Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

Now what does that title have to do with anything? Well, I read over my blog stats on a daily basis, including which blog posts are popular, where my readers come from, how many readers have visited the site, and what search terms bring readers to my little blog community.

Recently several people have been searching for information about Becker Gavotte, Gossec Gavotte, Gavotte from “Mignon,” and some other songs that I recognized instantly as the ones that typically cause teachers trouble. Hence my title today.

I remember when I first realized that I had teaching problems in my studio. I had been teaching for many years, but at the time I had recently opened up my studio full time. Since I was working long hours every day to accommodate a full studio, I was tired at the end of my teaching day. I did not have the reservoir of patience and creativity that I might have had if I only taught ten to fifteen students. I began to consider what areas of my studio did not produce an energizing return for me, and that is when I discovered how to fix the troubles I saw in my studio. Below are some basic lessons I learned and how I began to figure out how to address the problems.

Listening Deficiency

I noticed that some students had a difficult time learning a new piece. I would have to practically stand on my head or write down the notes with some sort of fingering code in order for the student to remember (or even learn!) the piece. Allegretto stands out in my mind as one of these pieces. Etude, Minuet 3, and Minuet in G were others. When I puzzled over why this might be an issue, I considered what tools I could suggest that would improve the learning process. Why, listening to the recordings frequently, of course! So I asked the parent to play the recording of the piece a few extra times every day, and that is when I really noticed the look on the parent’s face. Oh, they were not doing the listening in the first place, I realized.

I stopped being afraid to talk to parents directly a long time ago. Parents naturally want what is best for their child, and if they do not, then they should. So, I stopped hesitating about bringing up these sorts of issues with parents. I believe that parents should do everything they can do to the best that they can to be sure that their child is able to learn to the best of the child's capability. I cannot expect to place the responsibility of playing the recordings daily on the shoulders of a five year old. Gosh, children need to be prodded to brush their teeth before bed, take baths, and eat their vegetables! And that is when they are still in high school! No, a parent’s touch is required here, and if a parent has trouble remembering to turn on the recordings, then I suggest steps that the parent could take to help his or her memory. Sticky notes are good, alarms on the smart phone work well, and text and email reminders from the teacher are really successful!

Now I frequently ask parents if they are doing the listening every day. Do they have the CD playing in the car? Can they find the CD? If the parent has put the recordings on the child’s electronic device, how has the parent made sure that the child is actually listening to the recording?

If the parent is playing the recordings and the child still has trouble with the new song, then I recommend doing additional “extra” listening every day for a week or two. Usually the problem clears right up in a week once the parent steps up the listening work.

Daily Practice

This issue would seem to be a no-brainer, but yes, there are still parents out there who think that their child can learn a new skill and develop a high level of ability without actually having to practice the instrument every day. There are also parents who may understand the value of daily practice but who seem to think that a minimal amount of effort is all that is needed to accomplish what needs to be done. I even had one parent who was doing the 100 days club requirements but doing a minimal amount of practice for it (5 minutes per child). I let it slide for a while because the daily practice habit was the purpose of the 100 days club, but after awhile I started urging the mom to step it up and increase the amount the children practiced. I knew they could accomplish more than they were. The parent might establish the daily habit of practicing, but by limiting the practice to five minutes, the parent was not enjoying the experience of finding out how good a parent she could be. As any good Suzuki parent will tell you, the practice issues happen after the first five minutes, when the going gets tough and the parent has to draw on good parenting skills and exercise maximum creativity.

Again, I do not hesitate to ask parents and the student how much practice is being done at home. I find that if I phrase the question in certain ways, that I am sure to encourage the parent to do more in the practice department. This is not the time for my open-ended question technique. Here is when I turn on my lawyer charm: Did you practice every day this week? I like to start out by asking whether the parent has practiced with the child the optimum amount, which is every day. The parent may whittle the answer down into a lower amount, but at least they know where the “top” is.

Intonation Problems

Boy was this a tough one to figure out! There were some spots in the Suzuki repertoire that eluded me for a long time in terms of intonation. The teachers all know what songs I mean: Gavotte from “Mignon,” Gavotte in G Minor, and Becker Gavotte to name just a few. Also, as part of the intonation problem, I had to deal with left hands that fell down under the fingerboard or left index fingers that would not stand up, or pinkies that did not play on their tiptoes. I have written several previous blog posts about addressing intonation, so I will not address the issues again in this post. If you would like to revisit those articles, here are the links:

Orange Peel Tone

Ringing Notes and Super Ears

Can You Spell Ševčík

Learning How to Fish

I am sure you have heard of the paraphrased expression: Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Well, here is how I learned how to fish, I mean teach, through the problems I saw. Let me use the Gavotte Three as examples (Gavotte from "Mignon," Gavotte in G Minor, and Becker Gavotte). Here are the discovery steps I used to teach myself how to fish:

• Identify the problem
• Specifically identify the problem
• Discover where the technique was first introduced
• Develop a strategy to shore up the technique or prevent the problem in the future
• Figure out how to present my strategy to the student in a palatable way

And here is my further discussion of each of these discovery steps.

