Jeff Berlin says - Bass Teachers Work Harder at Fixing Learning Concepts That Don't Require Fixing

[Drgonzonm]

@JeffBerlin,
One of my introductions to the world of guitar, and a little later upright bass, was a Mr. Hernandez, a world renouned flamenco and classical guitarist, through his love of music he brought guitar to elementary students. I studied upright bass in junior high, but I don't remember playing in any other keys than C G and F, I am sure the orchestra teacher had his music credentials. Probably not at the quality of Breklee, but degreed as well as certified as a teacher it was through my junior high teacher that I listened to Copeland, Bernstein, and attended opera in Santa Fe.
My attendance at one of the many schools of music would the waste of many people's time I will leave that spot to some a 1/4 of my age.

 

[SteveCS]

...
but I don't remember playing in any other keys than C G and F, I am sure the orchestra teacher had his music credentials.
...

...but i guess you didn't stick at it. Those are the first 3 keys of any study course. All naturals, then one sharp and one flat. The most able students will meet (for the purposes of examination) the keys of D# minor/F# (6#) and Eb minor/Gb (6b) about 4 years down the track - most never get there.

 

[aborgman]

Great! I certainly believe you. You are the first completely self taught reader and writer I've met.

I wouldn't say "completely self taught".

My grandmother read books to me. From her reading I memorized the books. Then I figured out the written word by looking at the books and knowing from memory what the words were.

If you already could read and write, can you tell me what you did in English classes during elementary school when other students were being taught how to read and write?

For writing - basically exactly the same thing as other students. Even when you already know how to make letters - you can still perfect it.

As far as reading goes - there were two things:

1) I was allowed to read what I wanted instead of working on whatever (much simpler) books my classmates worked on. I was reading things like The Hobbit when my classmates were reading Dick and Jane books.
2) I read with reading groups 2-3 grade levels ahead of my class. In 1st grade I would leave the classroom during reading time and go to a 4th grade class and read with them.

Also, can you share what those numerous different methods are? I am interested to know.

The two most common methods are Phonics and Whole Language.

Phonics is a "part - whole" reading method.
Whole language is a "whole - part" method

Phonics teaches how to "sound out" new words by learning a bunch of rules (consonant sounds, blend sounds, short vowels, etc.). It is a series of rules that children have to memorize and apply when they are sounding out new words. Children are taught a rule, i.e. Silent e, and then they practice reading words with Silent e.

Whole language uses connected print to introduce reading to children. Children are encouraged to memorize words as whole units. It generally involves writing in journals, and analyzing words in context, by using pictures, for meaning.

 

[SteveCS]

I wouldn't say "completely self taught".

My grandmother read books to me. From her reading I memorized the books. Then I figured out the written word by looking at the books and knowing from memory what the words were.

...

Sounds a bit like when i was taught to sing at sight as a child, except I had the score in front of me whilst listening and singing back. It's a very effective method with very young brains. We had a guy at junior school similar to you - reading 'The Hobbit' whilst the rest of us read 'Stig of the Dump'...

 

[Drgonzonm]

...but i guess you didn't stick at it. Those are the first 3 keys of any study course. All naturals, then one sharp and one flat. The most able students will meet (for the purposes of examination) the keys of D# minor/F# (6#) and Eb minor/Gb (6b) about 4 years down the track - most never get there.

Really, that was the education course. I hope college courses are more advanced than my middle school. From talking to a sibling who had eight years of cello, through a public school system, theory was learned out of curiosity not in class.
I regularly play in other keys, typically, selecting a position for the key.

 

[SteveCS]

Really, that was the education course. I hope college courses are more advanced than my middle school. From talking to a sibling who had eight years of cello, through a public school system, theory was learned out of curiosity not in class.
I regularly play in other keys, typically, selecting a position for the key.

Interesting. My daughter has played cello now for 5 years. This year she is preparing for ABRSM grade 7, but had to sit the grade 5 theory exam as a prerequisite for examination at performance grades above 5. By then all keys and most common time signatures are covered in the 'musical content' performance levels, as are most of the other topics covered by the theory part.
Interestingly the other major curriculum here, Trinity, does not mandate any theory prerequisites.

