The Masterclass: What Are We Actually Teaching?

Disclaimer: I think I start all of these posts with a disclaimer, something that reminds you that I’m just a person sharing opinions and you’re entitled to agree or disagree or not care at all. My disclaimer today is that I've been getting over being pretty sick the past couple of days, it’s before 8am when I started this, and, while I need to practice, I can’t practice at this hour without being a bad neighbor. So I’m stuck a bit, and have the chance to write a little about something that perturbed me recently.

Definition: In case you don’t know- a masterclass is where an esteemed musician hears a younger or less esteemed musician perform an often challenging piece of music in front of a class of peers. The esteemed musician (master) proceeds to give the student a lesson for a live audience.

Note: The teacher of this masterclass is a wonderful teacher and player. I challenge the premise of how we generally go about conducting a masterclass, not the nature or quality of this teacher.

A few weeks ago, I tuned in to a violin masterclass online. The student played Mozart 4. The master, a wonderfully acclaimed violinist and pedagogue, expounded on things typically expressed in a masterclass. It had been a while since I’d listened in on a masterclass and it really struck me as odd- not the class itself, but why we think this format is actually useful for our students.

The Traditional Masterclass Format

Student: Performs movement of work in entirety, often to a very high level of preparation 

Teacher: Shares opening remarks, what they liked and didn’t like

Teacher: Shares stories about their life and when they played this (these stories could go on for some time)

Teacher: Shares detailed or vague technical/musician suggestion for student

Teacher: Asks student to try it again from the beginning

Student: Starts playing

Teacher: Stops player three notes in with, “Ok, not quite. What I need you to do is…”

Teacher: Shares more stories about their life and experience related to piece

Teacher: Adds specificity to request of student

Teacher: May ask to play with pianist to demonstrate

Audience: Audibly gasps at the teacher’s skill

Teacher: Asks student to try it again

Student: Starts playing

Teacher: This time they wait until a phrase has been played, then they stop the student to correct more

Teacher: Shares more stories about their life and experience related to piece

Teacher: Adds specificity to request of student

Repeat the above for the duration of the class.

Now in an ideal world with moderately well-adjusted individuals, this is a potentially helpful class. The well-adjusted student/performer may glean some great specific pointers from the teacher. They may be inspired afresh to play with more life, more character, more freedom! And they may inspire their audience of well-adjusted peers to play better, too. But, in my experience, being well-adjusted is hard work. I didn’t even begin to think about being well-adjusted until I was approaching 30. 

My masterclass days as a teen and twenty-something were spent with high levels of anxiety, self-criticism, self-doubt, even self-hatred, perfectionism, black and white thinking, and a hyper-fixation on other’s opinions. I stewed in a variable cesspool of negativity before, during, and after the masterclass. Standing in front of my peers to play some of the hardest music I had ever attempted took so much courage- and often force! I had to be pushed to play things for visiting artists even as a performance major in college. I hated the pressure. I also didn’t feel like I could ever grasp things as fast as the teachers wanted me to and I was stuck in a frozen block of terror, just white-knuckling their suggestions and my attempts until I was told it was over, I could sit down.

I know this is not an entirely unique experience for the classical artist.

Now I’m 34. I teach all different levels of violin and viola. Some of my students are working on some pretty advanced repertoire, music that could be played at a class like this. What would their experience be like? What are we actually teaching in this type of setting?

The Lessons We Don’t Realize We Are Teaching

1. There isn’t time to experiment. You either get it or you don’t.

2. Be ready to technically execute new ideas perfectly.

3. If you don’t get it right away, you’re wrong.

4. You played well- but there’s still so much wrong with how you played.

5. Teacher’s brain. Trust it. Listen to teacher’s brain, not yours.

When I listened to this young student performing Mozart, I was impressed with his technique and some of his musical ideas. My overarching thought was, “I’d love to hear what he sounds like in a decade.” But that thought was immediately followed by, “But will he even like the violin in a decade? Or will it be a symbol of so much judgment and restriction that, instead of playing, he’ll abandon it and let it gather dust in some room, covered in old sheet music and fraying bow hair?”

Dark place, I know.

Healthy Things We Could Say In Masterclasses

1. Learning new things takes time. Do you feel like you have a good way to access later what we talked about today?

2. I hear you’re struggling with implementing this- sometimes our brains get more things wrong when we are rewiring old passages in new ways. It’s okay to mess up!