Problem: Student plays woefully out of tune. Specifically the student’s left third finger does not stretch high enough, the first finger does not reach low enough, and the pinkie is confused about whether to stretch out to a perfect fourth from the first finger (it is a flat pinkie in the music, after all).

Specific Problem: Usually I will follow the Julie Andrews’ technique of isolating the two notes where the problem occurs. Just as a basketball hoop is missed because of an improper layup or a baseball pitch is missed due to an inadequate swing, so most musical technique problems occur between the note where the mistake is and the note that precedes it. However, in my current problem, I could not identify two notes. Specifically, the problem was that the student did not adequately understand and could not properly execute the appropriate finger pattern. The same problem occurred in both pieces. So the fingering pattern was the problem.

Discover Where the Technique was First Introduced

I identified the technique’s first appearance as somewhere around the Two Grenadiers. To be completely accurate, I could identify the issue as a little exercise that Dr. Suzuki put in the beginning of the previous version of Violin Volume 2, where he had the student hold down the third finger and then silently move the first finger from the regular squared knuckle position to the lowered first finger position of Bb. Once I figured that out, I was able to trace the development of the skill throughout book 2. I found the lowered first finger first in Two Grenadiers. Then I found the finger pattern needed for Book 3 within the middle section of Gavotte from “Mignon.” Ah ha! Now I was onto something.

Develop a Strategy to Shore up the Technique or Prevent the Problem in the Future

From that point of discovery onward, I increased my teaching efforts in book 2 to prepare my student better for the skills required by book 3. I made sure that my student was solid on the lowered first finger in Two Grenadiers, including the little exercise at the beginning of book 2 and using the finger in our Aunt Rhody Goes to Saudi Arabia game (substitute Bb for every B natural in the song). Then I made sure that the middle section of Mignon was absolutely perfect before moving out of book 2. I will explain in the next section how I accomplished that. These small steps paved the way for a much more enjoyable teaching experience for me, and my students were much better equipped to handle the lessons found in book 3.

• • 
    
  Figure out how to Present my Strategy to the Student in a Palatable Way

I have already mentioned the Aunt Rhody Goes to Saudi Arabia game. Other ways I presented the new finger pattern was to teach the student about transposition. Students are already transposing when they play Twinkle or other songs on different strings. They may not have enough theory background at this point to understand what they are actually doing, so I bring up the issue now, although Long, Long Ago in Book 2 is a good place as well (since it is transposed from the original A major version of book 1).

Next we transpose Perpetual Motion into the key of Bb. I do this because it teaches the finger pattern that Mignon and book 3 require. I also teach my students to play a Bb scale, 1 octave (on the A and E strings), and also play the scale in thirds. We have been known to work with a tuner too. Even my little ones find the tuner useful as well as fascinating, and working with a tuner also helps my students to learn how to maintain an even tone with the sustained bow.

Armed with these Bb tools, my students are ready to tackle the middle section of Gavotte from “Mignon.” However, before they do, I staple a $1 bill to the bottom of the song in their book 2. I tell my students that this is a dollar spot. In order to earn the dollar, the student must play it perfectly in tune. Whenever that happens, the student can then remove the staples and we paper clip the dollar to the book. The student must then come in the next week and still be able to play the dollar spot perfectly in order to remove the dollar bill and put it in his or her pocket.

I do not let my students collect the dollar unless they absolutely play the passage correctly and in tune. I am very particular about this. The student may take a long time to earn the dollar. We just keep moving along in the book while the student keeps trying. I do not allow the student to move past book 2 until the dollar is won. Usually the student earns the dollar within a few weeks. [And do not worry about going broke stapling dollar bills to students' music books. Usually the parent produces the dollar bill when I ask if they have a dollar for change. They kind of scurry to produce the dollar bill for me so that I do not have to use mine. Very sweet!]

Since I required these small steps in book 2 (and we focus on them in group classes as well), my later book 3 problems disappeared! Similarly, when I used my discovery steps to analyze problems in book 1, I discovered my answers and my solutions earlier in the book.

I have been teaching many years now, so I have had many opportunities to discover problems and solutions throughout the entire Suzuki repertoire, and I have been offering many of my discoveries to you through this blog and its articles. Try using these same questions and make some of your own teaching discoveries, and let me know about it by posting a comment below.

