Private Lesson Studio Ruminations – complete multi-part series
I’ve done several multi-part blog posts over the years, though my output has admittedly slowed somewhat since getting bogged down in school this past year. Most of these posts are gig stories, however–I think that this is my first one dedicated solely to music/education. As a person who teaches a lot of private lessons (and has done so for quite some time), this series reflects topics and issues that I chew on mentally all the time:
Part 1 – Chicken or Egg?
Part 2 – Faculty Affiliation or Private?
Part 3 – What I Teach
Part 4 – The Path to Music School
Part 5 – Different Styles for Different Students
Part 6 – Complacency
Where should I go to school?
A Contrabass Conversations listener who is starting college this fall wrote in recently with a question that most people are likely to wrestle with when going to music school: when deciding between two schools, should you go with the cheaper but less prestigious college, or the more expensive but more prestigious option?
Now, this is certainly not a decision faced solely by music students, but there are certain musician-specific factors that might influence your decision in different ways than if you were considering a business, engineering, or traditional liberal arts degree.
In my post titled Top Ten Ways That College Debt Screws Up Your Life (June 2008), I wrote the following:
A recent article in the Chicago Tribune (May 28, 2008) reignited some long-standing concerns that I’ve had for a longtime about the massive amount of educational debt many musicians accrue during their years of training. This trend is affecting all college students (not only musicians), but since our earnings tend to be rather meager compared to other professions requiring high-dollar degrees, this trend is especially alarming for future music performers.
Achieving success in the classical music world (I’m defining success rather narrowly here) often requires a musician to audition for a select handful of schools that have a specific teacher on faculty with a reputation for turning out “successful” students. Unlike disciplines like engineering, business, or computer science, there are frequently only a few schools that have a consistent track record of placement for a specific instrument. Want a job? You’d better think seriously about fighting for a spot at one of those schools… even if that school costs $40,000 (or more) plus room and board each year.
After spending $200,000 (or $300,000, or more!) on that undergraduate education, you may very well find yourself in the orchestral trenches battling for that job with a meager $20,000 to $30,000 salary, spending another $1000-2000 a pop on dozens of auditions (several of my older colleagues have taken 80, 90, or even 100 auditions before landing a position, and some still never landed a job).
The complete post offers more reflections on some of the drawbacks to being saddled with massive college debt, but let’s take a look at this particular student’s specific situation and see what option might be most advisable in this case:
Good versus Really Good
This student was deciding between a school that would cost around $20,000 a year and a school that would cost around $50,000 a year (including room and board in both cases). Both of these school have established track records at turning out bass students that are competitive on the audition scene, and both have teachers that are considered among the best in the business.
The more expensive school was the student’s preferred choice discounting cost for a number of reasons: the teacher he’d be studying with was his number one choice for bass teacher, hands-down; it is in a more exciting city with a bustling and vibrant music scene; the reputation of the music school as a whole is stronger. On the other hand, both schools have excellent bass programs and quality music programs, even if the more expensive option is a little more attractive overall.
If we discount cost, then, the more expensive school is a more attractive option. But look at the difference in cost! For the cheaper school, a four-year program would saddle the student (and his parents) with $80,000 in college debt, while the more expensive school would end up costing $200,000 for the same amount of time. That’s a tremendous difference.
Take a moment and think about the difference between being $80,000 in the whole and $200,000 in the whole. Granted, both values make me want to jump off a cliff, but we’re talking about a truly massive difference in price. Then factor in the interest on these two values, and this student would be looking a a student loan payment that may well prove completely unmanageable on his likely earnings.
While the desire to study with your number one choice is a powerful factor in this decision, I’m not sure if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks in this case. Is there another option to work with this teacher outside the school structure? Does this teacher serve on the faculty of any summer institutes, like Aspen or the Music Academy of the West? Could you arrange to take some private lessons with them? It’s not the same as actually studying with them for a degree, of course, but it may be a good compromise.
Final Thoughts
In many cases like this (and I am advising students about these tough decisions constantly), I tend, if the two options are both good but substantially different in cost, to advise that the student go with the cheaper option and then augment their college music study experience with summer festivals and additional lessons from teachers with varying viewpoints. Why not go with the cheaper option and then study at Aspen in the summer? Many of my colleagues credit Aspen with some of their most valuable learning experiences, even though they were also studying at Eastman, Juilliard, or the Cleveland Institute. With college costs where they are today and the earning potential of music school graduates shaky at best, this course of action seems ever wiser.
Bass bag, pickup, and wheel reviews from Rob Oxoby
Double bassist Rob Oxoby recently put out a few reviews of some gear he has purchased. He’s got a review up of his new Tuff Bag from the String Emporium [a sponsor of this blog], which he really likes. He’s also got a review up of the Bass Buggie from KC Strings , which is a device that works in place of a traditional bass wheel. He also did a review for the Six Rounds Rockabilly Recoil, which is I device I’d never heard of before (being a classical bass guy myself) but which includes a bridge and fingerboard transducer as well as a preamp. Interesting stuff–check it out!
