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
There isn’t time to experiment. You either get it or you don’t.
Be ready to technically execute new ideas perfectly.
If you don’t get it right away, you’re wrong.
You played well- but there’s still so much wrong with how you played.
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
Learning new things takes time. Do you feel like you have a good way to access later what we talked about today?
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!
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?
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?
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?