Monday Morning Check In: Golden ZigZag

I learned many things when I studied law, but I want to talk about two things today, because I think they might help parents reach some insight about problems in the parent-child relationship and how to create positive, effective solutions. One item is the directed verdict. The other is the golden zig zag.

When one side in a trial finishes presenting its case, the other side may ask for a directed verdict. This is a request that the judge take the case away from the jury, basically saying that the first party did not prove one or more crucial elements of its case. When we learned about this concept in school, we likened it to looking at one side of your hand. When you look at one side of your hand, you are unable to see the other side, and vice versa when you turn your hand over to see the other side. Asking for a directed verdict means that you think you can tell everything there is to know about how to decide a case just by looking at one side of the hand.

Our perspective is like a directed verdict sometimes. We only see one side and do not have the richness of considering the other side to fill out the complete picture. Intelligent folk strive to be open-minded, considerate, and aware of many perspectives, but let us face the fact that we are not that successful at it when our emotions are at stake. When a parent and child are at odds with each other, it is so easy for the parent to reach conclusions as to the reasons why a child is behaving a particular way. The danger is that the parent is not giving enough reflection to the situation to consider what other perspective might explain what is happening.

Those of us who studied Aristotle and his philosophy in school may recall his golden mean, that moral behavior is the desirable middle or mean between two extreme points: one of excess and one of deficiency. I studied under a wonderful professor, Dean J. Spader, and he wrote an article entitled “Individual rights vs. social utility: The search for the golden zigzag between conflicting fundamental values.” You can find this article in the Journal of Criminal Justice, 1987, vol. 15, issue 2, pages 121-136, if you would like to read the entire article. I am only going to reference one tiny part of the article that caught my interest many years ago and which has stuck with me as a decision-making tool for many years. If you are a fan of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, then you will be familiar with the four quadrants that Covey uses to determine what is important and urgent. Other authors have suggested a similar quadrant box for decision-making. Here is an example of the quadrant box:

Quadrant Box

The quadrant box basically sets out two positives in box one (upper left) and two negatives in box 4 opposite it (bottom right). There are two other combinations of boxes one and four that appear in boxes two and three. Covey used the box to make lists of things along with their importance and urgency factors. Box one was “important and urgent,” box four was “not important and not urgent,” and you can figure out how boxes two and three were completed.

In Spader’s article, he wrote about the struggle to balance social versus individual rights. While it was clear to Spock in Star Trek parlance — “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” — in reality our social and governmental structures struggle daily with this issue. In essence, rather than search for the mean point between two extremes, Spader showed how we made “zigzags” among the boxes as different needs and rights came to the forefront related to different situations.

OK, you are thinking, this is interesting, but where are you going with this? Where is the usual Monday Morning Check In discussion about life and improving our habits and character? I am getting to that. I just wanted to be sure you had the same tools at your disposal that I want to use: the directed verdict hand and the golden zigzag.

Last week was an interesting week for me as a teacher observer. Some of my best studio moms were struggling mightily with child behavior issues. Now there are many possible reasons for the behaviors we saw: school is out, vacation bible school or summer day camps have started, routines are altered, etc. Kids and their parents are just starting to figure out what the schedule is going to be for the summer. As I watched though, I saw how easy it was for my best studio parents to fall into the trap of the directed verdict – seeing just one side of the hand. I understand the reason for this, because a lot of emotion is attached to any part of the parent-child relationship.

I call these my best studio parents because they are open to discussing the problems with me and reflecting on possible solutions. They are also open to hearing any possible observations I have about what might be going on. And I admit, I can be pretty frank about what I see. I am in a unique position as a teacher observer who sees the parent and child maybe once or twice a week. I am not easily inured by the day to day grind, so I can sometimes see quite easily what might be going on. I also have the advantage of watching a pattern unfold from week to week.

I will not relate the personal stories of my studio families from last week. Suffice it to say that we had lovely conversations about what could be going on. I offered up the observation that things were not quite so one-sided if we were to take a step back from the directed verdict and look for the golden zigzag. There are many perspectives and each has its own possibility for directing us to a particular verdict. The truly reflective teacher and parent will instead search to follow the golden zigzag, which will consider and balance all the possibilities.

I will leave you with one personal story that a parent volunteered to share. In this case the parent and child had struggled last week because the parent’s work routine had changed once school let out. That meant that the child’s practice routine changed, and the parent had not been able to work out a great solution yet. This week the parent still had not worked out a good solution, but she had found a way to resolve most of the practicing drama issues.

