My daughter is in a trumpet class and they have to criticize one another. She's the grad student and thus senior student in the group. When one kid didn't play well, at all (almost everything wrong in multiple ways), she told me that she said this: "I think you should play with more confidence. That will help you to play much better and address some of the other issues you are having." This seemed brilliant to me. If she had just listed all the problems with this kid's playing, it would have not been constructive in the least. She said she always says, "what I'd like to hear is..."
This post has made my morning.
ReplyDeleteYes. She told me more of her teaching tricks. She told this girl: you know how to play the trumpet, you know what the notes are, etc... The idea was that playing so unconfidently made all the other problems much worse, with rhythm, intonation, etc... A student with bad rhythm, she will say, "I'd like to hear you give each note its full value."
ReplyDeleteGreat teaching future, she has, among other possible great futures.
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