The Bassic Sax Blog

One of the the cornerstones of working with adult learners is that they need to see the immediate usefulness of the information, skill, knowledge, attitude, etc. they are working towards attaining. If you doubt this, just think back to the last workshop or educational seminar you attended. Did you not sit there trying to see how the information presented was applicable to your circumstances? If it wasn’t, most likely you stopped paying close attention, and perhaps started to develop your “to do” or shopping list.

Adult learners (and young adults as well) are willing to work in a sequence, and understand the need for reinforcement, but they want to spend their time studying something that makes a difference in the “here & now”. As teachers we need to recognize this, and develop our educational materials & lessons with this in mind.

For example, if I have a student that comes in and wants to learn how to play Blues saxophone, I would develop my lessons so that when the student left my studio each week, they would have another “tool” for their “tool kit”, that they could practice: whether that be a new scale, effect (growl, false fingering) whatever. Over time, their tool kit should be getting full of some useful tools & (if I’m doing my job well) the knowledge of when & how to use them, and perhaps more importantly, how not to overuse them. That’s how I see it as a teacher.

From the student’s perspective however, their need for immediacy has been fulfilled, because they are leaving my studio with something new; something they didn’t have before they arrived 30 or 60 minutes ago. Maybe they just learned some false fingerings for the first time, and for the next week are going to spend time practicing how to use those new fingers in improvisations along with their practice CD.

While this isn’t rocket science ,  it is surprising how many times even experienced instructors fall into the trap of forgetting the principle of immediacy. Students need to see the immediate relevancy of what they are learning, or else they are at risk of becoming one of the many, in the large percentage of learners who start something, and then give up.   

© 2008 – 2009, The Bassic Sax Blog. All rights reserved.

In my August 15th post on teaching, I mentioned the psychomotor (physical) and cognitive (thinking) aspects of playing saxophone. There is a third component as well, the affective, or feeling portion of the activity.

Learning is an interaction between the mind, emotions, and muscles. If I’m working with a student they are, presumably, feeling something (affective) about the concepts, (cognitive material) and working them out on their sax (psychomotor).

As a teacher I need to consider all of these things: ideas, feelings & actions. Doing so will allow me to develop an approach that engages the student, and gives them the drive to continue working towards mastering the saxophone.

My September 4th post, in which I describe how I used a saxophone-playing, aquarium, skeleton sculpture to reach a middle school student, in an almost stand-up comedy type of routine, is an example of how ideas, feelings, and actions, can be combined together to develop a teaching method that engages the student.

If we think back to our own education, much of it has focused too much on the cognitive matter, without any thought given to the affective and psychomotor aspects. Therefore our natural inclination when we teach, is to fall back into what we have the most experience with, and that is to tell people what they need or want to know. Unfortunately, this doesn’t utilize the affective or psychomotor aspects of learning, and tends not to engage the learner.

Music, by it’s very nature, is affective, and elicits feelings & emotions. As saxophone teachers, we actually have it far easier to combine ideas, feelings, & actions, than if we were calculus tutors!

For further information on the education concepts I briefly touch upon in this post, I highly recommend the book Learning To Listen Learning To Teach: The Power of Dialogue in Educating Adults, by Jane Vella. It is published by Jossey-Bass ©2002. This book is a valuable tool for anyone teaching, or facilitating in any capacity, from middle school on up. Vella’s book is available through Amazon.com & Amazon.ca.

If you have any questions about teaching or learning in general, feel free to email me privately.

© 2008 – 2009, The Bassic Sax Blog. All rights reserved.

Sure our students might want to be the next Coltrane, Getz, Mulligan, Dulfer, Koz, or maybe Kenny G. But the reality is, they very likely might not be, and for the ones that are, the road to get there is not usually a short one.

I had a student, who had a great deal of potential, but who wouldn’t put the necessary time in to reach his full potential. I guess he felt that he should just somehow wake up one morning and be able to play sax like he heard on his CDs & MP3s. I explained to him that it didn’t work that way. That these players worked for years to get to where they’re at. He didn’t get it.

He is one of these kids who has grown up in the video & computer game and 15 second ad world we live in. Instant gratification: if it doesn’t come fast, it’s a bore. It’s almost like we’re hard-wiring ADD or ADHD into them.

I’m sure we’ve all had students like this. This is seriously problematic. The question is how do you reach kids like this? It’s a challenge. The old standards like Rubank…Throw them out the window…Forget about them…They don’t work for kids like this…

The first time I encountered a student like this I had to rethink my teaching. All the methods that my instructors had used with me, and that I had learnt and been exposed to in school and university, were not helpful. I consulted with a couple of instructors I knew, went to the local music store, and started looking for introductory saxophone methods that used play-along CDs. That helped…For a bit….

I’d never used BIAB much, and didn’t even own my own copy, so that was out. I quickly came to realize: I was seriously screwed  

OK, so now I had to dig deep, really deep, and try to find a way to reach this kid and motivate him. He had potential; serious potential. Luckily I have a good sense of humour, as did he. I also happen to be very quick with one liners, as was he.

So our weekly hourly (yes, we had hourly lessons because he wanted 60, not 30 minutes of time with me) became almost a stand-up routine in which we would play some, trade jokes (usually at the expense of each other), play some more, trade more jokes, and so on, and so, for an hour.

I had my studio set up so that parents could sit in another room, close the door, and watch TV, read, or do whatever they wanted. Over time, his mom ended up right in the middle of the action. She sat in the studio with us, and did whatever she brought that week: usually either reading or knitting. She found the whole thing entertaining, so looked forward to the weekly lessons as much as her son did.

Here’s an example of the kind of jokes I used with him…

One day at a pet store, I happened to walk through the aquarium section, and noticed a set of skeleton rock band figurines for a fish tank. One happened to be a sax player, so I bought it and hid it away in my studio until the appropriate time.

One day when my student was being particularly obstinate, I said to him: “You’re killing me”, and pulled out the figurine and held it up to his face. He doubled over in laughter, as did his mother. So from that time onward, whenever he was particularly difficult, I’d get the skeleton off the shelf, hold it up to his face and say “you’re killing me”. That would settle things down again for a while.

I wouldn’t recommend this (almost an “in your face”, interactive, stand-up comedy routine) as a teaching strategy for difficult students, or any students for that matter. But it did work with him because of who he was, who I was, and because of the relationship that we had developed over the 12+ months of working together.

My point here is that as saxophone teachers working one on one with students, we have to be extremely flexible and able to think on our feet. We have to be willing to put the time in outside of the lessons, in order to figure out how to best meet the needs of our students.

A cookie-cutter approach doesn’t work for all students. Flexibility and willingness to adapt our teaching style, be unorthodox (while still appropriate) when necessary, and be open to new learnings ourselves, are among the key elements in being successful in reaching our saxophone students, especially the more difficult ones.

BTW, this former student still stays in touch with me. He started university this fall, and is still playing sax. He now plays alto, tenor, and is hoping to get a bari in the next year or so. He also just spent 2 years playing bassoon in school. And while not studying music in university, he is planning to audition for 1 or 2 music classes.

© 2008 – 2009, The Bassic Sax Blog. All rights reserved.