| I've
had a piano for seven years and a synthesiser for seventeen years
and I've just learnt how to play. I'd been trying the play all that
time but failed dramatically. Then as soon as I stopped 'trying',
within a week I could suddenly play.
It came
about because I wanted to retain the 'cool dad' tag for as long
as possible with my fourteen month old son. We've been filling his
day with music since he was born and when he expressed an interest
in the large wooden piece of furniture covered in ebony and ivory
keys I wanted to be able to play a tune for him. So I did. Was it
as simple as that, you say? Actually yes. And I'm not saying all
this to impress you, but to impress upon you a strategy for learning
which can be, and should be, applied to everything you want to learn.
Let's
have a look at what is going on here.
The first
thing was that suddenly the motivation was there to learn. When
I was at school my parents and the teacher were concerned that I
was late in reading. The reason was that they had given me a load
of old boring books to read. I wanted to be able to do it to please
them and get away with it and I wasn't motivated in the actual reading
of such dull stories. But when I got me hands on the Dalek and Star
Wars annuals with their comic strips I suddenly 'got it'. Then I
devoured the many Doctor Who novelisations of the television series,
a couple I owned and the rest from the library. Remember these were
the days before video recordings. A Doctor Who story was on television
once and then never repeated so books were the only way of reliving
the adventures.
Comic
strips, pulp science fiction, novels of tv series and fantasy 'choose
your own adventure' books were all decried by teachers and parents
in the 70s and 80s. What they failed to recognise, as the author
Philip Pulman has often pointed out, is that it's the reading that
is important for children. It doesn't really matter what they read
as long as they do read. (For Pullman it was the Superman comics).
Children soon consume a range of books and then look to the next
thing to satisfy their reading desires. It's often those who started
on the lesser appreciated literary forms that move quicker onto
more advanced works.
What was
going on with my early reading was that I was getting a result straight
away. I was learning as I went along, but I was getting the result
which was the understanding of the particular adventure story.
I'd used
the same approach to learning the guitar. I was self-taught. I learnt
that I only needed the chords A and D to play 'Mull of Kintyre'.
Add in an E and I could play Buddy Holly's entire back catalogue.
My goal was to sing and play and within a week I could do that.
After a month I was writing my own songs.
So it
was this technique that I applied to the piano. The goal was to
be able to play and sing some popular songs. I didn't need to start
at the very beginning and learn the history and meaning of dots
and squiggly lines on wires. All I had to do was to make a convincing
sound.
All learning
begins with self learning. A good teacher shows the way and needs
to surround the student with the right motivation for them. The
student then pulls themselves up, by themselves. The thrill of achievement
then fuels the next stage; the desire to get better. This is where
the teacher is needed as mentor, to guide the student through to
mastery by showing technique and information.
So many
teachers get this process back to front. They bombard the student
with technique and information which goes over the heads of so many
students who then feel disenfranchised and lose interest. There
is a certain percentage of people who can learn this way but many
will get quickly bored if the information is not relevant to their
current goal. It's all about finding the right teaching strategy
to match the student's learning strategy.
Now that
I can convincingly play 'Hey Jude' and 'Let it Be' I can begin to
expand my repertoire as well as going back to look at the technique
and information for reading printed music. I now have the motivation
to be able to get there.
You'll
have your own learning strategies. They may be different to mine
but they'll be the same in the one vital way: you will always need
less will power to learn something you want to learn and that you
will enjoy learning. If you have to use will power then you are
more than likely to just give up and do something more rewarding
at the first sign of hard work. Build the reward into the learning.
This will work whether you want to learn Mandarin, Chemistry, salsa
dancing or piano. Ask yourself 'why?'. If that 'why' is compelling
enough you'll be doing it in no time.
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