Mom said she spent time reflecting on what she wanted rather than what she did not want. In this case, she wanted to get back into a practice routine that centered on practice rather than drama issues, despite her summer work schedule changes. This week she resolved her previous week's problems by doing these things:

• Mom worked to change her attitude and make practicing more fun again, instead of a chore.
• Mom still had not figured out a great schedule, but she did put practice sessions before something else that the child would want to do, such as playtime.
• Mom kept it simple and fun.
• Mom used grandma and the child’s younger cousin to re-inspire the child to play by having grandma and cousin serve as an audience.
• Mom worked to see more good things in the child’s playing rather than things that needed to be corrected.

Bravo, mom! Rather than facing the situation as “this is the way things are, and you just have to get over it,” mom looked for the golden zigzag. Judging by the success mom reported to me at the end of the week, I would say that mom had found it.

Happy zigzagging!

Teaching Tip: Be Observant!

One of the best tips that I can offer a teacher or parent about how to be more effective as a teacher or parent is to be observant and pay attention to your student or child. When you watch carefully, you will figure out a great deal about what is going on in the head of that student or child. You will also gain valuable clues as to issues that negatively impact the student’s or child’s learning.

I was always fascinated with the stories of Dr. Suzuki’s listening to graduation recordings sent in by students. How, I wondered, could he be able to offer comments about the student’s posture or character issues just by listening to a recording? Now that I have taught for so many years myself, I can now understand how Dr. Suzuki accomplished this feat. I discern many things about a student, not only by watching the student, but also by listening, and using my sense of touch.

Most of the people in the world are visual learners, which means that they take in what happens around them through visual stimuli using their eyes. Try the following experiment: activate your “super ears” by closing your eyes and really listening hard without simultaneous visual stimulation.

How does your student or child sound when they walk into the room? A high school student of mine loves to wear a particular pair of cowboy boots. I can tell how she feels about herself and the upcoming lesson just by the way she clicks her feet when she walks into the room.

Can you hear that the student’s right elbow is too high or that there is tension in the student’s shoulder? The wispy tone is a dead giveaway. A high elbow usually means an over-pronated bow hold too. The index finger may be drooped over the stick and the pinkie may be straight and stiff, and the thumb may be showing signs of pushing through the underside of the frog and turning into a banana rather than being bent and strong and resting against the frog.

Can you hear the clunky bow change at the frog or the crunchy bow changes in general no matter what part of the bow? Check the bow hold again. Is the student relaxed? Is the student hanging out in the lower half of the bow most of the time?

Hear that slippery bow sound at the beginnings of notes? You can bet that the student’s bow is crooked or off the contact point in general. Or maybe the student is getting that squishy, soft sul tasto sound, where the bow is slipping over the fingerboard. Again, check the bow hold and see whether the student is completely opening up the right elbow when traveling the bow to the tip. Many students get a little bit sloppy and floppy once they develop “finger motion” with the right hand fingers, and the bow hold tends to suffer. Also, once students start reading music, they tend to focus on the music more and listen to the sound they produce less overall. I encourage my reading students to memorize their music repertoire as quickly as they can so that we can refocus on good posture, good articulation, and good sound. 

Now open your eyes and really observe your student or child. Are they looking at the music, if reading music is your purpose? I can tell by watching whether a student is really reading the music or whether they are playing by ear (or memory) and “appearing” to look at the music. Watch the student’s eyes. Are they focused or glazing over? Do they follow along with the music or does the student lose his or her place occasionally?

I have a really intelligent parent who has this disconcerting habit of slipping into a fixated stare at me in the middle of an instruction or conversation. I cannot tell if she is really listening to me or pretending to. The next time I experience this stare, I plan to stop talking or doing anything even if I am in mid-sentence. I cannot think of any other way to test my theory out. If she is really paying attention and just has that funny “look” in general when she is concentrating on a conversation or activity, then she will respond instantly to my stopping in the middle of my sentence or activity and ask me why I stopped. If she does not respond to my interrupted speech, my suspicion will be confirmed (at least at that moment in time), and I will need to think of a way to address this issue.

Students are a bit trickier to discover when they are not paying attention. I see it as a lack of focus in the eyes. I also stop talking in these cases and consider whether talking is feeding the child’s tendency to “wander off” mentally. I usually draw the child’s focus back onto the activity or conversation by engaging them in conversation with a question about the activity. My questions begin with “what” or “how” in order to solicit actual responses of more than one or two words. (Note: I am not discussing specialized cases of learning issues here, such as ADD or ADHD).

With eyes closed again, feel the energy in the air as your student enters the studio. I can tell when a parent or child have had a fight in the car on the way to a lesson or when a student has had a hard day at school just by the quality of energy (or lack of it) when they enter the room. I sometimes hear that there was a fight because the student’s “hello” is glum and fuming, while the parent’s voice is overly cheerful and upbeat. I have even been able to tell which child is the parent’s favorite or easiest to raise in a family of more than one child just by listening to the parent’s tone of voice when they address each child. Parents beware of this! If I can hear a difference in the tone of voice, you can be sure that the children can too.