Success in the Private Lesson Studio Part 6: Complacency
This final installment in the Success in the Private Lesson Studio series addresses something that can easily happen to private teachers: complacency. After establishing a reputation as a teacher and building up a studio, many teachers start to look at private teaching as a somewhat lucrative but rather burdensome part-time job, something to be tolerated rather than enjoyed. Teachers can enter this state without even realizing it, slowly slipping into familiar patterns and becoming too easily satisfied with the results they are getting from students.
Many teachers, or course, never fall into this state of complacency. They continually reinvent themselves as teachers, broadening their horizons by performing as much as possible, attending concerts and conferences, reading avidly from a wide range of sources (both pertaining to their instrument and to education in general), and constantly asking themselves the following question:
“What if?”
What if, rather than giving students the Capuzzi Concerto, I swapped out a variety of short pieces in different ranges of the instrument? What if I taught pivoting from the beginning rather than Simandl technique? What if I introduced the bow in this new way I just read about? What if I approached intonation in a different way? What if I assigned different scale exercises?
If a teacher is teaching students headed for music school, are these students advancing toward the current professional standard for their instrument? What, exactly, is that standard right now? Is it different than when the teacher was in music school? If so, how? What is the best way to guide students toward that standard? And what if a student doesn’t seem to be responding to your methods? What can you vary? What is an alternate approach? Is there only one door leading to success, or are there many doors?
I think that as soon as a private music teacher decides that they have discovered the way to teach something, they have (usually and unwittingly) slipped into a state of complacency about that topic. To put it bluntly, the more smug and overconfident a teacher appears to be about their method of teaching, the worse they tend to be as an educator. The best teachers, on the other hand, are always broadening their musical horizons, and as a result their teaching methods are always evolving.
Continuing to grow as a teacher also means continuing to grow as a musician, and this is an easy thing to let atrophy as a private lesson teacher. It can be easy to forget that you are, above all, working with a student to help them develop a love for the art and craft of music, and guide them toward developing the skills necessary to achieve their fullest potential. A good teacher goes beyond assigning and evaluating materials and uses all their abilities to inspire and motivate students. This is, or course, true of all teachers–not just private music teachers–but it’s easy to lose sight of this during a long block of half-hour lessons with students.
Final Thoughts
This brief conclusion to Success in the Private Lesson Studio may seem like an obvious point, but I think that it bears contemplation anyway. The best teachers are curious and constantly learning themselves, flexible and adaptable. They are interested in continually broadening their horizons and expanding their “teacher toolkit,” and regularly reevaluate their approaches to the various aspects of their pedagogical approach.
Success in the Private Lesson Studio Part 5: Different Styles for Different Students
I’ve taught a wide array of students during the past 10 years as a private bass teacher. Some of them made me tear my hair out, some of them remain good friends and close contacts to this day, but all of them taught me something important, both about me as a teacher and about the different learning styles and levels of interest found between different students.
By and large, the students I teach in a private lesson setting taking lessons because they want to take them (the other reason is that their parents are forcing them, but few of my students fall into that category these days). Though they may express it in different ways, these students honestly want to improve as musicians, and my job as teacher is to find the best approach for each individual.
Styles of Students
Everybody’s unique, of course (a point I’ve emphasized throughout this series), and therefore requires an individualized approach from the private teacher, but there are three general categories into which most students fall. These are categories generally start to manifest themselves in middle school, and students usually fall pretty clearly into one of these three categories by high school:
1. The “Music School-Bound” - These students are really gunning for it, working toward a career as a professional musician, and they therefore adhere most closely to the curricular list I outlined in part 3 of this series and will spend the last two years of high school going through the audition preparation activities described in part 4 of this series. To put it simply, these people listen to what you, the teacher, says and works diligently on perfecting their craft. Teachers wish that all their students fell into this category. They may or may not be actually end up going to music school, but they place a high priority on their musical development, and they end up practicing the most as a result. Students in this category usually (from me, at least) have lessons that end up resembling college-level lessons.
2. The “Plethora of Activities” Student - Students these days are often pulled in a dozen different directions, feeling pressure to achieve academically, play sports, participate in clubs, star in the school play, and do music all at the same time. They may love music, but they have many other interests as well, making practice time a challenge. Having diverse interests is a really good thing, and as high school progresses students usually settle on a fewer number of activities in which they really excel. Practice time is a challenge with students like this, and my focus as a teacher often turns into practice time management, focusing on a couple of clear concepts and outlining ways to fit in practice time where possible. Some of these students love music but simply don’t practice. The old saying “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” comes to mind with some of these students–no amount of pleading, cajoling, and stern admonition on my part has an affect aside from making them dread lessons. Now, there’s a fine line between empathy and being a pushover, and I try to be careful in this regard, but I sincerely believe that students can benefit from lessons even if they’re not practicing much if the focus of the lessons is shifted appropriately. Still, lessons are always more valuable and will lead to exponentially faster improvement if students regularly practice between them.