 

[JeffBerlin]

I wouldn't say "completely self taught".

My grandmother read books to me. From her reading I memorized the books. Then I figured out the written word by looking at the books and knowing from memory what the words were.



For writing - basically exactly the same thing as other students. Even when you already know how to make letters - you can still perfect it.

As far as reading goes - there were two things:

1) I was allowed to read what I wanted instead of working on whatever (much simpler) books my classmates worked on. I was reading things like The Hobbit when my classmates were reading Dick and Jane books.
2) I read with reading groups 2-3 grade levels ahead of my class. In 1st grade I would leave the classroom during reading time and go to a 4th grade class and read with them.




The two most common methods are Phonics and Whole Language.

Phonics is a "part - whole" reading method.
Whole language is a "whole - part" method

Phonics teaches how to "sound out" new words by learning a bunch of rules (consonant sounds, blend sounds, short vowels, etc.). It is a series of rules that children have to memorize and apply when they are sounding out new words. Children are taught a rule, i.e. Silent e, and then they practice reading words with Silent e.

Whole language uses connected print to introduce reading to children. Children are encouraged to memorize words as whole units. It generally involves writing in journals, and analyzing words in context, by using pictures, for meaning.

This was my conclusion as well, that you were taught academically even if you learned some skills before you got to school. Lots of kids acquire what you did before they get to school, but it is the same educational method that got us all to end up with the ability to read and write with the skills that we demonstrate today in our lives.

I learned with Phonics as well. We all did. There aren't a lot of various and different approaches to reading and writing and never were. You seem to have experienced perfectly my definition of the only two approaches to learning music 1. Being self taught (or taught by influence and guidance from your grandmother) and being educated in academic fact. There also seems to be only two approaches that we all were privy to which is phonics and whole language. It is the same with music; either we are self taught and/or we are taught academic musical content. Knowing this is why I felt that you were never completely self taught in reading and writing.

No one achieves your level of skill and does this on their own, not in this country they don't. This is the entire point of my views of learning and being taught bass, that there aren't lots of ways to learn, not trustworthy ones anyway. But most people reading this think that they can learn from everything. If this was true, then why do so many bass players still have trouble playing their instrument? It surprises me that people that believe that philosophy still haven't put that together.

Students aren't different. We all require the exact same material. It is musically a fact. It is also proven that there are only a remarkably few options to learn music by. I wold REALLY feel happy if more of my bass playing colleagues here on TB and elsewhere would understand this point.

I'll end our personal chat by saying that you don't have to agree with me. Still, I enjoyed conversing with you.

 

[JeffBerlin]

Interesting. My daughter has played cello now for 5 years. This year she is preparing for ABRSM grade 7, but had to sit the grade 5 theory exam as a prerequisite for examination at performance grades above 5. By then all keys and most common time signatures are covered in the 'musical content' performance levels, as are most of the other topics covered by the theory part.
Interestingly the other major curriculum here, Trinity, does not mandate any theory prerequisites.

Your daughter's experience reflects my common statement that other instruments are taught correctly, especially classical instruments. Music is first, then the instrument is used to play the music is a very close second, so close that they are almost inseparable. Here being taught theory in the form of keys is common for children being raised in classical studies which explains why self taught bass players seem to make the most unaware teachers regarding music. They simply don't know how it works which is why they work harder to make it simple, perhaps for themselves. I encourage all bass players to pay attention to this post and notice how a child is learning the true language of music and what has happened to her musical skills in this style because she did learn correctly. There's an important message here for every if you look closely enough.

 

[JeffBerlin]

@JeffBerlin,
I am sure the orchestra teacher had his music credentials. Probably not at the quality of Breklee, but degreed as well as certified as a teacher

Berklee isn't the school that it once was in my view. It certainly isn't the school that I once attended say to say. Something changed in their vision of teaching. Berklee has adapted a broad spectrum education instead of what I see as a a lean to-the-point education designed to focus on instrument and music. Lots of schools have done this. The approach that Berklee once used to educate me seems to be gone, replaced by much of the philosophies of broad education, students choosing teachers, and teaching various styles that in the past were learned quite well on their own by players interested in those styles.

