Thoughts On Guitar Education and Teaching
Williams has expressed his frustration and concern with guitar education and teaching, if it is too one-sided, e.g. focusing only on solo playing, instead of giving guitar students a better education including ensemble playing, sight-reading and a focus on phrasing and tone production/variation. Williams notes that "students preoccupied with fingerings and not notes, much less sounds"; some are able "to play difficult solo works from memory", but "have a very poor sense of ensemble or timing". He notes that students play works from the solo repertoire that is often still too difficult, so that the teachers often put more "emphasis on getting through the notes rather than playing the real substance of each note". To encourage phrasing, tone production and all-round musicianship, Williams arranges for students to play together in ensembles, choosing works from the existing classical-music repertoire, such as the "easier Haydn String Quartets".
Read more about this topic: John Williams (guitarist)
Famous quotes containing the words thoughts, guitar, education and/or teaching:
“For it does not follow because many books are written by persons born in America that there exists an American literature. Books which imitate or represent the thoughts and life of Europe do not constitute an American literature. Before such can exist, an original idea must animate this nation and fresh currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along its shores.”
—Margaret Fuller (1810–1850)
“Swiftly in the nights,
In the porches of Key West,
Behind the bougainvilleas
After the guitar is asleep,
Lasciviously as the wind,
You come tormenting.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Infants and young children are not just sitting twiddling their thumbs, waiting for their parents to teach them to read and do math. They are expending a vast amount of time and effort in exploring and understanding their immediate world. Healthy education supports and encourages this spontaneous learning.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“... teaching to me was anathema, chiefly because it would condemn me to a world of petticoats.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)