Teaching.

[Wimblees@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 1/9/01 2:43:39 AM Central Standard Time, 
Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no writes:

<< The sentence below especially caught my eye.... I am curious as to why you 
take
 this position.
 
 Perhaps I am also not quite sure what exactly you mean by "music theory" in 
this
 context. Do you mean knowing simple chord types basic note scales ?
 
 
 
 Wimblees@AOL.COM wrote:
 
 > (If the student doesn't even have a basic understanding of music theory, 
then
 > I wouldn't even teach him/her tuning.) >>


Jim also questioned this. I have had some bad experiences with wanna be 
tuners who had absolutely no knowledge of music theory. And I mean that in 
the broadest sense. I am not talking about chord progressions, etc., although 
knowing the circle of fifths is very helpful. But a student should at least 
know what a musical scale is, where the notes are on the piano, and what 
intervals are. That is what I call basic music theory.  Without that basic 
music theory, it would almost be impossible to teach tuning. 

Now that doesn't mean someone can't learn that along the way, but it just 
makes the whole process much harder. It's just like teaching kids how to play 
the piano, or any other instrument. Half of the time spent learning to play 
an instrument is spent learning music theory. The other half is learning how 
to play the instrument. When I taught band, the kids who had a year or two of 
piano lessons learned to play the clarinet much faster than those who didn't 
have that "basic music theory" knowledge. 

So as it related to teaching tuning, if that is all your are asked to do, or 
required to do, you should not also have to teach the theory, unless, of 
course, it is part of the curriculum. 

Willem