It is ironic, but it was the teachers at Berklee that first made it clear that music was first when being taught. I came to the school a rocker, influenced by the Beatles, Cream, and Hendrix. I wanted to pursue learning those kinds of things but instantly, two teachers at different times told me that learning musical content is what mattered and that I should put aside my wish to learn more about rock. In reflection, these teachers might have been the most important that I ever had because they stopped me from making decisions about my education that I wasn't qualified to make.

 

[aborgman]

This was my conclusion as well, that you were taught academically even if you learned some skills before you got to school. Lots of kids acquire what you did before they get to school, but it is the same educational method that got us all to end up with the ability to read and write with the skills that we demonstrate today in our lives.

I was reading at about a 5th grade level when I started formal schooling. School certainly didn't teach me how to read. They required me to read... but then I did that on my own way more than in school.

I learned with Phonics as well. We all did.

I didn't.

My self learning was much closer the "whole language" method than it was to phonics, and the school system I attended definitely used the whole language method and not phonics.

There aren't a lot of various and different approaches to reading and writing and never were. You seem to have experienced perfectly my definition of the only two approaches to learning music 1. Being self taught (or taught by influence and guidance from your grandmother) and being educated in academic fact.

Being educated "in academic fact" is WHAT you are taught, not HOW you are taught. They aren't the same thing.

A lot of physics problems can be solved in many different way - WHAT you are taught (the underlying physics) is the same for all of them, HOW you're taught (and the methods used)are very different.

There also seems to be only two approaches that we all were privy to which is phonics and whole language.

No - those are just the two most common approaches.

There are also the language experience method, neurolinguistic impression, and probably dozens of others.

"Thinking in the field has moved away from either-or points of view about one method or set of books to a realization that different children learn in different ways, that the processes of learning to read and reading are more complex than we once thought, and that the issues in reading instruction are many sided."

Russell, D.H., & Fea, H. (1963). Research on teaching reading. In N.L. Gage (Ed.), Handbook of Research in
Teaching (pp. 865–928)

Knowing this is why I felt that you were never completely self taught in reading and writing.

I would argue that outside of inventor/discoverers - no one is completely self taught.

This is the entire point of my views of learning and being taught bass, that there aren't lots of ways to learn, not trustworthy ones anyway.

There are numerous WAYS to learn - but I'd argue that (at least in terms of tonal western music) WHAT needs to be learned is pretty singular.

But most people reading this think that they can learn from everything. If this was true, then why do so many bass players still have trouble playing their instrument?

For the myriad of reasons people struggle at lots of things in life - lack of persistence, lack of interest/desire, lack of talent... a whole myriad of reasons.

Students aren't different. We all require the exact same material.

Those are two relatively unrelated points. You keep conflating the what with the how.

Students ARE different. WHAT they need to know may be the same - but their ability and the methods which work best for imparting that knowledge are quite often different.

 

[JeffBerlin]

Students ARE different. WHAT they need to know may be the same - but their ability and the methods which work best for imparting that knowledge are quite often different.

I would agree! Some players learn faster than others. Some learn more content than other can at a given moment. But any competent teacher is able to adjust the lesson to allow a student to learn according to their particular manner of learning.

What I object to is the literal altering of the teaching of musical content. There are many examples of bass teachers "modernizing" the methods of teaching by literally altering the very academic topics that are proven to work. My issue is that teachers have taken proven methods and "simplified" them to make things easier for their students. Hence, the expression "Learn in the Fastest Way Possible."

There already exists methods of learning that are proven to make everyone, 100% of all bassists, improved as players and knowledgeable in music. Bass teachers seem to spend more time trying to make simple those principle of music that aren't complicated at all. They just require a little bit of time to learn them. And, if they are complicated, so what! What isn't difficult to understand at the beginning?

