Teaching vs. Playing

[funkymonkey]

Do you have to be a good player to become a good teacher?

[_Don Herman]

Warning: The following is an unpaid opinion generally of the soapbox variety. I'm leaving out "I think", "in my opinion", etc. for the sake of brevity; please assume it's there before every statement.

My answer is "no". Some of the best teachers are not the best players, and some of the best players are not the best teachers. This happens in many fields, not just trumpet playing. There have also been similar threads on TH (TPIN, and others I'm sure). A teacher who has struggled may be better able to relate to your trials than a "natural" who has never had to try hard. The latter may not really have thought about what and how s/he does it (playing) and have difficulty conveying (or, transferring) his ability to the student. The "struggler" may have a much better idea of how to deal with issues, and in fact have a much bigger bag of tricks (range of ideas) to try when working with you.

Gobs of exceptions on both sides, of course. Some of the greatest teachers weren't primarily trumpet players, e.g. Arnold Jacobs and Carmine Caruso. Some were, like Louis Maggio and Claude Gordon. Again, numerous examples both ways can be found from the dawn of time (more or less) to today.

I do believe a trumpet teacher should have a decent understanding of the mechanics, and an appreciation for what a trumpet is supposed to sound like, so at least you have a common frame of reference and actual physical issues can be properly dealt with. I would want that in a teacher I was seeing as a primary educator. But, plenty can be learned about phrasing, style, improvising, and other musical issues by taking a lesson or two from another instrumentalist, or singer, etc. In fact, their different perspectives on sound (re)production can be quite revealing and very helpful.

FWIW - Don
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Don Herman/Monument, CO
"After silence, that which best expresses the inexpressible, is music." - Aldous Huxley

[trumpeterb]

One of the best teachers I ever had hadn't played for years due to his dental problems. As a matter of fact, in the time I spent with him, I never even saw him touch a horn, but I learned more about music from him than anyone else.

[cybertrumpet]

Bobby Shew is one of the finest educators on the planet and talk about a player..........
Terrell Stafford teaching in Philly and whoa, what a superb player!!
Tiger Okoshii- teaching at Berklee and man o man.
If I were going back to school, I would find a teacher who is not only a great teacher, but a great player as well. That is just me.....


[ This Message was edited by: cybertrumpet on 2002-07-02 11:00 ]

[dbacon]

DB

[1B]

Being a strong player is very helpful in being a good teacher. However, I feel that many great players are not great teachers, because they are so natural that they haven't encountered many problems and are often at a loss as to how to fix them. Notice that most of the really great teachers in the larger orchestras are the guys sitting lower in the section, not the principal players. Also Carmine Caruso was not even a trumpet player.
1B

[tptguy]

Funky,

A number of the responses have distorted your question. But to answer your actual question, "yes, a good teacher MUST be a good player." He doesn't have to be the best. But, if he hasn't figured it out enough to play really well himself then he could only lead you down the right road by accident. Best regards, Kyle

[Quadruple C]

[ This Message was edited by: Quadruple C on 2003-09-24 15:01 ]

[funkymonkey]

Hmm... What if the trumpet player was a good player, but didn't have the right technique because he was self-taught.. can he teach the "right" way to his students?

[SHS_Trumpet]

It is very hard to find a good teacher that is a good player. remember the old saying Those who can't do teach! :0
_________________
Andrew Fowler
MYNWA
"90% of trumpet music is below high C"

[John Mohan]

There are exceptions to anything, but generally speaking, I think that a good teacher needs to be or have been a good player.

There are many former good players who for various reasons including medical problems, can no longer play professionally. But in my opinion, a teacher who never reached great levels of playing ability him or her self, would not be someone whos instructions I would want to devote my time following.

I would (and did) want someone who was a "struggler" yet still reached the highest heights of trumpet playing ability through learning to practice and develop correctly.

