You can tune a piano but...

...you can't tuna fish. This music and fish metaphor comes to mind as I mull over another pairing of music and fish that was brought to my attention yesterday.

One of my flute students is moving on to study with the recommended instructor for the high school (elite music program there) she'll be attending. Her mom is also my son's piano teacher and our younger sons play baseball together. They have been good friends of ours these last few years; enough so that their daughter I teach, J., feels somewhat guilty for leaving me and going to a more accomplished instructor. How do I tell her not to feel bad about the change? For her right now the music hall of the future is still a bare stage. She doesn't know much yet about the parade of personalities she'll meet as she begins to "swim" in that world.

Very general, one-lesson reflections she and her mother made of the man offered the following information:
he's arrogant
he's arrogant because he has so much weighty stuff on his resume--a music ed from Berkley after having been trained by musicians from Julliard followed by a lifetime of performance work
his weighty resume is the result of a high level of skills--with technical mastery of clarinet, saxophone and flute on his slate.

I was told that he had her play very little at her first lesson, but he did talk a lot. He talked of how he teaches flute from the same perspective that prompts this metaphor: give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he'll fish for a lifetime. As best I understood it, this was his reasoning for why he extracts technical instruction from actual "music" and teaches physical skills isolated unto themselves. I may be misinterpreting his priorities in pedagogy or they may only be getting to hear the rationale behind the first stage of his instruction, but my reflections on that approach throw me back to my own days of being "taught" to play the flute.

When I was J.'s same age, my junior high band director referred me on to a "higher level" instructor, too. Another girl, A., (who was a year older than me in the same school system) had been referred to higher level instruction the prior year, so I expected to be sent to the same teacher that was teaching her, but Mr. C. referred me to a different teacher. Why? I wondered. Why send me to B., of whom I've never heard and who lives farther away? Why not send me to E. who had already impressed me simply because I could hear how A. played. Why?

Mr. C.'s answer was given with a rather strange look in his eyes: because A. plays only from her body, while you play from your soul. He considered that to be answer enough. It took a long time for it to be answer enough, but eventually his wisdom shone sun-bright because I did study with B. She taught me whatever degree of musical facility I had in the context of experiencing the heart of some of the greatest historical works available for my instrument. Mr. C was right, if I hadn't had the music itself as the underlying driving force, I'd not have cared two cents about the development of my physical skills. Those skills had to become "necessary" to me because I needed them to perform the music, because doing the piece "justice" deserved it. I had to have that context of application for the effort required to be worthwhile to me.

So if I were to give any parting words to my young student, just in case they apply--because I believe she, too, may be a player from the soul--the words would be a follow-up to her new teacher's metaphor: If the fish are your skills, then don't forget to consider why you're going after those fish in the first place. Are you learning fly-casting and deep sea fishing because you want something exotic to mount on the living room wall for all to see? Or, do you simply love the taste of fish, and you don't really care who knows or sees what you catch, as long as you get to eat it. I believe it goes a little deeper than simply learning fishing skills. Mr. C. may have left performing (fishing) behind years before he taught me, but I'm incredibly grateful for the wisdom of old music teachers like him. They're people often hidden and hard to find, more so even now than when I was a kid. If you find such a teacher count him or her as a gift from God, because what that teacher wants for you, the performer, is that you learn to make the music alive for its own sake, and not for yours. They know that you as a performer can take great joy in a technically perfect performance, but they also know that you're greatest joy comes not from a perfect technical performance alone. You're greatest joy as a performer comes from seeing tears in the eyes of a listener. Only then have you presented the soul of a piece of music with purity, and nothing matches the magic of such a moment for a performer, or for a listener! And that is where the wisdom for the moment stops being about J.'s flute instruction and starts being about my own relationship with God and the purpose for Man's use of the Law, so I'll conclude and go off to study these things further on my own.

My final word is this: I believe these rare ones in the world of pedagogy would tell you their favorite fishing work transforms this "fish" metaphor from being one about feeding yourself to one on a much higher plane. They'd tell you they fish to throw the loveliest ones back. They'd say they don't fish because they need a reminder of their skills, nor do they need accolades from others who see the rare breeds they've caught, and fasting doesn't scare them if they catch a really beautiful one. They throw out a line because they love the sea, and the fish, in part, make the sea what it is.

So just remember, J., that every type of fisherman has his place. The important thing is discovering which type you are going to be and staying true to that. Mr. C. always said to our band, "The piece isn't ready until you give me goosebumps when you play it." If he didn't get the goosebumps, we didn't perform it. With him, it was always about the music. If the music is "larger" than you, J., you'll never be able to settle for anything less than what it demands. It wants more than glibness, and it deserves it.
Blessings, Child!