I find it not only an insult that bass players might be viewed as incapable of learning music as everyone else has, but, it seems a form of deception for bass players to not encourage students to learn music as everyone has learned it. One teacher (not important who) actually stated that learning music as it was always taught is proven to work. But it takes too long to learn this way. I was astonished that a top bass teacher denied his students a straight road toward correct and effective musical learning because he thought that it took too long to learn this way. The statement is an insult and it is also a lie. Saying this might even have prevented some players influenced by this teacher to not realize their full musical potential and seek out competent learning instead of relying on reformed methods that literally puts the players that rely on them as guinea pigs.

I am not a troller. I am a guy that was taught music for a long time and I know what we all need to improve because we all need the same thing; at its most basic level, we need to know what the right notes are. I mean no hard, but there are some rather strange events going on in bass education and I thought that people might benefit from thinking about this a little bit.

 

[Gorn]

I would agree! Some players learn faster than others. Some learn more content than other can at a given moment. But any competent teacher is able to adjust the lesson to allow a student to learn according to their particular manner of learning.

What I object to is the literal altering of the teaching of musical content. There are many examples of bass teachers "modernizing" the methods of teaching by literally altering the very academic topics that are proven to work. My issue is that teachers have taken proven methods and literally altered them to make things easier for their students. Hence, the expression "Learn in the Fastest Way Possible."

What is good for people to realize is that there exists methods of learning that are proven to make everyone 100% of all players improved as players and knowledgeable in music. The methods work. But bass teachers seem to spend more time trying to make simple those principle of music that aren't complicated at all. They just require a little bit of time to learn them. And if just about all musicians for centuries who learned how to improve in music by learning these methods and musical content the same ways (including one's individual needs to be adjusted to learn them) I find it not only an insult that bass players might be viewed as incapable of learning music as everyone else has, but, it seems a form of deception for bass players to not encourage students to learn music as everyone has learned it. One teacher (not important who) actually stated that learning music as it was always taught is proven to work. But it takes too long to learn this way. I was astonished that a top bass teacher denied his students a straight road toward correct and effective musical learning because it takes too long to learn this way. The statement is an insult and it might even have prevented some players influenced by this teacher to not realize their full musical potential because of a stupid statement like this.

I am not a troller. I am a guy that was taught music for a long time and I know what we all need to improve because we all need the same thing; at its most basic level, we need to know what the right notes are.

How are you gathering data on what and how teachers are teaching?

 

[SteveCS]

How are you gathering data on what and how teachers are teaching?

A random sample of bass 'instructionals' on YouTube should give you a pretty good idea. The few of real value probably have the lower 'viewed' counts.

 

[Gorn]

A random sample of bass 'instructionals' on YouTube should give you a pretty good idea. The few of real value probably have the lower 'viewed' counts.

That may be true but Jeff Berlin seems to be talking more about face to face lessons from a teacher to a student, not youtube videos.

 

[fdeck]

You are maybe the first person I've read about that wasn't taught how to read and write in school.

My mom learned to read and write at home, as did my brothers and I, and my kids. We all learned the same way, starting by learning the letters and then very rudimentary books. And reading is one of those things where it becomes self fulfilling once you get over a hump.

 

[JeffBerlin]

My mom learned to read and write at home, as did my brothers and I, and my kids. We all learned the same way, starting by learning the letters and then very rudimentary books. And reading is one of those things where it becomes self fulfilling once you get over a hump.

Gotcha! You all were taught academic reading and writing at home using educational books that spelled out the lessons. This is how practically everyone was taught how to read and write. Thank you for sharing.

 

[JeffBerlin]

How are you gathering data on what and how teachers are teaching?

They announce their courses on the internet and there are videos popping up from clinicians. It's easy to catch the drift of how bass is taught. Plus, lots of people share their educational background with me. Finally, I've been doing clinics for a long time and so far people seem to share similar backgrounds in how they were taught or how they learned.