This week, be observant about your student or child. You may learn something new.

Useful Parenting Tool: The Power to Walk Away

I am going to tell you a teaching and parenting story from my real life studio archives. This story I am about to share with you illustrates one of the most effective teaching and parenting tools I have ever discovered: the power to walk away.

Once upon a time I took a course in negotiation, and I learned many useful tips. The most important lesson I learned was: "don't lose the power to walk away." A person loses the power to walk away when they become afraid of the consequences of not reaching an agreement about something. They are afraid that they will lose any part of the opportunity if they do not agree with whatever is on the table at the moment. That is the point, however, when the negotiating power can be at its strongest, because the other side also has the fear of what they will lose when they walk away from the negotiating table.

What does this have to do with teaching and parenting? Absolutely everything. I say that with complete conviction because I have been observing children and their parents for almost four decades. The issue also trends in popularity at various times. Right now I find the issue quite common because parents are truly too busy to spend the time necessary to correct and instruct (discipline) the child concerning unacceptable behavior.

I have one truly terrific parent in my studio, however, and I want to share this amusing and powerful story with you.

Last week I had a lesson with a three year old who has been coming to lessons about six months and doing a terrific job learning how to play the violin. This last lesson, however, was not so great. The child's family routine had been disrupted due to some unexpected travel out of town to help a grandparent move. Although the mom did her best to maintain the child's practice, the schedule was disrupted, and the child was reacting unpleasantly to the change in routine. The practice sessions were not happy and were becoming less and less productive overall. Mom was doing everything short of standing on her head, and things had not improved.

At the child's lesson, I spent some time helping mom to come up with a few little practice games and routines to try at home. Then I began teaching the child. I got very little cooperation from the child. She fell apart like a jellyfish the minute I let go. She would not hold a single position in place. Finally, about five minutes from the end of her "lesson," the child stopped even turning her head to the left to put on the violin. She absolutely balked, and then refused to turn her head and put it on the violin.

I turned to mom at that point and said that was all for the lesson that day. "What was the fun thing that you WERE going to do after her lesson today and which is NOT happening now?" I hinted. Her mom told me that they had talked about buying a little toy on the way home from the lesson if the lesson had gone well, which it most definitely had not. I reminded mom that buying the toy would NOT happen now, would it?

It took the child about 30 seconds for the reality of the consequences to sink in. During that short window of time I quickly instructed the mom about what to expect and do next to be sure that we were both on the same page. I warned mom that there would be a huge blowup momentarily, and that it would be pretty nasty for about 20 minutes. And under absolutely NO CIRCUMSTANCES was the mom to change her mind or give the child an opportunity to earn the privilege back that day. The opportunity was completely lost. Period.

And that is when the caterwauling began. Wailing, crying, and desperate clinging measures were used. The child kept tugging on mom's arm and urgently repeating, "I'll be good, I'll be good, I'll be good! I'm sorry, mommy, I'll be good!" Mom started to turn around and talk to the child, probably in an attempt to calm the child down, but I engaged the mom in a pleasant conversation instead. Actually the two of us were trying very hard not to giggle at the situation, because we had predicted that this would happen. Mom could have asked the child to comply with any direction at that moment, as the child was completely compliant, obedient, and absolutely desperate to go buy that toy.

I am so sorry that we did not have a video camera running during the entire episode, because this was a classic "how to" video for parents. Thankfully, the child's mother is a great mom and is strong enough to withstand all the child's tactics.

Here is the power tool that my student's mom employed:

• Say it once
• Turn your back
• Walk away

What do you say? "I'm sorry, but I didn't like [fill in the blank.] So, we are not going to do [fill in the blank.]" You do not discuss the matter any further than your first pronouncement. That is the "turn your back" and "walk away" part. And that, my friends, is the simple yet incredibly effective tool of "the power to walk away."

How does the story end? I got a text message from mom today: "I'm soooo happy! [The child] feels horrible about last week and has practiced everyday without drama. She'll say, 'I'll practice without the drama.' :)"

So the next time you are tempted to give in to your child's demands, remember to give "the power to walk away" a try.

If you want more information about how to use this tool effectively, read Dr. Kevin Leman's book Have a New Kid by Friday. You can purchase the book to read on your Kindle or Kindle app.

Quick Practice Tip: Think-Throughs

Before beginning a practice session, a performance, or any other endeavor, I believe your student will have greater success if he or she makes use of the "think-through."

