APPROACH

Every teacher has his/her own approach to teaching and the teaching style of your new teacher may seem very different from that of your old teacher. Asking questions is always the best general approach to anything new and different. If you think you understand your teacher, take the time to repeat the instructions or lesson back in your own words. Let the teacher determine whether you understood everything based on your own descriptions. At the end of every lesson, you should have a clear picture in your mind what your teacher wants. Can you make a list of the 5 things the teacher asked you to do? Can you explain or describe the single most important area of improvement your new teacher identified? Have you discussed with your teacher your own goals, and what you expect from the lessons?

The KMI Approach

Ask the Student: We believe strongly in a dialogue between student and teacher. Many students are not comfortable with this dynamic, and having a teacher ask so many questions can feel like being interrogated or examined. Instead, think of the weekly dialogue as our "wanting to get to know you" time. It is important for the teacher that you answer every question to the best of your ability - IN YOUR OWN WORDS. How you attempt to answer can be as instructive to the teacher as answering correctly. If you say nothing, the teacher assumes you know nothing. As the teacher identifies areas which require extra instruction, the student will be assigned reading, written or practice homework accordingly.

Recitation Questions: Within the KMI curriculum there are specific important musical concepts we have identified as crucial for each level of education, and have therefore codified them into recitation questions. The idea is that the student must know these concepts or terms so well as to be able to recite their definitions exactly, or explain specific examples as directed. Just as the "times tables" must be known solidly before any meaningful arithmetic or more advanced math can be approached, music has similar "rules and definitions" which must be memorized just as thoroughly.

Knowing "What": It is very important for all music students to have a clear understanding what they are seeing on the printed page (of music), and what it means. This is a matter of Music Theory (knowledge) and is a matter of being sensative to what one is reading (care). In this way, reading music has the same two components of comprehension as reading English: 1) does the student know the meanings of the words? and 2) Does the student put the words together to form coherent thoughts (no skipping words, misunderstanding grammar, etc.)? All transfer students come to us with varying levels of knowledge and varying degrees of care when it comes to approaching a new piece of music. Our faculty will work hard to identify where extra work is required to improve in both these areas.

Knowing "How": Understanding what is in the music is only as useful as it translates into how the student plays the music. This is a matter of Technique and also has two components: 1) Does the student know how to play it? and 2) Do the student's fingers, hands, arms play it correctly when rquired? Knowing "how" is the first step, just as knowing "how" to shoot a basket in basketball is the first step. If the player shoots and misses most of the time, we must proceed to the second step - how to do it correctly (so you do not miss). The teacher will work hard to identify first what technical skills the student does not clearly know "how" to do, then once she/he understands how to do it, the teacher will work hard to develop the student's ability to execute them correctly each and every time.

Descriptive Labels: As with any skill, there is a process (the steps to be done) and a technique (how it is done). In music the technique is very crucial for the advancement of the student. For many unaware students, technique is assumed to be simply a matter of playing faster and building strength, but in reality knowing how to do the thing is much more important. At KMI we work hard to create meaningful and descriptive labels for all the technical skills needed for music so that the teacher and student can communicate effectively. Many of these labels come from centuries of established pedagogy and many are newly created at the KMI studios specifically to clarify confusions or other difficulties. A transfer student will need to learn these new terms and explanations for how things are done in order to progress to the more advanced levels more efficiently.

Clear and Attainable Goals: At KMI we believe strongly in establishing "clear and attainable goals". "Clear" means that the student must fully understand what the goal is and "attainable" means that the student must be capable of reaching the goal. As a part of this process, "measurability" is often a component. This may be a matter of time, frequency or speed. Can the student execute it correctly after one try? Can the student execute it correctly 3 times in a row? Can the student execute it correctly at 3 different speeds? With every assignment at every lesson, the student will be given specific goals to achieve before the next lesson. At the next lesson the teacher will evaluate: 1) Did the student remember and understand the goals? 2) Did the student do the necessary practice steps? 3) the student achieve the goals? 4) Does the student require additional instruction? 5) Can the student be given new (more difficult) goals for the same task/piece?