ANALISIS DE PRECIOS

Frankʻs teaching career began when a teacher with whom he was having

lessons persuaded him to take over the running of a series of evening classes on the harmonica. He was explicit about how unprepared he was: ʻI really didnʼt know what I was doing at allʼ. Nevertheless, he taught the class for six months before he received some helpful advice from a sibling on the subject: ʻMy sister said: "Don't you think you ought to go to college before someone finds out? [laughter] That you don't know shit?"ʼ. He was almost unique among the group in that, while being aware of his own ignorance, he undertook training

specifically in how to teach: he enrolled on ʻa two-year course in how to run music workshopsʼ at Goldsmithʼs College in London:

I realised I needed to do that, so during that course, which was absolutely

brilliant...we were given all these different games, and warm-up games

and stuff, and things to try out, projects and placements and assessments

and all that, and I steered it all towards the harmonica. [Frank]

This was to prove invaluable to his teaching. He subsequently took the ABRSM Certificate of Teaching, among a variety of other training courses, before

returning to Bristol and embarking on what was to become his creation of a complete teaching syllabus. As I have already described, this consisted of a system of hand signs, rhythmic vocalising he termed ʻchuggingʼ, and a series of personally recorded CDs (see section 4.4.1).

I would argue that, throughout the account of his teaching, Frankʼs own

skills and experiences as a learner were apparent. The initial emphasis in his teaching was on listening and performing from the start and his approach was built, not just on the physical realities of what his pupils could do, but also on the psychological realities of what they would enjoy. A wide range of musical styles were on offer. Although in later life this emphasis on listening, performing, variety and, above all, enjoyment was exactly his approach to musical learning, it was very different from his own initial experiences of tuition.

However, not all of Frankʼs teaching was drawn from his later, more

successful learning; the notation and theory which first figured in his trumpet lessons re-appeared in his harmonica teaching albeit in a more flexible form, and now preceded by ear-based learning. He also found a constructive role for the tonguing and breathing patterns he learned on the trumpet, as these were re-imagined as ʻchuggingʼ and combined with ʻdifferent gamesʼ and ʻthings to try outʼ - ideas he brought from his course in workshop skills.

Frank himself was very much aware that his own past had had a profound

influence on the way he taught. Although the different worlds of classical, notation-based learning and that of learning and playing by ear are often seen

as conflicting and mutually exclusive, he was conscious of having a foot in both camps: ʻnow I believe that both are essential...I think the two forms of my own learning have given me thatʼ. Frank seemed to have been able to resolve

different elements in his own ʻbroadʼ learning experiences and incorporate them into a holistic approach to teaching in a satisfying, enjoyable and successful way. In the process of describing them in his interview he provided a

comprehensive example of a teacher drawing on their musical background to create their own pedagogy.

Meanwhile, although he had occasionally taught more advanced pupils,

Bill had mostly taught beginners, and it may be useful to quote at some length (although edited) his answer to the question: ʻCan you give me some idea of how you teach?ʼ:

It really is a case of getting a note out of the bass, getting the hand to hold

the bow in one hand and the finger to press down hard enough to get

some notes, and that is hard work to start with, if youʼre only little, even with a scaled-down instrument they still find it hard to press the strings

down hard enough to get the note, you know to sound pure...I start by

saying that they're going to use the bow to start with, I don't start by pizzicato which would actually be easier I think...but with “pizz” you don't actually hear the notes so well, the intonation...and that's very important

when youʼre learning, you need to learn where to put your, your hand

down to get the right, get it in tune sort of thing. So I start with the bow...it's all, start with your hand-shape really on the neck, how is it, cos if it's

wrong, you won't be able to move your hand up and down the neck in an

efficient way and you wonʼt be able to play the things that you want to play.

So where, yeah, how, what, what, you know, how to press the notes down,

where the notes are; I'm assuming that these, you know, can they read

music? If not, you have to do that as well. [Bill]

Bill seemed somewhat overwhelmed himself with how much there was to do for a novice double bass player, and his account does not reflect his own first attempts with the electric bass: ʻI picked it up one day, and decided within about ten minutes that I could play thisʼ.