3. The Reluctant Learner - I have fewer and fewer of these private students with each passing year (I think, at least–maybe I’m deluding myself!), but most teachers working with pre-college instrumental students will work with people who are not taking lessons because they want to but because they are being made to, either by their parents or by their orchestra director. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t like me or music, just that they’re not really that into taking lessons. And while I’ve found that students in this category frequently metamorphosize into one of the two previous categories, some students just don’t particularly want to be there. As a result, I generally have to be firmer with these students, setting concrete practice goals–they are not likely to work further into a piece out of musical curiosity, are less likely to practice, and may be less receptive to methods that work on the students that do want to be there. I always try to keep in mind that, even if a student isn’t their out of their own free will, I can still make the lesson an enjoyable experience for them, and that just because someone starts out not wanting to be there doesn’t mean that they won’t lear, over time, to enjoy their lessons (or aspects of their lessons, at the very least). After all, there have been innumerable activities in my life that I have not really wanted to do. Some I learned to love, some I learned to appreciate, and some I simply never enjoyed. Who knows what students will end up gravitating toward? I always try to keep an open mind with students, having seen so many people’s attitudes of indifference transform into enthusiasm over time.
Teaching Styles
These by no means are hard and fast categories; in fact, I rarely use only one of the following approaches, usually opting for two (or more) of the following styles. Keep in mind, also, that I typically teach high school bassists, with some middle schoolers mixed in as well. I don’t work with a whole lot of elementary school bassists. As a result, I tend to be less of a taskmaster and more of a mentor with the older students, and more of a taskmaster with the younger students. This is what works for me, but I’m sure that different teaching approaches:
1. Taskmaster - Some students need a lot of structure from their lesson teachers. If you don’t tell them to do it, they won’t do it. If you tell them to do it but don’t consistently check up on the previous week’s goals, holding them personally accountable for their practice, they won’t do it either. There is, of course, a bit of the taskmaster in every student/teacher relationship (otherwise you’re not really teaching, you’re just hanging out), with the expectation of some sort of consistent practice and improvement. With students that need to be held accountable for each step of their practicing, our lessons take on a fairly regimented format, with some sort of warm-up, followed by assessment of each of the practice goals for the previous week, the introduction of a new piece, section, or concept, and a few minutes at the end to write down each specific goal and how they will approach it. I may get as specific as (play this bar five times, then do this bar eight times), though I’m rarely this regimented with high school-age students, trying instead to encourage them how to analyze and solve problems on their own.
2. Problem-Solver - I often fall into a role of problem-solving facilitator with my older students, trying whenever possible to get students analyzing their own playing and get them thinking about how to solve problems. I think that I used to just tell people what to do a lot more when I started teaching. Now I tend to ask a lot of questions, explore different options, and (this is really useful) video record them on my laptop and watch it back with them, pausing when necessary to talk about what we’re hearing, what works and what doesn’t work, and how we can work on particular passages. There is, of course, going to be a lot of intermingling between these roles. A teacher who is 100% problem-solver is not likely to be very effective, since they will have no clear achievement standards for their students. At the same time, a teacher who is 100% taskmaster may have obedient students who dread every lesson, learning over time to hate music in general. I probably err too much on the problem-solver and mentor side of things, but that’s my style, and it seems to work for me.
3. Mentor - I feel that the responsibilities of a private lesson teacher extend beyond these isolated hour-long lessons, both in leading students toward youth music programs and summer camps, and also getting them excited about the art form in general and showing them what’s really great about music. I like to, whenever possible, get students excited about being a member of the double bass community, and I try to get them as enthusiastic about the art form as I am.
4. Practice Buddy – Sometimes students (generally younger students) need someone to actually walk through the entire practicing process with them. With some students (and this is not my favorite role, but it ends up being one I inhabit from time to time), I become like a human practice supplement, playing drone pitches, playing along an octave below, keeping time, making them loop passages over and over, and basically doing all the things that they should be doing during their own practice sessions. I fall into this role (though there’s a bit of this approach in nearly every student’s lesson) most often with people who don’t really practice. I try to both be an example for them, showing them what they should be doing during their practice sessions, and if someone is simply not working, I end up making the lesson an hour of highly supervised and guided practice. If they don’t practice at all, at least they get that one hour a week, though students that don’t work on their own typically end up becoming “former students” of mine in short order!
5. Organizer – Some students may be great problem-solvers and very enthusiastic, but are just disorganized in their approach to practicing and to the instrument. Helping them to keep a practice journal and helping them to figure out how much of each practice session should be devoted to a particular piece, etude or technical exercise can help them to get more efficient and useful practice sessions in. Unlike the “Practice Buddy” students, these students typically do want to work, but they haven’t figured out a very effective way to practice. I like helping people with this kind of structure–I’ve thought about how to best organize my practicing for countless hours–and most students that fall into this role move out of it after a short time and into one of the previously mentioned roles (though hopefully not #4!).