3. You played well. What do you really like about what you’re doing? What do you notice is different when I play it? Do you want to try changing something related to that?

4. Once you leave this room, you become your own teacher again. What are your instincts with this piece? How do you want help with implementing them?

5. What makes you inspired to practice? Imagine this is your first of 100 public performances of this piece. What’s one thing you want to be a little different next time?

I shared some of my thoughts with a colleague as we were unpacking before a Christmas concert. It was so funny, another player overheard us talking and also had a huge pet peeve related to masterclasses and how they’re taught. What are your thoughts? Also, if you’ve ever played in a masterclass, can you remember something you were taught?

Autism and the Beginning Violinist

     Disclaimer: I am a musician with a degree in violin performance. I do not have an education degree nor do I have a special education degree. I am neurodivergent (ADHD) and regularly work to create a welcoming space for neurodivergent students. I love sharing some of my teaching journey here in the hopes this might help someone else. Names have been changed in this story to protect everyone’s privacy.

     Sarah walked into my studio for the first time just a few weeks ago. I was excited! And nervous. In the intro phone call with her dad a couple days prior, I’d learned a few important things about Sarah: she was 10 years old, she already played the piano, and she has autism.

     Note: there is a wide range of diagnoses under the label autism, more specifically referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorder or ASD. Consider these terms interchangeable in this post. Autism Spectrum Disorder can affect individuals in very different ways with varying levels of symptoms and intensity. Each student is different and unique regardless of neurodiversity, diagnoses, etc. I ask that you read these thoughts through the following perspective: things that work for Sarah may or may not work for other neurodivergent or neurotypical students.

     I didn’t really know what to expect. While I’m certain a number of students I’ve worked with either knowingly or unknowingly would register on the spectrum for ASD, this was the first time a parent had given me the heads up.

I felt excited to give lessons a try- and also acutely aware of my own unknowingness and lack of experience in this area.

     I approached Sarah’s first lesson with a sort of openness. I want to learn how you want to learn. I tried more things in her second and third lesson. Some of them worked, some of them flopped. In every single lesson, I was impressed with the incredible depth of knowledge Sarah expressed. She could easily label all the notes on the violin without any help, impressively including F-natural vs. F-sharp on the E-string, even though she couldn’t play those notes yet. She connected so much to what she already knew on piano. Her brain was - is - incredible! And now, six lessons in, I want to share some tips. These work for Sarah, right now. They might not be relevant at all for you or, if you’re a teacher, for your student. Please note the necessary individuation in approach when working with any student. But, if even one of these helps you or a student feel less frustrated and more educated, hooray!

The First Six Things I’ve Learned Teaching a Violin Beginner with ASD

My easiest tip is all about creating a checklist to help everyone feel on the same page.

1. Create a checklist for the student before each lesson.

   This concept came from one of my googles after the first lesson, I can’t take credit for it, but it is gold. Vary what’s on the list. Don’t overload it. Ask the student (if they’re willing and able) to read it aloud at the beginning of the lesson. Then the student can choose what they’d like to do first, next, etc. This helps the student feel in control while still accomplishing the breadth of education you think is important.

2. Set up key phrases.

   Maybe the student wants to keep on playing even when you want them to stop. This challenged me a lot in the first couple lessons. I wanted Sarah to feel engaged and able to express herself... but I also wanted to be able to loosely guide the lesson. I found it helpful to say to Sarah, “When I say pause, you need to pause playing and listen.” Then we tried it- she played a lot of notes, I asked her to pause, she did. Repeat. This one is still a work in progress- sometimes her dad still has to be the one to tell her to stop playing. But the next point helped even more with creating calming silence during class.

3. Play Simon Says.

   Use this tip for anything you need the student to concentrate on. “Simon Says look at your bow hold in the mirror!” and “Simon Says play four smooth bows in a row” and “Simon Says space out your fingers on your bow hold!” You get the idea. I couldn’t believe how quiet the room was once we started playing this game. I plan to teach Sarah a fiddle tune this way. We will see how it goes!

4. Seek to understand how best a student receives information versus how they share it.

   Sarah best understands information that she reads or sees or feels. I don’t think spoken words are as useful for her, at least at this moment in time. So when she takes a few minutes at the beginning of class to read something on the wall or study a new resource, I welcome that. I respect the power of her brain and that there’s a very good possibility she will learn this at a depth I may not even fathom.