His approach to teaching may have had more to do with his memories of

taking up the double bass (ʻitʼs a lot harderʼ) but may also, perhaps, be a reflection of how he was taught the cello. He himself would have preferred to

teach the Trinity examination syllabus which he said was ʻa lot more interesting for double bassʼ, but due to the close links with the Associated Board in the schools where he taught he - somewhat reluctantly - used their syllabus, and steered his pupils towards their grade exams. Ironically, he found himself teaching the same pieces he himself studied 15 years earlier:

I did Associated Board when I was studying, and...the syllabus isn't very

good I don't think, it's all, itʼs pretty dry to be honest, thereʼs not much

choice, and I looked at the Associated Board again and it's the same

pieces [laughter]. [Bill]

There are marked similarities between his experience of tuition and how he went on to teach. This was his description of what his cello lessons were like when he was a boy:

Lessons at school, half an hour a week...and a teacher who always

demonstrated, she had a cello and she used to play along with us or

demonstrate how things ought to sound, and I imagine it was, I think we

were probably studying for one of the grade exams. [Bill]

By the sound of it, this is very similar to the lessons he subsequently gave.

It seems then that significant parts of Billʼs history as a learner did not figure in his approach to teaching. When explicitly asked if he thought it was important for his pupils to be, for example, ʻlearning things by ear, by listening, by picking out the bass line in a pieceʼ, he replied: ʻer, yeah, when they get to that stageʼ. He spoke of himself listening to music that was ʻway beyondʼ what he or his band could accomplish, but at the time this did not put him off: ʻwe couldnʼt begin to get near it, but you just carry on donʼt you and do your bestʼ. In fact, Bill acquired considerable technique on the electric bass, and

subsequently on the double bass, by persistently trying to copy music that, at the time, was initially unplayable. For himself as a learner, on both double and electric bass, technique was (at least initially) acquired through the practice of trying to play real music; for his pupils however, technique had to come first, ʻbefore there's any question of playing any musicʼ. Thus Billʼs approach to teaching appears to be based on an idea of sequential learning, whereby the

ʻcorrectʻ way to play comes first, and selected musical tasks, graded for ʻdifficultyʼ, follow. Technique is abstracted from music, and becomes almost a symbolic activity ʻdetached from any meaningful contextʼ (Resnick, 1987: 15). Even when music did appear in his teaching, it was in notated form and seemed to be based on the same classical repertoire which he had abandoned as not exciting or relevant while learning the cello. He was no more than lukewarm about studying for grade exams as a learner, yet he adopted the same exam syllabus to use as a teacher.

His own background as someone who began learning music that excited

him by playing along to records, joining bands and playing in public as soon as possible was simply irrelevant:

Bill: Whichever way you slice it they are going to have to go through the

same hoops that you did when you were learning I think, you know.

Q: So do you feel like youʼre putting your pupils through the same hoops

that you went through?

Bill: No I don't, cos I learned - a lot of what I learned about music I

learned on the job, as it were, you know, playing in bands and things, and

they're all, they are too young to do that, really, yet, so.

Bill seemed to have done exactly what Green (2002) predicted such musicians might do; he had overlooked all his own ʻinformalʼ learning practices and

adopted a traditional, classical model of teaching, albeit one that was familiar to him from his own experience of being taught. Frank however took elements from throughout his learning history, although his teaching was firmly based on listening and playing first.

The learning histories of Bill and Frank do not run perfectly in parallel; for example, while Frank learned the harmonica through a wide variety of methods, Bill learned the electric bass more or less solely by listening, copying and

performing, and subsequently relied much more on tuition to develop on the double bass. It also seems from Frankʼs account that a major influence on his ability to create original pedagogy was the course in workshop skills he

attended; if this did not directly encourage him to draw on his own past as a source of ideas it certainly facilitated the process. Nevertheless, it would appear