The complete series – Success in the Private Lesson Studio – This multi-part series details my thoughts, perspectives, and observations on what makes a good private lesson experience and how to best use this interaction as a springboard for future career success.
Part 2 – Faculty Affiliation or Private?
Part 4 – The Path to Music School
Eric Hochberg’s Perspectives on Double Bass Strings
Chicago-area double bassist Eric Hochberg (who has both been a guest on Contrabass Conversations and has written previously for the bass blog) recently put out a post detailing his thoughts on some of the more popular string brands being used today, and he has kindly agreed to let me repost it here at doublebassblog.org. I think you’ll find it very interesting, and if you’d like to hear my thoughts on different bass strings, you can check out a post I put out about this topic as well–it’s from the perspective of a classical player.
Perspectives on Double Bass Strings
I am mainly a jazz pizz player, although I work with the bow for improvised solos and enjoy practicing the Bach Cello Suites and other classical music. I began auditioning double bass strings a few years ago in an attempt to find something that would work well as a hybrid string for both styles of playing. One thing I have learned through this process is that there is not one single “best” string for all basses and musical styles. One brand of string on my bass may not respond and sound the same on your bass. This auditioning of double bass strings can also be a very expensive proposition, so borrowing strings to try from your colleagues or buying used is a good way to go with this.
Thomastik Spirocore Mittels were my main string into the early ‘90’s until I got an endorsement for the new D’Addario line of strings. I felt really good about their product until 2002 or so, when I noticed inconsistency issues. Around that time they changed the terms of my endorsement deal so I decided it would be a good time to start trying out other brands, as I was not particularly happy with the D’Addarios anymore. I will start out with my impressions of the D’Addario Helicore line, although it has been a number of years since I last used them and haven’t experienced their current lineup.
Helicore Orchestra – I used these strings for a short while, about a week to be exact. When they were sent to me, I mistook them for the original Helicores I had been using and liked, as they came in similar blue packaging. I strung up my bass with them one day and went straight to a recording session for Verve Records. When we started recording, I immediately noticed that these strings were not what I was used to or expecting at all. For the pizz playing I was doing, they were much stiffer and much fuller sounding with a bigger fundamental, but without the sustain I prefer in a jazz string. I got a pretty good sound that day, if somewhat dark and a bit lifeless. I think these strings might work well for some in this context, but not for the sound and feel I go for. For a while at least, I know they were popular with Orchestral players.
Helicore Hybrids – I used these strings off and on for a number of years and liked them pretty well as a pizz string for jazz, but I don’t feel they ever were that great with the bow. They are a bit darker than the Helicore Pizzicato strings.
Helicore Pizzicato – This is the brightest, most sustaining, string in the line up and is the D’Addario answer to Thomastik Spirocores. They come in four gauges like the Spirocore line. They are a well priced alternative. The mediums that I used were not great bowers.
Pirastro Obligato – These are the strings I decided to try out after my Helicore period. I was immediately struck by their somewhat looser feel and warmer sound than the previous strings I had been using. The E string was the only problem string for me, as it had a dirty, buzzy quality to it on my bass and I knew it wouldn’t be suitable for recording. I found the other 3 strings intriguing, bowing very well and giving me a warmer pizz sound than I had experienced before. I decided to replace the E string with a Spirocore Mittel and then went with Spirocore E and A, Obligato D and G combo for a while. A nice mix. The Obligatos have a tendency towards short life and when they go, it’s quick.
Thomastik Spirocore Mittels – Going back to these strings after many years with the Helicores, my initial impression was of a big step up in quality. The sound and feel of these strings are first rate. Very well made with a long life span. Their initially bright sound mellows out after playing for a while (weeks, at least). Not the easiest bowers, but for jazz pizz, the standard.
Thomastik Spirocore Weichs – I decided to try these on a bass that has a bit tighter feel than my main instrument. These are very similar in sound to the Mittels, but I find they bow smoother and start easier. They are also excellent jazz pizz strings, lively and easy on the hands. Maybe a bit less “gravitas” than the mittels. I really like Weichs!
I received a couple of sets of Corelli strings from Savarez of France to try out. they are well priced, and I was hoping they might meet my needs.
Corelli 370TX – These are the heavier gauge in the 370 line, although they are still very thin. Fantastic bowing strings with a bright, cello like timbre. Their pizz sound really isn’t suitable for the jazz I play, so I went on to the next package.
Corelli 380TX – These are heavier strings than the 370’s, closer to the Spiro Weich gauge, I think. The E string did not speak at all on my bass for pizz, the A was fair but the D and G strings were quite usable and bowed wonderfully. I used these in combination with the E and A Spiro Mittels for a while. They probably would have been in better balance with Weichs.
Thomastik Dominants – I had these on and off my bass in one day. One of my students uses them and they sound nice and felt pretty good on his instrument, but on mine, not so much. Kind of stiff feeling with a bright sound, fair under the bow. Top bass luthier Arnold Schnitzer reports that the Solo set of Dominants makes a good low tension hybrid string at orchestra tuning.