People sometimes ask me my academic background. I'd like to share it here as to give people an understanding of where I am coming from when I see bass educators as limited.

I am trained as a violinist and classical piano since age five until I was 16. I'm a self taught bass player who went to Berklee during the time that its philosophy of teaching constituted a narrow and pure music content education. From 1975 to 1978, I studied privately with Ritchie Beirach, Randy Brecker, and a couple of sax players whose names I can't remember. I was given written music and advise about practicing from the cream of the New York jazz community. While I was becoming one of the top call bass players in New York, I folded up my tent and moved to Boston so that I could study with one of the greatest jazz educator of the 20th century, Charlie Banacos. I studied with him for two years and continued to study with him until his death.

I transcribed close to a hundred fully written out jazz solos from players such as Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Gary Burton, McCoy Tyner, Cannonball Adderly, Michael Brecker, Keith Jarrett, Pat Martino, Joe Henderson and Phineas Newborn because I wanted to know what they knew about playing. I transcribed dozens of excerpts from jazz records if the playing interested me. The last transcription was of Japanese pianist Makoto Ozone.

I bought books on harmony, saxophone books from Jerry Bergonzi, trombone books from Phil Wilson, and I continued researching all kinds of sources of music including transcribing the written music of Chopin, Schubert, Brahms, Debussy, Ravel, and Vaughn Williams trying to figure out their harmonic ideas. Now, I am scheduled to study with one of Nashville's top sax players and I am looking for a composition teacher over at Belmont University.

I am not better than anybody. I am not a better bass player than anybody But, I know more about what musicians need in order to improve their bass playing as well as anybody in the electric bass world. Even if I took my academic interests to rather lofty investigations, we all require to know what the notes are in order to play. This makes us all the same as musicians; to play, we all need the same things.

 

[fdeck]

Gotcha! You all were taught academic reading and writing at home using educational books that spelled out the lessons. This is how practically everyone was taught how to read and write. Thank you for sharing.

That seems like putting words in my mouth. There were no lessons. Parents simply picked out books that seemed easy enough to try reading. Before that, we were shown letters and words as we were being read to.

I think it was more akin to "learning by doing."

But I also think this is a digression from the discussion, so I'll drop back to lurker mode.

 

[Sneakyfish]

Gotcha! You all were taught academic reading and writing at home using educational books that spelled out the lessons. This is how practically everyone was taught how to read and write. Thank you for sharing.

That seems like putting words in my mouth. There were no lessons. Parents simply picked out books that seemed easy enough to try reading. Before that, we were shown letters and words as we were being read to.

Isn't this just debating the method of the instruction?

I can't help feeling that regardless of it's format and how the information is presented, the fact that it was presented to you by someone else still logically constitutes a lesson, class, session, talk, tutorial or polite chat to me.

I guess if you can both agree on whether or not a lesson is taking place. You can then decide if the source of the information was academic or not. And then whether or not the information was standardised across the experiences of everyone else at that age. If it turns out that the info was standardised, and that most people are literate as a result, then you can say: "Whoopee! The system works!"

Then, of course, you'd have to agree that the model of language education can be transposed to music education. That it at least applies in some way.

From there I think you can safely speculate on the efficacy/inefficacy of standardised academic music education.

Jeff's original point seems to be this:

'Music theory has been deemed by some as too complex a subject to still be taught as it has been for a long time.'

(I guess the argument is that if the methods are complex it's because they're out dated in some way and in need of reform.)

But if we expand this whole thing outwards, music theory is a heavily simplified and condensed form of physics, mathematics, psychology. It wraps all of the complex interactions taking place between these different areas into nice discrete and concrete terms. These are simple words for complicated sonic and mental phenomena like:

major and minor, consonance and dissonance, tension, resolution, octave, diatonic, pentatonic, suspended, third, dominant, cadence.

We'd have to write an essay on each of these things if we had to describe it to someone without the words supplied to us by theory.

Theory is already a simplified and condensed version of these other sophisticated disciplines. So how much simpler does it need really to be?

