FAQ suggestion :"Age as an issue in Musical Education threads" - thanks to Steve!!

[Bruce Lindfield]

I thought the following post by Steve Lawson, in a recent debate, really deserved a wider reading as it states very clearly and in a non-patronisng manner, how the age of posters can have an impact on what they are saying.

I think that this maybe needs to be part of a FAQ on this subject - explaining the issues like this, may lead to less acrimony in debates where this comes up. Here's the post :

"

Originally posted by Steve Lawson


See, the problem here is that age does matter. It's not the only factor in assessing someone's posts, but there are definite trends. Older people aren't immune from posting nonsense (just have a look around the site for 5 minutes), and younger people can have insight the belies their years (I have some 12-16 year old students that I learn things from...), but the simple fact is that at the age of 15 you have never lived on your own, held down a job, had a long term meaningful relationship (certainly not one that in your mid 20s you'll look back on as meaningful anyway), you still live with your parents so there are a lot of responsibilities in life that you don't need to deal with. Which is great, that's the joy of being 15. Stay that way as long as you can! However, in terms of life experience, developing problem solving skills, learning the process of rational argument, discussion and maturing in your understanding of what you know and how that fits into the greater scheme of things, you are very very unlikely to have done enough of that for your age to be utterly insignificant in assessing what you write.

That doesn't give anyone the right to patronise you, or to put you down for it - common courtesy is something that everyone deserves from birth til death, but it does mean that if you're doling out advice, I'm going to be wondering what kind of experience is informing it, where you've picked it up from, and what it is that behind your thinking. When someone who is 15 tells me that they prefer the 'hands on' route to musical enlightenment, I'll tell them in no uncertain terms, that while that's fun and valid and an excellent way to spend your evenings with your mates if you just wanna have fun, in terms of the ratio of time invested to musical knowledge gleaned - however you choose to measure the value of musical knowledge - you will learn a hell of a lot more, to a deeper level, and much much quicker if you do some study, if you put off the quick buzz of jamming on a half-assed blues with your mates for a few hours in order to work on some material relating to playing the blues. If you get some shapes and patterns and sequences under your fingers to give yourself a fighting chance of coming up with something of your own that's worth listening to... That's not patronising, it's just the way it is. I have never met a genius musician who was 15. I've met some great students who are 15, some people who are building themselves a great future by learning, soaking up all they can. People who are making a much better job of that than I did, and as a result could easily end up doing far more exciting things with the bass that I have... That's what it's about...

The anonimity of the net is both great and a problem - it means that the notion of respecting the wisdom of the elders is disappearing from society. That's a bad thing. That doesn't mean that all old people talk sense, but that they have experienced a lot more, and what they say comes from somewhere... The best response I can come up with is to ask people to qualify what they say other than by just shouting at me that it's their opinion and they are entitled to it. There's a lot of that goes on on here, and has gone on in this thread - 'hey, it's my opinion, leave me alone!' - problem with that arises when your opinion is out of step with ALL the experience of just about every musician who ever lived. The wise 15 year old would stop and say 'oh, OK, even though this seems to be working for me, perhaps I ought to have a listen to these guys who've been teaching and playing longer than I've been alive, and perhaps have something useful to tell me.' Believe me, if you take this seriously, it could be the best thing you ever read (until you buy yourself a copy of The Inner Game Of Music, or The Road Less Travelled.)

Being 15 is great, I wish I was 15 again, honestly. But you've got a heck of a lot to learn, so when a whole shedload of people come along with more experience than you, willing to share with you some of their own experience, listen to it. I'm not trying to dump this on you. Honest. I don't know you. And I'm not trying to say that just mucking about with your mates in the garage isn't a fine way to make music - it is, look at the Stooges - but it's not an efficient, accurate or reliable way to 'learn' music. That takes some study and application. The choice, once again is all yours. You are responsible, and answerable to no-one but yourself. Your call.

cheers

Steve
www.steve-lawson.co.uk
www.solobassnetwork.org.uk
www.pillowmountainrecords.co.uk

[thrash_jazz]

I think that this is a good idea - however, part of the problem in these threads is that some young 'uns DON'T take the experience of older players into account, and some older fellows DO patronize and play the age card. IMHO that is what starts all of the problems.