Pirastro Evah Pirazzi – I got a set of these when they came out a few years ago, and wow, my bass had never sounded as loud and full as with these strings. Somewhat dark sounding, but with a bit of growl and thump for jazz pizz and a nice, meaty bowed sound. I used these for six months or so, but felt that I needed a string with a bit less tension for all the playing I was doing. The old hands can only take so much and it was time to work a little easier, so I decided to try the next set.
Velvet Compas 180 Suite – This was my first experience with the Velvet line of strings. Rufus Reid had introduced me to them a few years ago, and I plunked a few notes on his bass at the time, but I wasn’t that impressed with their sound out in the audience. Most of the players I have heard with Velvet strings (Animas & Garbos) get a very dark, old school kind of sound, not really my thing. The Compas 180 Suites are a bit different, they are made to be played either at orchestra or solo pitch, they have smooth, flat steel windings over a silk core and they are very low tension. I have been using them for six months (until a week or so ago) at orchestra tuning and really enjoy them. They are extremely easy on the hands, have some growl and bite and I think they could be called Velvet’s answer to Spiros. They bow pretty well, but you have to lighten up as they have a pretty wide excursion from the low tension and they bottom out fairly easily, at least with my fairly low string height. The regular Compas 180 have a bit more tension and might solve this problem. I took them off my bass as the G string was not responding too well anymore, probably worn out. On this bass I’m now on to Spiro E and A and Evah D and G, a good combination.
Kolstein Heritage – I wanted to get a set of these as I remembered them to be pretty low tension from my experience trying out basses at the Kolstein shop in NY. I put them on my second bass and they work pretty well, nice full pizz sound and good arco. I haven’t gigged with them at this point so I don’t know how they will respond in a more demanding playing situation.
A few miscellaneous string impressions:
The Spiro Weich G string is pretty thin and I wanted to experiment with some fatter feeling (and maybe sounding) strings. I tried out the Pirastro Oliv steel wrapped gut G string for a couple of weeks. It has a very nice, big, full and fat pizz sound, bows well and mixed pretty well with the Weichs. I found it to be a bit slow in response on my gigs and a bit too dark to project the way I prefer when playing with a loud jazz band. I also auditioned an Innovation 140H G string. It also had a nice fat feel, good volume, and was fun to play, but after a couple of weeks I started noticing a kind of “plastic-y” quality to the sound, so off it went.
I am very interested in auditioning the new Evah Pirazzi Weich set, these may be the answer for for a good, lower tension, hybrid string. Initial reports have been very promising.
Update 5/1/09
I just played 2 gigs with my new EP Weichs and my first impressions are very favorable. They do remind me of the regulars in tone, but they have more growl on the E and A strings. They are also quite a bit looser feeling on my bass, which I like. They sound dark and wonderful jazz pizz when playing alone or soloing with light accompaniment, they do tend to disappear in the mix to my ear when playing in the band. I’ve been tweaking the eq on my amp to the higher side to see if this helps and I think it does. They sound nice under the bow, but the feel is a bit spongy and will require a lighter touch, I think. All in all, I’m getting a nice, dark punchy pizz sound with them and they are quite enjoyable. I’ll report back after working with them some more.
Thank you, Pirastro!
Success in the Private Lesson Studio Part 4: The Path to Music School
This is the fourth installment in a multi-part series on private music teaching. Check out part 1, part 2, and part 3 as well, and stay tuned for more installments in the near future.
Choosing a Life in Music
Planning on going to music school, huh? Congratuations. Despite the many roadblocks, twists, and turns facing a prospective musician, a life in music is really a wonderful thing. Every time I have my doubts about this fact, all I have to do is listen back through all the archived Contrabass Conversations episodes with bass players from all walks of life sharing why they chose to be a musician. This reinvigorates me and makes me realize how fortunate I am to do something that I love.
Where Should You Go?
One important thing differentiates music school applicants from other prospective college students: your success as a performer is much more strongly influenced by specifically whom you end up studying with. While a liberal arts student can floursh in a wide variety of academic settings (big schools, small schools, “Great Books” liberal arts schools, and everything in between), options for serious music students are more limited.
I’ve blogged about making this decision in the past before in a post about seven considerations for prospective music majors, so I won’t rehash what was in that previous post, but check this post out for more specifics about prioritizing and winnowing down your list of potential schools.
Can’t students be successful no matter where they attend college? Sure, but there’s certainly a statistical relationship between where you decide to go to music school and your likely procpects, so school choice can help to stack the odds at least a little more in your favor.
After boiling down your school options to between five and seven possibilities, you have a task that nearly every prospective music student faces:
The “List”
How do you balance the requirements of a half-dozen schools in such a way that you’re well-prepared for each and every auditon? This dilemma faces most prospective music students, and finding a way to intelligently and efficiently chart a long-term practice strategy is a major concern.
