Author: Meri
Date: 2001-02-27 21:36
Reading the posts on this topic, I thought about the characteristics between good self-taught players versus mediocre ones, and this is what I've come up with. See if those of you who are entirely or primarily self-taught recognize these characteristics:
Good self-taught players tend to (have) (a):
• go beyond the traditional opportunities of band and orchestra; they create their own
• when they find problems, they look for solutions efficiently and in many places
• willing to ask for help
• high level of general intelligence
• strong literacy skills
• strong analytical skills
• strong self-concept
• strong self-motivation
• strong sense of self-discipline
• good sense of sound concept
• believe learning is dependent on oneself
• willing and able to take advice on improving their playing
On the other hand, mediocre self-taught players tend to (have) (a):
• limit their playing opportunities to band and orchestra
• aren't aware of problems, or ignore them
• don't usually look for solutions to problems, and when they do, it's usually inefficient
• average/low levels of general intelligence
• weak analytical skills
• weak literacy skills
• weak self-concept
• less self-motivation
• weak sense of self-discipline
• little or no sense of sound concept
• believe learning is dependent on others
• not be willing to take advice on improving their playing
I do notice a couple of potentially serious errors in the postings above. Both are mentioned above, but if you didn't catch them, the errors are 1) that self-taught players are not aware of their playing problems. and 2) that self-taught players are not willing to take advice on improving their playing. The error in 1) is that that may be true of mediocre self-taught players, but probably not good ones: good self taught players are quite aware of their playing problems, and look for ways on solving them, through sources such as books and the Internet. The error in 2) is again only true of mediocre self-taught players; good self-taught players are usually willing to listen to whatever tidbits of information that could help their playing that they can get.
Good self-taught players often seem to not only understand the WHAT aspect of playing, but also the WHY and the HOW.
This is where I can say I am really grateful for my teacher, however, and it was a problem I could not solve on my own--the problem was embouchure, which I was very aware of, but didn't know how to solve it. He gave me an approach to it that I understood and that worked for me.
To me, it also seems that good self-taught players, should they take lessons, can be extremely successful private students, (provided they have a good teacher who is a good match) because of many of the characteristics they have developed while teaching themselves.
Not only that, they avoid some of the potentially bad things about private lessons, which I won't mention here, but if you want to know what they are, email me privately.
I can fairly say all this because it's coming from my own experience with being a primarily self-taught player, who played in high-level ensembles that required nomination or auditions.
BTW, I only had one reed-playing music teacher, and only for the first half of grade 8. (I picked up clarinet in grade 7, when I was 12; although most of my real self-teaching happened from the time I was 14) And when I got a teacher, I had very few bad habits, which one has been broken, the second is almost fully treated, and the third is starting to be treated.
Meri
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The Clarinet BBoard
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