it is always great to be able to try and get the next generation of musicians and music-lovers up and running... plus, teaching someone is also a great way to figure out how you do things yourself, it makes you examine exactly how and what is going on in your own playing.

But, like everything else, there are always going to be "interesting" issues that crop up with some students... and sometimes the parents.

For this particular gripe, I'm going to be ranting a bit about what passes for "completed" in the eyes of modern families... parents and students. It is something that I have noticed in other fields, and so I doubt that this gripe is confined to the field of music teaching alone.

The concept of "good enough" is a bit too common for my liking... perhaps I'm getting to the old man ranting stage of life, but I think that the idea of "good enough"... well, the level of "enough" has steadily decreased to the point where it is barely passable. Now that might be an offshoot of an all persuasive capitalist and profit-based mindset... where you aim to maximise "profit" and minimise "expense", and we can see that this has led to cut corners as all knowing "Business leaders" have shat over the people who do the real work...

That said, the pursuit of "perfection" is also a potentially debilitating and destructive mindset as well. But I think that we have long left that behind as a society! Individuals on the other hand, can definitely fall to this...

I have a few students (mix of levels/ages...) who think that just managing to scrape through a piece is more than enough and that it is time to move onto the next piece... parents will bug me that their kid is spending more than a few weeks on a single piece, and they consider it "mastered" if they can start and finish it with a better than 50% casualty rate...

... but for me, the ability get from start to finish is JUST THE BEGINNING. At this point, we aren't struggling with the technical crap (although, most of them still are...), and we can start on the real work of how to craft their sound, and to make their instruments speak and tell a proper musical narrative.

... but many of them will never reach that point, because they think that just getting from start to finish is the highest goal! Sadly, there are many teachers and institutions that also encourage this mode of thought... and quite honestly, we are quite astounded and appalled by the number of students and teachers who have NEVER talked about how to craft a piece and performance beyond the ability to technically get the notes in the right order at roughly the right time.

I guess this is hard to explain to a non-musician (and hard to explain even to some musicians...), but the gist of it is:

If you are reading a book, and you manage to make it from start to finish... it doesn't make you a trained and engaging storyteller. Just getting the words out of your mouth in the right order with roughly the right sounds is ONLY THE beginning... and from there, you can start upon the journey of being an actual engaging narrator.

BAH... it drives me nuts, but most students/parents can't tell the difference, but there are way too many people who pass as musicians who SHOULD know better.

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