I keep discovering that real life informs all my teaching and mentoring. The training years cannot be conducted in a vacuum – students need to see how real life works so that they can discuss it thoroughly in the safe haven of school, then go out and set or extinguish fires where they need to.
Classes are nice, but we end up learning an awful lot on the job. The theoretical of class still needs the practical to finish the job of teaching. Conducting fellow students for a grade is probably not as eye-opening as conducting an adult choir set in its ways. Being prepared to direct a church music program is nice, but being required to do it with a week’s notice when the boss gets deathly ill is different. And although I wouldn’t change this, I notice that my sacred music majors must perform a classical degree recital, not a liturgical one. Meanwhile, for an instrument whose printed music dates back to 1325, I get ONE semester to teach the history of its literature. I also get ONE semester to teach service playing to all keyboard sacred music majors. That’s not much time to get many points across.
So where is everyone supposed to finish learning it all? They’re going to learn it on the job, simply by doing it. This is where I try to infuse classes with real-life problems to be solved. I was baptized by fire into leadership at a church where the Organist/Choirmaster got sick and died. At another church, pastoral scandal and mismanagement threatened our jobs and our sense of beauty in worship. But after those experiences, I discovered that I was ready for anything. Church politics no longer surprise me, and it seems important to me to warn students that politics are coming their way in this business.
There is another way in which we organists can be ready for anything. I have accompanied some of the worst wedding singers ever hatched. I have played the Lord’s Prayer in all keys and in all tempos, sometimes all in the same performance. I have vamped while soloists dropped music and started making up words. I have followed the worst conductors down the primrose path and back again. I believe that I could see a conductor through a brick wall, if I had to. Students need ways to practice these things, as well, and I’m committed to inventing more ways of making their lives a fake hell until they get a job and discover real hell.
Now, let’s move on to performance anxiety. Outside of the worst cases, I believe it takes frequent visits to a nervous environment to get over nerves. How can we create a performance-anxiety environment? Get the students performing! No, not on stage but in studio class. Having an audience present, no matter how small, creates a nervous environment that doesn’t exist in the lesson. Just as the students gets used to me in lessons, so can they get used to other people being present. And not just in studio class – students are encouraged to drag people in from the hallways to listen to a run-through of something. Perform, perform, perform. Even performing for a recording device changes your approach. And let’s not forget that Sunday mornings are a weekly performance of sorts. Simple math: perform enough, and you stop being nervous about performing. Control your urges to rush under nerves enough times, and staying under control becomes second nature. Nerve management is about the only training you can accelerate in classes, and it’s not all that difficult. It’s even free.
Learning how to dress and how to behave in public are also important, best taught by example. It’s also important to learn how to learn music, not just how to play an assigned piece. That’s a Pandora’s box I will open here some other time.
Finally, I get asked a lot about sight reading. You learn to sight read by sight reading, not by reading about it. (You learn to waterski by waterskiing, not by talking about it in the car on the way to the lake.) I recommend playing through an entire hymnal to accelerate sight reading. The harmonies are basic and predictable, and the voice leading is 95% pure. It’s a great way to improve sight accuracy and get familiar with intermediate harmonies. Meaningful improvisation quickly follows!
Go ye therefore and play. Just play.