Need For Training, Is it essential for elementary teaching? Options

[tanmoy_22]

Hello to everyone of you.
I am a student from India and want to give my Dip. ABRSM in Solo Piano sometime next year. In my city, the teachers themselves suggest that the diploma candidates should try teaching the younger candidates (maybe Preparatory or Grade 1). Please don't get me wrong by thinking that the candidate himself will apply for the examination as a self-applicant. That is not what i mean. I mean to say, that it is suggested in my city, that the student himself tutors (namesake tutoring) a child of a lower grade in order to get a concrete establishment of his primary knowledge and to clear his basics.
Well, i would just want to know how far you think this would work out.
Tanmoy

[deborah_L_watson]

Well i certainly think that doing a bit of teaching will help build your confidence and knowledge. Its a very true saying that as a teacher you get taught by your students. If you are going to teach eventually as a permanant thing then its definitly worth getting a bit of experience.

I also find aswell that whenever i take music exams i always approach them much more confidently since i have been teaching. You sort of feel calmer about them becuase you know deep down you are fine, and you are used to telling your own students to keep calm etc.

[davidyko]

QUOTE (deborah_L_watson @ Mar 7 2005, 09:07 AM)

Well i certainly think that doing a bit of teaching will help build your confidence and knowledge. Its a very true saying that as a teacher you get taught by your students. If you are going to teach eventually as a permanant thing then its definitly worth getting a bit of experience. I also find aswell that whenever i take music exams i always approach them much more confidently since i have been teaching. You sort of feel calmer about them becuase you know deep down you are fine, and you are used to telling your own students to keep calm etc.

I agree as well, even though I haven't teached, I think its a great idea.

[tanmoy_22]

Thank you Deborah for your bit of advice. So, i should start teaching some of the little kids out here. Well, i'm only 15 and a half years old. Cosidering my age, not too many kids would actually want to have a teacher only 5 or 6 years older than what he/she is (atleast that is how it is in our city), but yes, i should really try my hand at it. Well, i have a grandaunt who is learning the piano just for curiosity's sake and through her own interest, and whenever i visit her place, i give her some tips and points that facilitates her playing.
She asked me a very interesting question the other day. She asked me why do we give the two dots in the bass clef in the lines of E and G (well i don't know whether i made myself clear or not, but i what i meant was that if you just look at the bass clef, what is the significance of the 2 dots?). And i didn't know the answer to this. Well, i didn't tell her anything because i really didn't know what it stood for.
Actually never in my lifetime have i ever thought of this before!(hmm...i don't know what to say, whether it's an interesting question or not)...haha...
Anyways, thanks again to Deborah and David for their posts on my question.
Thanks
Tanmoy.

[AnotherPianist]

QUOTE (tanmoy_22 @ Mar 8 2005, 01:59 PM)

She asked me a very interesting question the other day. She asked me why do we give the two dots in the bass clef in the lines of E and G (well i don't know whether i made myself clear or not, but i what i meant was that if you just look at the bass clef, what is the significance of the 2 dots?). And i didn't know the answer to this. Well, i didn't tell her anything because i really didn't know what it stood for.

It basically comes down to the origin of the bass clef originally being the letter F which was stylised over the centuries to end up with what we have today. The dots are the what remains of the two horizontal lines that come across the F.

You did the right thing to admit that you didn't know in the lesson and there's no shame in that: teachers aren't perfect all of the time and there are things that even they don't know. The best thing to say in that situation is that you don't know now but will look it up (or even encourage your pupil to do some research to find that out, they can feel really clever when they tell you!). Good luck with your teaching :).

[tanmoy_22]

Hello once again.
Thanks to AnotherPianist for the evaluation on Bass Clef.
I really am in a soup now. For my Dip ABRSM i have taken one of Scarlatti, one by Mozart, one by Liszt. Now i don't know which Modern composer i should take. I want to take 4 pieces which covers all the 4 periods of music. for the last piece, i don't want to take Rachmaninov. I had initially selected Howard Blake's Toccatina and Chaconne. But now, i'm really not liking it so much. I just wanted to know, if any of you'll have any idea of Gabriel Faure's pieces or any other good modern composer whose work i can play? Well, i really didn't take Beethoven's sonatas because firstly my Sir said that by choosing Beethoven's sonatas you invite a greater scope of assessment for the examiner and secondly, every detail has to be perfectly dealth with. Well I think it is quite true that playing Beethoven's pieces aren't all THAT easy. In order to secure good marks one has to be very very careful with the ornamentations and other directions. On the other hand, Beethoven is a widely played composer. As in, almost every second artist is performing Beethoven's sonatas. So, a constant factor of comparison always remains. But well, we have to take chances and not stick to this idea of fright all the time.
But i'm really confused about my last piece. I really don't know which one would be good and of which one i can get a good recording.
Thanks,
Tanmoy.

[Gae]

The only pieces I've tried which I would recommend are Debussy's "La Plus que Lente" and Gershwin's "The Man I Love" and "I Got Rhythm". I cant vouch for the others though. I would be interested to try out John McCabe's "5 Bagatelles" purely on the basis that I like his film music. He has written several scores for Hammer films and the Hammer House of Horror TV series and they are spine tingling and very dissonant. I also had a Grade 4 pupil doing his "Champagne Waltz" from "Afternoon & Afterwards" which was a nice piece.

Good luck with your selection

Gae

[AnotherPianist]

I don't know if this is modern enough for you (1902) but the Szymanowski is a beautiful piece.