Worked for me anyway,

John Mohan
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Trumpet Player, Clinician & Teacher
1st Trpt for Cats, Phantom of the Opera, West Side Story, Evita, Hunchback of Notre Dame,
Grease, The Producers, Addams Family, In the Heights, etc.
Ex LA Studio Musician
16 Year Claude Gordon Student

[Mark Heuer]

A baseball analogy: From 1982 - 1988 I played professional baseball with the Los Angeles Dodgers (rookie, A, AA and AAA). Never made it to "the show". I went to early spring training camp with the big club several times and had chances to make the team, but failed to do so. Never got called up for a cup of coffee in Sept. either. One of my pitching coaches was Sandy Koufax. I spent dozens of hours with him one on one in the bullpen. He's in the Hall of Fame. He was one of the most dominant pitchers to ever throw a ball. But as a coach he struggled. Things he did naturally and without thought did not come as naturally to us mere mortals. He had difficulty communicating with us. He would be doing a mini pitching seminar with a few of us in the bullpen, telling us some of the things he did to prepare for games, how he threw his curve ball, etc...and we would look at each other like "huh"? "We don't get it". He was in another league entirely by himself. A master of the game. But not a master teacher.

[ This Message was edited by: Mark Heuer on 2002-07-19 09:07 ]

[ldebrui1]

There are some great teachers who were/are not fabulous players, and vice versa. Find someone who works for you
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trumpet

[TrumpetMD]

The sports analogy is a good one ... coaching and playing require different skill sets.

Mike
_________________
Bach Stradivarius 43* Trumpet (1974), Bach 6C Mouthpiece.
Bach Stradivarius 184 Cornet (1988), Yamaha 13E4 Mouthpiece
Olds L-12 Flugelhorn (1969), Yamaha 13F4 Mouthpiece.
Plus a few other Bach, Getzen, Olds, Carol, HN White, and Besson horns.

[Tpt_Guy]

Zombie thread alert!!

Before the thread was resurrected, it hadn't seen any activity for nearly 16 years!


_________________
-Tom Hall-

"A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence."
-Bruce Lee

[theslawdawg]

Looks legit.
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My go-to Trumpet and Flugel: Thane.
Greg Black MPs

[LaTrompeta]

I'd say no, because some of the best teachers are dead, and they're certainly not great players.
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Please join me as well at:
https://trumpetboards.com

[HaveTrumpetWillTravel]

Not a bad thread to resurrect... Just imagine how many of us had our start via band directors teaching a dozen different instruments. Starting out just learning how to buzz and push the valves in the right order is pretty good.

Isn't there an old line about "when the student is ready the teacher will appear"? I think probably the higher the level of the student the better the teacher needs to be.

[TKSop]

I think it depends...

In an ideal world most of the best teachers will have been at very least accomplished players, not necessarily world famous pros but atleast very solid technically.

If nothing else, acquiring some techniques can be as much about the feel/knack as anything - if a student is struggling, you'd tend to think that a teacher who's been able to acquire that skill is much more likely to be able to find ways of explaining to get the right results, where a teacher who hasn't us flying entirely with theoretical knowledge and may understand but not truly relate to what they're asking.

Having said that...
I've had teachers who were superb players and teachers who weren't - their willingness to engage, encourage, motivate and articulate what they're after is vitally important.

A teacher who knows their theory and can articulate it may very well be a better teacher than a superb player who can do it all but explain none of it - the best have been those that had all these bases covered: playing skill AND teaching skills.


So, I don't think one needs to have been incredible to be a good teacher, yet in the vast majority of cases they do need to have been a great player to be a truly outstanding one.

[Andy Del]

This is such a narrow point of view - play well or not to teach.

Teaching is NOT playing, it is something far more complex and far reaching than that. this is why it has been reproached to death over the decades and we are still no closer to a perfect definition or answer to 'how to'.

That said, there are some very important points to being a good teacher:

knowing your subject material
know your student and how they learn
being able to sequence someone's learning
have empathy to as to understand the student's needs

and one can go on for a very long time.

But what most teaching organisations, government departments etc. ALL say is a teacher needs to know their subject material. Then teaching trumpet, it is both music and the instrument. This is a primary requirement. If you don't know ow, then how on earth can you teach it? If you haven't lived it, how can you teacher it?

I think that pretty well resolves the discussion.

cheers

Andy
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so many horns, so few good notes...