Private Teaching: A Reflective View Workshop at the Sarv Academy

$20 and please RSVP at 416-229-0189/ info@sarv.ca

This workshop aims to give the studio music teacher tools for thinking critically about their practice. I am motivated by numerous accounts heard over the years—and my own experiences—of learners’ extreme disappointments in private music study, as well as teachers’ complaints about the drudgery of their work. I hold that the studio music lesson’s unique potential to create a richly fulfilling experience for learners and teachers unfolds when teachers have carefully thought through why, how, and what we are teaching, as well as how we see ourselves situated in society.

This workshop will take the form of an informal conversation whereby topics relating to private study and pedagogy will be introduced and participants will share with each other, take notes, and look at tools so as to generally engage in becoming a more reflective practitioner.

Since there are so many aspects to potentially cover when speaking to what unfolds in a private music lesson, the emphasis for this evening will be on examining the relationship between engaged teacher-student rapport and certain philosophical/pedagogical approaches to music education that I feel support such an engagement whereby “the work of music” is not at the centre per se, but the making of music and the cultivation of two individuals and a unique human relationship highlighting active participation in music—and beyond—is.

I will draw on my experience as a former music student and holistic music educator/artist, on student and teacher narratives, on music education philosophy, methodologies and research, and on various streams of psychology to encourage broad ranging reflection on the multi-faceted nature of studio music teaching and learning.

Unique to the music relationship is communication via musical sound. In my mind, the resultant web of various communication modalities that occur in the music studio open up the possibility for an extremely rich human relationship that can deeply affect the musical—and overall life— development of both parties.