A think-through is a mental thinking through of the steps that you will take in order to meet your goal. Basically the think-through is your goal, or it should be. Here is an example.

Before playing through a section of Bach's Gavotte in Book 5, I asked my young student Elliott what he needed to remember while he was working through the section. Elliott indicated a few spots in the music where he wanted to be careful to play correct notes, and he also wanted to maintain his bow hold throughout the entire section. After playing the section, I asked Elliott to evaluate how he accomplished his think-through. In this case, Elliott met each of his think-through goals. We then decided to move on to the next section and repeat the think-through process, but in this section, Elliott had a different think-through. Here he was more concerned about following a particular bowing pattern and not bumping the wrong strings and making extraneous noise with his bow, as well as maintain his bow hold throughout the piece.

As a teacher, I was delighted to watch Elliott engage in this think-through process. A young boy, Elliott is more inclined to rush through his practices and play all of his music as fast as he can: (1) because it is fun to play fast, and (2) because faster means shorter practices (at least, he thinks that practices will be shorter until his mom reminds him about the metronome). When Elliott relies on the think-through system, Elliott's practices are more thoughtful, he is more present and aware of what he is doing, and he tends to pick much more reasonable tempos that allow him to complete his work successfully. As a student, I think Elliott enjoys the think-throughs because it puts him more "in charge" of what he is doing, and Elliott enjoys the feeling of being "in charge."

Next time you practice, pick a section to work on, give it a "think-through," and then evaluate your efforts at the end. I think you will be surprised at what you will accomplish and learn using this quick practice tip.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Never is there a good time for a teacher-student relationship to end, but right now there is a new school year beginning for many of the Western world, and folks may be contemplating a change in teachers. Now might be a good time to discuss this important issue and ways to minimize the emotional damage for the parent, the student, and especially the teacher. I may focus on the parent's perspective more than the teacher's here because in my experience the parent is usually the quickest to end the teaching-learning relationship. Sometimes a parent is unaware of the teacher's emotional connection; teachers often hang onto a teaching relationship longer than they should because of the tremendous amount of emotional investment the teacher has made.

Teachers will share with you that the relationship with a student is a very personal one. In order to be an effective and influential teacher, the teacher must give something of him- or herself. A good teacher does not just give instructions, advice, and directions. A good teacher addresses the whole personality of the student and mentally prepares a program that will encourage, strengthen, and nurture the student to reach his or her greatest potential. There may be some teachers who fall short of that mark or who may not be the best fit in a particular student situation, but I believe that most teachers would agree with me about our purpose as good teachers.

How does one break up this teacher-student relationship and in many cases the teacher-parent relationship? There are several perspectives to consider since there are three persons involved in the relationship (sometimes more than three if other family members are involved). The typical teaching-learning relationship will include the teacher, the student, and the parent. In the Suzuki world this is referred to as the Suzuki Triangle. Each point of the triangle is important to the growth and potential of the learning situation. If one person along the point of the triangle is not doing his or her "job," the shape of the triangle will be "altered" in a way that is detrimental to the student's continued learning success. The most optimum teaching-learning environment is one in which each point of the triangle is at its strongest.

Each part of the triangle is important:

• The teacher's responsibility is to teach the parent how to be an effective teacher or coach on the home front during the student's home practices. The teacher also teaches the student all the technical aspects of making a good sound on the instrument and of effectively expressing a musical idea or emotion. The teacher has typically attended many institutions of higher learning and taken many different levels of teacher training in order to be effective in this aspect of teaching.

• The parent's job is to teach the child at home in the teacher's stead. The parent is responsible for playing the listening assignments and for practicing the assigned homework material. In addition, the parent assists the child in learning a new piece (fingerings and bowing) and in practicing effectively.

• The child's job is to simply be a child. We allow the child to attend to his or her learning through the child's senses, at the child's optimum pace, within the framework of the child's ability to concentrate, and helping the child achieve skill development through effective review and repetition as the child focuses on one thing at a time. [Thank you, Jeanne Luedke for your excellent teaching on this subject!]

At some point in the process, the distinctions between the various triangle roles disappear and the parties take on added or different roles. The teacher strives to guide the student to be his or her teacher in many respects as the student reaches the advanced stages of musical development. The parent fulfills the role of a coach and fan and functions more in the realm of waving flags and shouting hoorays from the balcony. And the student assumes more and more responsibility for making and implementing his or her own decisions about expressing musical ideas and what technical means to use to accomplish the best expression of those musical ideas.

