I have a love-hate relationship with modeling–no, not that type of modeling…
I’m referring, of course, to using my violin to demonstrate concepts in music lessons.
Modeling is an evidenced-based tool that music teachers use all the time to provide helpful examples for students to mimic. We see it often as a form of call-and-response teaching–in conversations with my mom, she recalls my first teacher saying “my turn, your turn” throughout my earliest lessons.
There are many benefits to demonstrating on your instrument. My teacher friends hear me complain about modeling all the time, and yet it’s a tool I rely on in almost every lesson.
What I like about modeling is that it provides a tangible example of how a violin technique looks and sounds, or what the student might be doing instead. I also find it helpful to play a little bit and talk through what my experience playing the instrument feels like in a specific passage or skill with the student.
But as I’ve written before, call-and-response teaching can’t easily help students understand the physical and kinesthetic elements of playing an instrument. It’s a visual and aural aid we can use while explaining musical concepts, technique fundamentals, analytical processes, and practice strategies, but it can’t teach those concepts all on its own.
Where I think we can go wrong with modeling is omitting the explanations–the who, what, where, when, why, and hows of our technical and musical processes.
I’ve attended and played in many masterclasses where the guest teacher picks up their instrument to demonstrate how they want a student to play a passage but doesn’t provide any concrete details or pedagogical cues to help the student recreate it on their own.
Sometimes, the guest teacher and student repeat a passage back and forth until the student satisfactorily matches the teacher’s version of a passage. Often, the teacher says something along the lines of “good” or “that’s it” and moves on.
Maybe it’s because I’m the daughter of a public school teacher, but I often think about learning objectives. What are the specific technical, musical, or pedagogical concepts that the student and audience are expected to walk away with?
Has the teacher explained the underlying mental or physical processes so the student clearly understands and can make positive changes?
And importantly, can the student (or audience) successfully replicate and apply what they’ve learned in other situations?
These are fundamental goals you’ll find in most collegiate educational degrees, but how often do we see them discussed in music performance or pedagogy programs?
What I think happens is that we musicians see teaching strategies modeled in lessons with mentors and choose to adopt them or reject them depending on our personal experience. If we’re interested in continuing education opportunities, we might explore other certifications and workshops to add to our teaching toolkit, but much of what we do comes through trial and error in our own teaching studios.
In a sense, we’re emulating the challenges of modeling on a higher level–there is a lot of compassionate, holistic, and mindful teaching that can come out of this, just as there can be a lot of ineffective, uninformed, or even harmful teaching.
How we teach is just as important as what we teach. There’s a lot of systemic change needed at the collegiate level, including how we train young professionals for careers in teaching.
For those of us already teaching out in the wild, we can work on expanding our teaching toolkit so that we have appropriate and effective strategies–including modeling–to use in any situation.
This was one of my goals when I started my doctoral research back in 2019, and it led me down a fascinating route into educational psychology, kinesiology, and sports pedagogy.
During the month of September, I’ll be exploring the benefits of incorporating metacognitive and cognitive approaches in the music studio here in the newsletter.
In the meantime, I’d love to hear what your relationship is like with modeling!
And if you’re interested in reading more on the science and challenges of modeling, I wrote a blog post a few years ago about the great concert violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the curse of expertise. Hope you’ll enjoy!
If this is the first time we’re meeting virtually, hello! My name is Erika, and I’m a violinist, teacher, and certified Franklin Method Educator. My mission is to rethink traditional teaching approaches to help musicians play with confidence and ease. If this resonates with you, here’s how you can connect with me:
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