The following steps may help to organize your practicing in preparation for those impending auditions:
1. Get repertoire lists from potential schools – The first step to getting your audition repertoire ready for music school auditions is to figure out what each school requires. One of my former bass students did a great job putting together a list of required repertoire for many of the major music schools for double bass, but most people will have to a little phone, email, and internet research to get a solid list of requirements.
2. Winnow down the list to the least number of pieces – You’ve done your research, finding that every school wants a concerto, some want sonatas, solo Bach, and others want an etude from a certain composer. Your task is now to figure out the smallest number of pieces that satisfy these requirements. What you don’t want to be doing is playing one concerto for school A and another one for school B. This might not seem like a big deal six months before your auditions start, but you’ll discover that there’s an “audition season” of about 4-8 weeks in January and February, and you’ll likely be doing one or more auditions each week for a period of time. Travel, fatigue and keeping up with high school homework is going to be sucking up a lot of your available time, and the last thing you want to be thinking about is having to switch gears from one concerto to another.
3. Prioritize your practicing – So much to practice, and so little time! How, you may wonder, should you approach organizing your practice time? The answer is both extremely simple and frustratingly elusive: practice what needs the most work. The challenge, of course, is recognizing exactly what needs the most work! The objective perspective of a teacher can be invaluable for this kind of decision-making. Sit down with your teacher and try to come up with a general plan for practicing. Do you need to be spending an hour a day on that etude that is only required at one school (which isn’t your first pick of schools anyway)? Maybe…but maybe not. Are there some fundamental skills–intonation, rhythm, spiccato, vibrato–that need to be solidified prior to your auditions? Fundamental skills take months and years to improve (most bassists are still working on all of the aforementioned skills every day!), and the time to identify what you really need to work on is not days or weeks before your auditions, but months or even years before.
4. Generate a “recital” mentality – I’ve found that looking at our audition repertoire as a kind of mini-recital rather than as a disassociated glob of etudes, excerpts, and solo movements is a very healthy way to approach this repertoire. If you feel like you’re putting together a recital that just happens to be made up of short little bits from different sources, you may be in a better place mentally–you’re not doing an audition (well, you are, but you see what I mean), but rather doing a performance, and your goal is to assemble this list into a unified whole that you can play at a moment’s notice. This is a tough distinction to draw in a text blog post (as I’m discovering right now!), but there’s a bit of a different mentality between recital preparation and audition preparation, and if you can harness the healthy things about the former for the latter, your preparation may be more peaceful and confident.
5. Start preparing early! – No matter how hard you try, if you’re auditioning for five or six (or more!) schools you’ll probably have a lot of repertoire t get under your fingers. Should you completely ditch technique and any other repertoire to focus on your college audition music, or should you keep a more balanced approach? I’d recommend keeping up a balance until 6-8 weeks before “audition season,” at which point I’d transition into an audition preparation mentality. Starting early and devoting a healthy percentage of practice time (perhaps 50% of your time) to this repertoire about a year before your college auditions should put you in a good spot by the time those stressful couple of months roll around your senior year.
Success in the Private Lesson Studio Part 1: chicken or egg?
It’s been quite a while since I’ve had the opportunity to sit down and write a solid multi-part series. I used to to this a lot on the blog–in fact, my book Road Warrior Without an Expense Account is based on a series of posts I did in 2006 and 2007 on the topic of music freelancing. I’ve also written This Crazy Business (7 parts), Basses, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (5 parts), and A Week in the Life (4 parts). This series will likely be at least five or six installments, and I hope you enjoy it!
My Sweet Teaching Setup
I’ve had the good fortune of being a private double bass teacher in metropolitan Chicago for the last eight years, and during that time I’ve participated in helping dozens of students get into top music schools around the country. 
I’ve learned a lot in the process!
From an outside perspective, it certainly seems like I’ve had a lot of students go on to major music schools. Students that have studied with me have gotten into Colburn, Boston University, Indiana University, The Cleveland Institute, Cincinatti College-Conservatory, Eastman, Northwestern University, DePaul, and many other institutions. Additionally, my students have taken top chairs at Illinois’ district and state all-state auditions, often making up over 50% of the district orchestra…and that’s for a highly competitive district of several million people, encompassing the north and northwest suburbs of Chicago.
As a teacher, it’s easy to feel good about these kinds of numbers, and while I’m sure that my actual teaching has at least some impact on student success, I have, from time to time, asked myself the following question:
“Do I turn people into good students, or do I just happen to teach good students?”
Am I Really a Factor at All?