All of my discussion to this point is to help others understand how involved everyone becomes in the process. The longer the relationship has gone on, the deeper the relationships and emotional connections. When a parent, teacher, or student makes the decision to break the connection, there will be emotional upheaval and hurt, and sometimes anger as a way to express the hurt. In many situations, the teacher will emotionally grieve the loss of the relationship, and the student will feel abandoned, even if the teacher is not the reason for the breakup. The student will be watching the adults and how they handle the situation, so be aware of the role you choose to play in the scenario. Remember, as teachers and parents, we are always role modeling for the child how the child should behave as an adult. Please be responsible in your behavior and show the child what is the mature way to handle this type of situation.

Here are some of my suggestions for ending the relationship in a positive way:

Acknowledge the past history in a positive way.  Avoid complaining. Avoid blaming. Avoid any negativity. Recount the history of your relationship together with gratitude and joy. There is no benefit to  giving criticism and making judgments other than to puff yourself up, even if you are correct in your assessment. Your child is watching to see how you handle this situation, so please consider the kind of behavior and message that you wish to reveal and have your child learn from observing you.

Avoid pointing fingers of blame for your decision. If the parent is ending the relationship, please avoid accusing the teacher of falling short in some way. Just stay focused and positive. Nothing good gets accomplished by being negative or even making nasty remarks. Remember, most new teachers will call the former teacher to get the "whole story." I never enjoyed being put on the spot in that way. I understand that for many people, if there is a nasty breakup, the former teacher may find it difficult to cast the historical information in a positive light. So, take personal responsibility for your choice and state your reasons in a positive, logical (unemotional), and nonaccusatory way. As a teacher, I spend several months and several conversations or emails trying to fortify the relationship and bring everyone back to the same positive teaching-learning environment. When I finally give up, it is because I have finally concluded that I am the only one left in the relationship who cares how it turns out.

Avoid complaining. Stay upbeat. Do not use the breakup as an opportunity to air your stored grievances. Expressing your complaints now will not change anything or improve the situation for any of the parties in the future. Remember your child is watching to see how you handle this situation, so act well. Pulling out all the kitchen-sink grievances is not an effective demonstration to your child or student of how to handle conflict.

Allow the other person to "save face." The other person may become upset, but nothing useful will come from an argument. Since it takes two people to make an argument successful, take the higher road and refuse to argue. Just accept the other person's anger and agree with them. The argument will eventually fizzle.

Apologies are worth extra points. If you can find it in your heart to do this, you can walk away from the situation with a well deserved pat on the back. Accept responsibility for the problem and sprinkle your apologies liberally throughout the conversation. In the words of the famous cinema star Clark Gable, apologize for your shortcomings.

Thank the teacher for the experience that you had with them. Whether you deem the relationship with the teacher to be worthy of continuing or not, the fact of the matter is that the teacher did invest his or time in the teaching-learning relationship and deserves to be thanked for the time and effort that he or she put forth.

Next time, do your homework. Choosing a teacher should not be a quick decision. Speak to the teacher, ask the teaching community for recommendations about the teacher, observe the teacher in the teaching-learning environment, and provide your child with an opportunity to interact with the teacher before entering into the new relationship. Many new parents call me and expect me to provide little more than glorified babysitting services. That is not what I do and it certainly is not my purpose in life. I spend a great deal of time honing my teaching skills so that I can provide the greatest service to my students and their parents and families. I expect that my parents and students will enter into the true spirit of the teaching-learning relationship and will not accept them into the studio if I think that I cannot help them to progress along the learning road. Some parents may contact me without doing their homework first, but I make sure that they do it before they embark in a relationship with me and my studio.

Whatever you do, do it with class. I got this advice when I was a youngster about to quit my first major job in a fit of anger. I heard this advice two hours before I was about to stage a royal blowup. I considered the wisdom of the advice and instead completely reconstructed my resignation plan. I followed all the steps I outlined above. I acknowledged all the persons in the organization by name and listed their contributions to my personal growth in the workplace. I thanked everyone for all that they did to help me on the job or in my growth. I stayed positive and avoided complaining. I did not work up a frothy blame game but instead focused on what I had learned and what value I would take from my work experience and put into my future endeavors. I chose my positive and grateful attitude and expressed it liberally and in a public manner via a memo addressed to all the partner-directors of the organization.

Let me tell you the benefits I received from taking this "high road" of ending the relationship. My employers and fellow workers made their good-byes with big smiles on their faces (and tears in their eyes in a few cases). I got big bear hugs from some of the top dogs. I got acknowledgment in return for all that I had contributed to the firm. The firm actually sent me a sizable amount of outsource work in the month that followed, which really helped me out financially. And because I showed that I had class, I was included in their recommendations to others.

Most of all, I felt good about what I had done and the way I had handled it. I felt like a grownup.