[Peter McFerrin]

Originally posted by thrash_jazz
I think that this is a good idea - however, part of the problem in these threads is that some young 'uns DON'T take the experience of older players into account, and some older fellows DO patronize and play the age card. IMHO that is what starts all of the problems.

Hell, I play the age card, and I just turned 20!

Of course, I have the advantage of having been 15 recently enough to remember in gruesomely specific detail exactly how stupid my methods of thinking really were.

[Bruce Lindfield]

The same thread produced another very lucid statement about age and musical education - well Ed copied something which I think again deserves wider exposure :

This was posted by Ray Parker in another thread over in DB, but I think that it's relevant AND well written -
Just to keep the wound bleeding here a bit I'll throw in my piece. I'm doing this from the perpective of being the spawn of a great player and teacher, and after having taught for many years myself.

In my experience, and I think it covers a good cross section of humanity, the ability to play music is a pretty common thing. A standard bell curve, if you like. The ability to play music takes a number of skills and each student will have different strengths and weaknesses. This covers the raw talents needed -- raw technical ability, ears, and time -- as well as personality type, commitments to real life, etc.

Throughout my teaching experience, I've had students with moderate to low raw musical skills that have excelled and students with incredible raw musical ability that never went anywhere, where most fall in the middle somewhere. It has always been my father's opinion, and I agree, that the biggest difference between the left and right of the bell curve is the student's desire. The next difference would be what Ed talks about when he is on about the 'smart' practicing.

I've also found that students that have a very strong raw musical talent can often be difficult to teach as you have trouble getting them disciplined enough to work on their weaknesses. For example, getting someone with really strong ears to learn the math behind harmony, or someone with fast hands to slow down and get a good sound.

The rarest of all are the Bachs, Mozarts, Charlie Parkers, etc, who have huge sums of all of the raw tools AND the drive. The coolpart is that you never have to worry about being one of those. If you were one of those, you'd have known it before you knew it, ya dig?

Now -- after all of this, the only other ingredient is access to knowledge. In the world today, this is a lot easier than it was 40-50+ years ago with all of the recording -- and at high quality -- that was available before. Recording is only a picture of what happened, though, so it can only be used as a guide. If live performance is what you're after, then recordings will fall short of giving you what you need to know about playing. Organizing and using information in music is actually a bit more difficult than it would be to teach yourself something like mathematics in that you have the whole physical and aural aspects to contend with as well. (I'm going to cut short here a bit as I have to run out the door in about 5) In short -- you have to find yourself a teacher to fill in what you are missing in the recording and printed literature for music. You couldn't learn to play football in a vacuum either.

I have strong hands, decent time, average ears, good creativity, reasonable luck. I've been a professional musician my whole life, not because I came from a musical family, but because I get the thing out of the bag every day and do it. I have had great teachers and am persistent to learn all of the time.

He has a newsletter, too.

[wulf]

Older doesn't necessarily mean wiser - you can grow old and jaded instead. Personally, I pay very little attention to what age people claim to be on the internet - I'll read what they say and try to use what wisdom I've gleaned to interpret it appropriately.

I'll also look at what else I know about the person. If they fire off hundreds of badly worded requests or opinions, or if I never see them take part in constructive conversations, I'll treat what they say lightly. I'll pay more attention to someone like Steve because I've known him in person for a number of years - I've got much more evidence to estimate his 'wisdom' than somebody who has just turned up on the forum posting from Outer Mongolia... even if they claim to have been playing professionally for years.

On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog...

Wulf

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally posted by wulf
Older doesn't necessarily mean wiser - you can grow old and jaded instead. Personally, I pay very little attention to what age people claim to be on the internet - I'll read what they say and try to use what wisdom I've gleaned to interpret it appropriately.

I don't think either of those posts are saying that - it's not a case of saying older is wiser - I'm sure there are thousands of working Jazz players, younger than me who could teach me a huge amount.

What Steve is explaining is why a 15 year old cannot have the experience necessary to teach others - well this sounds a bit patronising which is why I liked Steve's post as it is not patronising but explains all the issues - it's not about "age" as in older - but rather in being too young.

I'm sure Steve's younger than me, but far wiser in every respect, especially in this context!!