i don't know why i really hate non musical people making musical comments. in my school choir, one of the teacher sings in there and he always gives lots of comments on people and he 'teaches' people how to sing, when to breath...... even my music teachers don't do that but he is a like a second head master and all the teachers respect him so i can see that even my music teachers don't like him they still have to listen to him.
also i hate non musical people making negative comments on people's performances and compositions

oh, missed something, the teacher 'teaches' my music teacher how to conduct too

Hmm... I've never found this. I once played in assembly and played really flat for most of it, came in a bar too early at one point and kept missing out breaths where they should have been and ended up breathing in the worst places ever. I considered it a disaster, but loads of people were saying how good it was except for my maths teacher with a degree in music

It can be irritating when non-musical people make musical comments (although I don't know how you can be 100% sure someone is non-musical without asking - most of my primary school teachers toyed with instruments as children and I never realised!). On the other hand, though, they can often see things that people might miss - it's so easy to get caught up in tone and so on that people ignore simple things (like my amazing facial expressions and Magic Eyebrows while playing - not hugely musically important, but they probably end up being quite distracting and I make a fool of myself!). Furthermore, you'll probably find a lot of non-musical people will understand things like breathing in singing - I know a lot of the songs we used to do in our primary school singing assemblies were phrased like they would've been spoken.

Just my thoughts

I agree. A lot of non-musical people think that all music is good. However before a concert once my normal teacher was involved in practice for it, and we had a cover teacher who had me in tears within about 15 minutes of the lesson because she was critising so much. My actual music teacher made the good point that so what if she played the flute, she wasn't a music teacher and had no right to make comments like that.

How is he non musical if he sings in the choir?
Maybe he knows what he is talking about?

I don't know. I think correcting a colleague in front of the class is just plain unprofessional, and whether he's musical or not doesn't even enter into the equation.

My eyebrows are the centre of my non-musical friends attention whenever they see/hear me play. I hate it when non-musical people are overly-critical of your playing, or imply that they know everything about music there is to know. I think it's nice that they can give some criticism, but when it gets to the point that you want to shout "well you do it if you're so good", they've gone too far...
But for the vast majority, I think it's nice that they show an interest by making comments.

Many of my non-musical friends make comments about one of our other friends who is a trumpeter. They say that she isn't very good and reckons she can play when she can't. For the length of time she has been playing she brilliant. and it annoys me how they judge her like that when they havem't got the first idea

Sometimes comments from non-musical friends do make you wonder why you bother...I'm struggling at the minute with Chopin's Fantasie Impromptue (which I've probably bored you to tears with if you've been reading the thread in viva piano). Anyway, I asked someone to listen to me yesterday (I felt I was actually doing rather well...) and her comment was, "Do you realise you hands are out of sync...?"
(RH plays 8 semiquavers, against 6 notes in the LH.)
"Yes," I said...
She had no idea how long it has taken maken me to get my hands out of sync. like that...

i am sure that teacher doesn't have any music degree but my music teacher graduated in RAM with professional diploma and BMus also got FRSM in organ + many other diplomas and 20 years teaching experience so i think that teacher is wrong to tell my music teacher what to do.

I think it's important to bear in mind that we don't necessarily make music for other musicians to listen too. Another of my hobbies is stage magic and, when I was young, my teacher said 'we don't make magic for other magicians - you can work hours on something technically fancy to impress them and, to a lay person, it will still look like a coin vanished'. What he meant here was that if we are going to perform, the comments we get from non experts are much more important than those we get from so-called experts. A 'non-musical' person will simply tell you if they liked what they heard (which is, after all, incredibly important) whereas a musical person can often get caught up in technique and forget to use their ears.

Take Russel Watson - not the greatest singer in the world, but very successful with lay audiences. Of course other professional musicians gripe about him because of his lack of technique etc, but what counts is that he has made a successful career bringing music to audiences - the complaints are likely to be jealously if you ask me. In the main, it's the audience who decides whether a musician is good or not and that audience will have just as many 'non-musical' people in it as musical ones - otherwise we've missed the point.

We can't make music an elite club that only those in the know have the right to comment on.

That being said, I agree that it is very unprofessional to undermine another member of staff. On this front, however, it's up to those involved to ignore your 'helpful' teacher and pay attention to the music teacher only. The show off will only stop when he realises no one is listening. He may genuinely think he is helping out.

Allan

Who is to say who is musical and who isn't? This is not as obvious as it seems. My family for example has always said that I'm musical from childhood whereas I've always maintained that I am not due to exceptional childhood poverty, etc. The Head of Music in an independent school near us which is well-known for its strong music department is a professional-level singer (like Katyjay for example). He happens to play the piano as well but before he learnt the piano (or any other instrument for the matter), who is to say, he's not "qualified" to judge his own auditions where he decides which student enters his school on a music scholarship? I agree with you that criticisms should be constructive and not negative although I confess my surprise at your other strong comments. Sure, your feelings are valid but your implication seems to be that a singer per se like him, is not musical.

Another conductor I know can play all sorts of instruments - you name it - but he cannot play the piano and just because he's keyboard-ignorant till grade 4 in piano, people say things like he can't be musical, etc, and pass judgement on him without ever seeing/hearing him conduct!

This is annoying:

I'm in a choir at uni which I really enjoy, but it's not for specifically musical people. Anyone can join, conduct, teach a song, sing a solo etc. There was a girl all last year who conducted and taught a lot (and interfered with other people's teaching/conducting) who sometimes didn't have a clue what she was talking about, but because she was the most "musical" person there, everyone assumed she was right. But the things she says sometimes are blatantly wrog, so she'll say "oh altos your note is part of the chord" and I'll be stood there thinking "erm... no it isn't". It happens all the time!

Argh!