Please show consideration and thoughtful reflection in your relationships, whether it is with your students, your children, the studio parents, or the teacher. Please show some class and professionalism in the manner in which you end a teaching-learning relationship.

Monday Morning Check In: Solving Problems with Bicycle Tires

Last Monday I talked about some guidelines for making decisions. Today I would like to talk about solving problems. With my older students, I frequently explain the problem-solving steps by using the analogy of changing a bicycle (or car) tire, assuming that the student is familiar with the process of changing a flat tire and checking for repairable leaks. I use the music practice or lesson situation to demonstrate appropriate problem-solving skills to students as well as to the observing parent. Let us look closer at the tire changing process and then relate it to the problem-solving steps.

First, we notice that a tire is flat. With a car, there is a blowout if you are unfortunate, or otherwise you notice that the car lists somewhat to one side or another. With a bicycle it is more obvious, as the bicycle does not move very well.

Next we remove the tire or bike tire tube and check for leaks. This step uses bubbling water to find the air hole or leak. After we have located the leak, we then make the necessary repairs or patches.

We replace the tire back onto the vehicle, pump it full of air again to make it strong, and then test drive it to see if the repair will hold.

Looking at the steps described above and summarizing, the steps involved in problem-solving the flat tire are:

• identify the problem
• come up with solutions to solve the problem
• pick a solution and try it out
• evaluate the solution and determine whether it solved the problem

Those are the same steps we use to solve other problems, whether in a life circumstance or in a music practice session. Since this is a blog about teaching music, I will focus on the music practice session for an example of putting these steps into practice.

Before I continue, I would like to put in a plug for a skill that I think is more important than any other -- awareness. I use the term of "awareness," but I have heard other words used in a similar context to refer to the same skill: mindfulness, mental presence, focus, concentration, thoughtfulness, reflection, in the moment, paying attention. Without our being aware of what we are doing, we are unlikely to be able to identify a problem accurately.

It sounds silly for me to say this, but I am amazed at the number of students, teachers, and even professional musicians who play without seeming to actually hear what they are playing. I am frequently fond of asking my students how they can expect others to listen to their playing when they themselves are not listening. When I ask my students to really focus on what they are doing, they are themselves startled to hear how many extraneous noises are coming out the instrument and that escaped their notice. It is an interesting phenomenon, and I also work hard to improve this skill in my own playing.

This awareness, or lack of it, shows up in professional situations too, such as symphony orchestra rehearsals and performances. It puzzles me when a player hangs onto notes longer than anyone else in the entire orchestra or plays notes in a different style (or intonation) than the other players. This is a blatant example of lack of awareness. This type of musician (or student) just does not "get it." This laziness of paying attention stems from such a person's general malaise of not engaging in their own life very well. As a teacher I spend the time necessary to build up this awareness skill in my students. I ask a lot of questions rather than give the student many answers. I use a lot of open-ended questions (they generally start with "what" or "how") in order to engage the student in conversation of more than a few words.

So first, there must be an awareness of what is happening. The student then identifies the problem. I find this step to be quite difficult for many students. They think they understand where the difficulty is, but frequently the students are off the mark. I recall listening to an interview given by the wonderful singer Julie Andrews ("Mary Poppins" and other wonderful films), where she recalled the best and most useful advice she had received from her singing instructor. When she missed a note, her instructor helped her to understand that it was generally right before the note that was the problem. If a basketball player misses a shot, it usually is not because they missed the actual shot. The missed hoop is generally due to a faulty layup preceding the actual shot.

Students are quick to identify the problem: missed shift, faulty intonation, bow slipping off the note, missed slur. However, it takes my guidance in general to help the student discover that the actual problem is the anticipatory note before the missed shift, intonation, slipped bow, or missed slur. Once we figure this out, I guide my students to narrow down the problem area to two notes, because I believe that every faulty musical area can be distilled down into two notes: a shift, an interval between two notes, or a string crossing between two notes.

After correctly identifying the problem area, I guide the student into thinking about possible practice ideas to address and correct the problem or to make the passage easier. Then the student selects an option and puts it into play. When the student decides that enough practice has been done to correct the problem, the student then test drives the problem area by putting it into context. This means that the student goes back earlier in the material and plays an entire passage to see if the problem has actually been corrected or eliminated.

So, to recap the problem-solving steps:

• identify the problem
• come up with solutions to solve the problem
• pick a solution and try it out
• evaluate the solution and determine whether it solved the problem

Next time you encounter a problem or difficulty in your life or your music practice, try out these steps. If you have trouble solving problems effectively, spend a bit more time working on your skill of awareness and make sure that you are identifying the actual problem. If you need help in this area, then visit with a teacher, read some teaching materials, or leave me a comment or question.

Have a great week!