Without theory my main compositional device would be a calculator! XD
Without theory we'd be stating actual frequencies in hertz, can you imagine!?

"Oh dude, are you playing 731Hz over my 718Hz? I really think the gap needs to be 9Hz because the last gap was 4.5Hz and it was 2.25Hz before that bro, seriously!" I personally would be screaming to be let back into the dimension with normal theory. Too complex? No. In need of simplification? Not really IMHO.

So I too have to ask why and in what way the extant system of education really needs to be altered? Historically, it's produced exceptional musicians globally, so in what way is it now suddenly broken?

 

[JeffBerlin]

Isn't this just debating the method of the instruction?

I can't help feeling that regardless of it's format and how the information is presented, the fact that it was presented to you by someone else still logically constitutes a lesson, class, session, talk, tutorial or polite chat to me.

I guess if you can both agree on whether or not a lesson is taking place. You can then decide if the source of the information was academic or not. And then whether or not the information was standardised across the experiences of everyone else at that age. If it turns out that the info was standardised, and that most people are literate as a result, then you can say: "Whoopee! The system works!"

Then, of course, you'd have to agree that the model of language education can be transposed to music education. That it at least applies in some way.

From there I think you can safely speculate on the efficacy/inefficacy of standardised academic music education.

Jeff's original point seems to be this:

'Music theory has been deemed by some as too complex a subject to still be taught as it has been for a long time.'

(I guess the argument is that if the methods are complex it's because they're out dated in some way and in need of reform.)

But if we expand this whole thing outwards, music theory is a heavily simplified and condensed form of physics, mathematics, psychology. It wraps all of the complex interactions taking place between these different areas into nice discrete and concrete terms. These are simple words for complicated sonic and mental phenomena like:

major and minor, consonance and dissonance, tension, resolution, octave, diatonic, pentatonic, suspended, third, dominant, cadence.

We'd have to write an essay on each of these things if we had to describe it to someone without the words supplied to us by theory.

Theory is already a simplified and condensed version of these other sophisticated disciplines. So how much simpler does it need really to be?

Without theory my main compositional device would be a calculator! XD
Without theory we'd be stating actual frequencies in hertz, can you imagine!?

"Oh dude, are you playing 731Hz over my 718Hz? I really think the gap needs to be 9Hz because the last gap was 4.5Hz and it was 2.25Hz before that bro, seriously!" I personally would be screaming to be let back into the dimension with normal theory. Too complex? No. In need of simplification? Not really IMHO.

So I too have to ask why and in what way the extant system of education really needs to be altered? Historically, it's produced exceptional musicians globally, so in what way is it now suddenly broken?

I believe that you got my point completely. I will only add that there is nothing in the approaches of both teaching or learning music that is outdated. It is simply studying and practicing what has been assigned to you to work on. That's it in its entirely! There's nothing complicated about this.

This puts the entire weight of responsibility on teachers to know what they are doing when they teach, from the regional teacher in a music store to the most visible bass instructors on Planet Earth. I include myself in that top group and for that reason, I want people to know that if you study with me, I am entirely responsible for your musical improvemente. All that my guys (and dolls) have to do is practice. That is literally it!

I confess a deep resentment regarding teachers that attempt to simplify musical principles that have educated a planet. I simply never heard of top music educators deciding that their students can't or shouldn't learn music just like everyone else has done. This seems to have begun with bass teachers who literally decided that the present systems of learning how to play and how music functions aren't worthy of regard. What other reason could anyone have to take proven methods of learning and alter them, or, as one teacher stated, to not learn via those systems because "it takes a long time." I am not aware of any other instrument whose figurehead teachers, schools or websites make attempts to dumb down music lessons so that their students don't have to learn music as everyone else has learned it.

I'll end with this thought: It is a lie, a complete fabrication to believe that music in its present form is too difficult to learn. This is why I encourage players to seek better sources of learning if you are going to pay someone to help you to play better. Great teachers will tell you the truth about learning, and believe me, you will all survive the learning experience intact and musically much more enlightened. Good luck to you all!