   Sarah best shares information right now through writing things down or drawing. I encourage her to write notes down and then play. Or I ask her a question and have her write the answer. I couldn’t believe my eyes this past week when I asked her to write down a scale and then, after studying NASB for about a minute, she said, “I am going to write a pentatonic scale!” And she did. D Pentatonic. I didn’t even know it. She played it, too.

5. Posture work can be creative.

   As a general practice, I prefer to demonstrate things for students to model and am a hands-off teacher. (Some teachers will touch your hand to fix a bowhold or reach out and touch your arm to demonstrate a bow stroke. I don’t feel comfortable doing this right now and have found other great ways of communicating the same information.)

   Sarah kept putting her violin in the center of her chest instead of at the top of her shoulder. After multiple attempts to explain it, I finally had a different idea. I asked Sarah to feel the top of her left/violin shoulder with her right hand. Then I asked her to move her hand down to the middle of her chest at her collarbone level. I asked her to tap the middle there (tap) and then the shoulder top (tap) and then just let her hand sit there for a bit so she could feel the difference. It helped! This is something we will try to do at the beginning of playing for the next couple of lessons until it sticks.

6. See the parent(s) as a fellow teammate and resource.

   I felt so worried that the parent was having to help too much in the initial lessons. Turns out, I shouldn’t have felt worried... I should have felt excited that they were/are so invested in Sarah’s success! Don’t worry if they’re helping, and don’t be intimidated. When the parent adds to what you’re saying, helps the student focus, or physically helps the student as they get used to how to hold a string instrument, accept their help! Try to understand what it is they are doing and if there’s a chance you could incorporate some of that into how you teach this particular student. Ask for pointers on interacting with the student better. Help them know the easiest best thing to focus on that week.

Unanswered questions for me.

• What would it look like to include Sarah in more of the group activities in the studio?

• Does Sarah want to come to a group class with the other young students? If so, what are modifications I could make to a group class so everyone would feel comfortable?

• Should I pair Sarah with a similar level beginner?

• What are blind spots for me as I teach neurodivergent students?

• What are clearer ways to teach physical things like bow hold and straight bow direction?

I welcome your thoughts, feedback, suggestions, experiences, etc. Thank you for reading!

Why My Students Draw Things in Lessons

Disclaimer: I am a musician, not a doctor. The few bits of brain anatomy and function discussed below are shared from a layperson’s perspective.

It was at a therapy session earlier this week that something our therapist said really hit home. “When someone takes the time to talk about something, even if it’s to an empty room,” she said, “the information moves from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex.” She explained that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is able to be more logical, especially when things are feeling emotional and overwhelming, and it essentially verifies whether things perceived as threats actually are.

But how does this have anything to do with violin and drawing in lessons?

My students draw in lessons. I have them create bow strokes with water and a Buddha Board. I have them draw finger patterns from Suzuki Book 2 or the first page of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto so they see the variation in whole and half steps. I write things down. I ask them to write things down. I leave handwritten signs and diagrams up around the room and change them week to week, watching at the beginning of each lesson as they observe what’s in front of them… even more than the words I’m saying. They can’t help but want to take in the new visual cues from the space they thought they knew.

G Major on Viola

I have drawn the first position notes in black and the third position notes in red. The student had wanted to reach for the top two notes in the scale from first position with three fours in a row. (She was following her great ears!) Once I showed her the simplicity of using third position this way, she chunked the information quickly and didn’t want to go back.

I have noticed that when students take the time to draw things or synthesize information in not ordinary ways, they do better. They are less frustrated. They more quickly relate what they’re learning to things they already know. They retain the information better. Their interest is higher.

When our therapist mentioned this amygdala to the PFC pathway this week, something clicked. I understood part of what makes drawing things so useful in a music lesson. We are processing information in a different place than just inside ourselves. We get to get it out, talk it out, draw it out.

It was after our session in a mini internet deep-dive (again, not a doctor) that I learned that drawing specifically involves the fronto-parietal network, part of which is in the PFC, so drawing can absolutely be included in this creative synthesis of information outside our own minds.

If you teach, consider adding more visual clues to your space. Make parts of your room an ever-changing universe of ideas and diagrams and information. Ask students to draw their interpretation of things before you do. I LOVE seeing how different brains process information differently. Start changing the visual space in your music education classroom and see what happens.