Several significant factors go into making a successful music student, and though private teachers with successful studios may start to see themselves as all-powerful pedagogical beings, like cyborg “Teachinators” capable of transforming anyone into a star, the reality is usually that successful teaching studios are a result of a self-selection process on the part of the students. Success breeds success, after all, and serious students looking to pursue a career in music look at their successful peers and ask, “Who do you study with?”. A good studio therefore tends to keep getting better over time as referrals keep coming in, and teachers fortunate enough to be in this position simply have to be smart enough to recognize these “desirable” students when contacted. Some teachers take a completely egalitarian approach to their private studio, teaching anyone regardless or age, ability, or attitude. I do not. I have certain strengths and weaknesses as a teacher, and while I like to broaden my abilities as a teacher, I tend to take on students that seem like a good fit for my style. Also, I am maybe a teensy weensy little bit selfish, and want to work with self-motivated students and help get them into music school rather than tear my hair out with less responsive and interested students. Maybe that makes be lazy or lousy as an educator, but I don’t think so. I just like working with really serious students in the private lesson arena.
If I have to answer my earlier question (do I actually help make students good, or do I just attract the type of students likely to be good), I honestly have to say that it’s a little of both. I do have the ability to motivate students, I do understand what “the standard” is and try to move students in that direction, and I have a lot of battle tested techniques for solving technical and musical problems. I know that a lot of other bass teachers have these same techniques and abilities. What has happened for me (and surely happens with many private teachers) is both that I’ve gotten better over the years and I’ve started to draw more serious students. But let me tell you, getting a consistently high level of student got about 20 times easier when I went out in my own as a teacher.
Don’t think that bringing this up makes me insecure as a teacher–it doesn’t. I simply think that it’s important, from time to time, to take a step back and look with a wider perspective at the mtitude of factors that go into the private teacher/student relationship. It’s a very different dynamic from that of a classroom teacher or youth orchestra director, and it is probably the most important factor for music school-bound students. That’s a lot of responsibility as a teacher!
Self-Promotion (and why I hate it)
Free agent teaching has been good to me, but I know that it is not a good fit for everyone. I’ve never solicited a student in my life except for when I taught at the Unversity of Wisconsin-Whitewater (and it was my job to do so). Students have always found me. This blog doesn’t hurt for name recognition 
but that has never been my intent with this site. Even before the blog, I’ve always been trying to figure out how to reduce my student load, not increase it! 
I always have had this feeling that it is somehow…well, sleazy to try to recruit students. In fact, one of my very first long-form blog posts dealt with this very issue, and how the pressure on music performance faculty to recruit students can cause you to make decisions for your own good and not for the good of these prospective music students Good thing I’m no longer on faculty at a university!
My educational objectives (these apply to both the blog and my own private teaching) are to be as much of a help as possible to prospective music students, regardless of whether these prospective students are my own long-time private students or people thousands of miles away that I’ve never met. These objectives permeate everything that I do, from the Contrabass Conversations podcasts, my gig stories, educational posts, and everything in between. In other words, I don’t blog, teach, or play for any sort of self-promotional reason. I find this kind of promotion personally distasteful (and I deal with it a lot as a quai-gatekeeper to the online double bass world).
I don’t blog to make myself “famous”. I do it because I am compelled to do it…and that’s why I teach, play, and do all the other things that I do.
Now, I’m not saying that I think it’s wrong to self-promote! I’m convinced that there is a seismic shift occuring for all creative people (it’s also happening in business, education, politics, and many other arenas), shifting control of content to the individual. This is ultimately a good thing, but it requires that we all become our own individual marketing teams and work to get the word out about what it is that we do, whether it be music, teaching, painting, or something entirely different.
I’m conviced that my reluctance to self-promote has held me back. Ironic that a guy with a book, a blog, and a podcast feels “uncomfortable” with self-promotion, huh? Again, I don’t do these things to make myself famous. I do them because I’m compelled to do them, motivated by a sincere desire to share knowledge.
More To Come…
For the next post in this series, we’ll take a look at the benefits and drawbacks of being affiliated with a teaching institution. Other posts in this multi-part series will cover materials that different teachers use in private instruction, my own personal étude/concerto/sonata educational brew, the path to music school, different styles of students and teachers (and how to achieve a good pairing), and more, so stay tuned!
Bass Blog Posting – Culture Wars – The Value of Music
I have been giving this issue a lot of thought during the holiday season, a time when musicians head out in the snow for the holiday gig season adding merriment to the times – and for me with a newborn in the house, even more poignant…
Time for Holiday Cheer!
Once upon a time there was a department store chain in Chicago – we’ll use the fictional name ‘Gimball’s’ (alla the classic holiday film ‘Miracle on 32nd Street’). This department store thought for a big anniversary; let’s have some musicians perform all day in their store to celebrate. These musicians would be performing for patrons indulging in the usual department store materialism – sales of jewelry, fragrances, clothing, etc. ‘Gimball’s’ contacted…we’ll call the institution the ‘City Music School,’ a local community music school.
