Open Warrior

I’ve been teaching marimbas to high school students for about 4 years now, and it’s lead me to believe something which I feel is largely important when it comes to teaching – first impressions of a new subject set the way for how students will perceive and perform in that subject.

Students view teachers as people who are largely informed on the subjects they teach, and thus have no problem accepting what teachers say. If a teacher says something is complex, then it’s complex. If a teacher says something is easy, then it’s easy.

In marimba music and in fact any music in general,  it’s generally accepted that the ability to improvise comes with being well trained at playing an instrument. That’s how I was always taught music, and that’s how I’ve always taught music. The strategy is to keep it simple and well structured during the first few lessons, then add complexity to the music, and once the players are good, encourage improvisation. The problem is that once the players are (what is normally considered)  good enough to improvise, they view improvisation as a mystical goal, which only really good players can do, and thus most students lack the confidence to take a chance and give it a try.

I always thought this was normal until I witnessed a band who had been playing for just over a week improvising while playing, whereas some bands who have been playing for more than 2 years refuse to improvise. The reason the new band improvised was because that was what they had been exposed to. The new players had observed and learned from their peers, who were all experienced marimba players who did a large amount of improvisation.

So where does this leave us as teachers if we have the ability to influence students’ perceptions of new subject matters, and thus affect their performance in the relevant subjects. We can continue to do what is usually done at school level which is to set the level rather low, so that most people can do it and only the few with enough confidence to take a chance exceed beyond the low level. Or, we could take a chance and set the level high, making the high the new low. Will it work? Only trying it out will tell…