Music Teacher's Helper Blog

I hope you enjoy this series of fictional scenarios about teaching music, and find it at times thought-provoking, familiar, and even humorous.  We look forward to reading comments by yourself and other teachers at the end, about “what would you do?”  Many thanks to those who have written such interesting comments on the earlier scenarios.  Feel free to add comments on any post, any time.

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Daniel is an intermediate level student who has taken a few private lessons but mostly has worked with you in beginning and advanced-beginner classes.  He works at his instrument, thinks a lot, asks questions, seems determined to make progress.  He has sought out  advice from other teachers and performers and organizes little groups of your students to attend concerts.

In class he likes to record parts of what you say or play, using a digital recorder.

One day another student emails you with a question about some music you went over in class.  By way of asking his question, he forwards to you an email from Daniel which includes a digital recording of you playing in class, accompanied by Daniel’s explanation.

The explanation was written by Daniel attempts to paraphrase you, kind of like sharing class notes, but via email and recording.

Unfortunately, despite the best of intentions, Daniel got some things wrong.  For example, when you told the class to hold onto a dotted eighth note for as long as possible, Daniel re-interpreted this to say you wanted them to make the following sixteenth as short as possible.  Daniel thought these meant the same thing, but they mean very different things musically.

You have some choices with regards to the student who is asking the question, the other students who are receiving Daniel’s emails, and Daniel himself.

What would you do?

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Please add your comments below; if you have any hesitations about it, please see the earlier post about “Adding Your Two Bits! How It Works“.