Okay, we have some of the players, but a few more to go. ‘Gimball’s’ asked this school for no student musicians – just professionals. Okay – seems like a good idea. Celebrate with some good professional musicians playing high-quality literature. Great idea…or so I thought. I am a self-promoter as a freelancer, but here’s where the champagne goes flat. When the ‘City Music School’ had their faculty to contact a coordinator at ‘Gimball’s’ to setup the gig…wait…you mean you aren’t going to pay? You mean that I, faculty for a not-for-profit institution DONATE my work to a for-profit corporation. There’s injury No.1. So okay, if I were to hypothetically come & play for an hour or two, parking validation right? NOPE. Injury No.2…Insult No.2? So I would have to drive 40 miles into town, spend $20-30 on parking & no food either. Well, I’m not juggling that gig into my schedule.
Hello Scrooge Ol' Boy
So what’s the problem here? A few of the faculty at the ‘City Music School’ spoke up to the administration of the school. With complaints about contacting the union local, suggestions of using students instead, my feeling is that the true issue is about the value of the work we do. It has as much to do about the value of music and/ or the perceived value:
It is vastly different, when I (the performer) offer a pro bono workshop or performance – I am offering work I believe has value for no cost. When someone asks me to play for them for free, it suggests that this individual doesn’t value the work I do. Here’s a scenario:
I go to a dinner get together with various people and they ask me what I do for a living. I mention that I am a professional musician and teacher. They ask -”play me something.” If I am in the company of friends, or colleagues, I might just to prove to them what I do is at a certain level.
When a complete stranger does that, I ask – “what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“Oh, would you write me a free will or give me free legal advice?”
“No…”
“Then don’t ask for free work from me.”
No Sense Being Miserly!
It’s not that I think everyone has to pay for music. I do not think that ‘class warfare’ is the name of the game. Apologies by the way to a student of mine who IS a lawyer – I’m just using another ‘professional’ as a player in this discussion. The issue is this attitude in our American culture.
The poor urban areas deserve outreach efforts (that’s the work I do in schools) – but why should those who can afford to pay for quality art not subsidize works of art?
Oh…you said the a-word. What word? ART.
Art is often a bad word nowadays. There is such a focus on materialism and sports – remember what the ancient Romans did? Give them bread and circuses! No need to educate the masses right? Let’s give them Guitar Hero or Rock Band…no need for them to even learn how to do what we do.
Ever notice that primary schools are cranking out more students in choirs, orchestras & bands every year, many of which do NOT continue in music. Culturally in the United States, the majority of youth who are involved in sports become avid sports enthusiasts later in life. I don’t usually see the same happen with music students. I think the cultural ‘dummying down’ of what our musical art is about by seeing the popularity of games such as Guitar Hero exemplifies that music has been turned into a commodity. It’s got to have a dollar-value right? No. It’s more complicated than that. More people are being exposed to art music than ever before due to the success of Apple’s iPod & other MP3 players. On the other hand, ensembles still are struggling to get audiences to come & see live music. We’ll see how that trend plays out, but time for the rest of us to move and take advantage of new media.
The value of art & music is a big issue that in an era where media exposure to content, music or otherwise, can be grabbed up sometimes for nothing. This is something I think about a lot. What we do as musicians has value, but with everything being turned into a commodity in our consumerist culture how do we explain the value of music?
I had a college professor who referred to individuals as “musicians” versus musicians. One is an amateur – any person can, through some effort, achieve some proficiency on an instrument (or their voice) can label themselves a “musician.” How does that differentiate from someone who has spent years mastering their craft? Well, I’ll leave that up to you to think about.
So in the end, what is the value of music? I love what I do, but I often have to balance monetary concerns with artistic ones. All of us do at some point. Before you decide what you are willing to do, free or not, consider the value of the musical product you are producing, who is the audience for your work, and how much effort you can afford to put in. Let’s do what we can to bring music to wider audiences, while still remembering that we can’t do everything for free.
Remember the spirit of giving this holiday season, and happy holidays from the bass blog!
Happy Holidays from the Bass Blog!
These opinions are strictly the opinion of the author, Phillip Serna, and not necessarily of the Double Bass Blog.
Improve Your Rehearsal Enjoyment
Bass players often spend much of a rehearsal waiting or counting rests. No wonder we often get yelled at – too much idle time! I’m sure you’ve heard from teachers that you should listen to the other instruments – try focusing on the viola or second trumpet. And that’s a great!
Here are some other tips for you to get more out of rehearsals.
-Bring a little notebook. When I was in graduate school at Champaign-Urbana I knew that afterwards I’d be teaching in the public schools. The orchestra conductor there was great so I kept a little notebook and wrote down phrases and wordings he used. I paid more attention and became a better conductor.
-Practice! No, not out loud. But I find rehearsals a great time to work on vibrato. Try using a slower vibrato or see how relaxed you can be. Try focusing on having your vibrato be continuous between notes.
-Notice players technique. As a teacher I’m always looking at the upper string players technique to keep sharpening my violin teaching. Notice posture and then observe yours.
- Notice the conductor’s stick technique. Most musicians at some point have to lead an ensemble so here’s ‘free’ time to do observations. See what works and what doesn’t.
-How is the attitude of the other musician’s? Negative? Then look at yourself and try to be positive.
Thanks for reading and for more tips check out MostlyBass.com
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