Teachers or mentors vs learning on the job or apprenticing

wakyct

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No don't be alarmed, this thread is not about the TV show. I had the thought this morning that one thing that perhaps distinguishes learning the saxophone (and like instruments) is that traditionally people learn closely working with veteran players. For example contrast a young jazz saxophonist with a young rock guitarist. The horn player is going to jam sessions, workshops, master classes etc. and the guitar player is doing open mics, bar shows and jamming with people generally at a similar level of ability (and of course listening to a lot of records but that's a different kind of apprenticeship I think).

I don't think there's as much an emphasis on being tutored for the rock guitarist. Am I on the mark here? Maybe my coffee hasn't kicked in...

This relates I think to many adult learners like people on this forum who for various reasons don't learn in the same apprentice/teacher environment, but being aware of that is maybe one more reason to seek out situations where you can learn in that way.

How many of you feel you've had this kind of apprentice experience? Was it important in learning the saxophone?
 
This reminds me when at music college in my first year. The whole of the first term my teacher would turn up at the lesson about 12:30, get bored by 12:45 and suggest we go down the pub where he bought me a pint (of Tetleys).

This went on for quite a while with me thinking I'm not learning as much as maybe I should.

Then one day he asked me if I was busy on Tuesday? I said no, and he gave me a one week gig at a local cabaret club. Great but scary, it was playing lead alto in a 20 piece orchestra backing the pop star Neil Sedaka.

He was on 2nd alto and both tenors were big time local stars.

I learned more in that week than the whole year of lessons leading up to that.

Apprentice? Thrown in at the deep end. Thank you Bill Charlson.

(Obviously from that moment on I was buying the beers)
 
I think a mix of both works well.

I have lessons with a local professional player, the guidance it worth its weight in gold, identifying what I'm pants at, and explaining how to improve those bits. Also helps keeping things interesting as we jump in and out of different areas. Also helps with some little tricks to help with some pieces I play.

Playing with the local amateur orchestra is good too, especially stepping up for solos.

Last night's rehearsal I had a last minute solo dropped on me, I transposed it from Tenor to Alto... "Who's playing the 2nd time?" I asked to be told nobody you're doing it twice. Not one bar in I admitted defeat to sight reading and managed to somehow improvise something whilst staring at the conductor for the qué to stop 🤣 it was well received 👍 That kind of pressure, thinking on your feet can't be taught in a lesson.

From playing with others, I find it quite evident those players who don't have a tutor or mentor, usually good at theory, but their timing, sound & rhythm is more fluid (mines not the best) I think there's a 'that'll do' attitude, where a mentor wont settle for it.

To add, a lot of what I need to work on, doesn't involve the saxophone, lots of clapping and singling rhythms.
 
This reminds me when at music college in my first year. The whole of the first term my teacher would turn up at the lesson about 12:30, get bored by 12:45 and suggest we go down the pub where he bought me a pint (of Tetleys).

This went on for quite a while with me thinking I'm not learning as much as maybe I should.

Then one day he asked me if I was busy on Tuesday? I said no, and he gave me a one week gig at a local cabaret club. Great but scary, it was playing lead alto in a 20 piece orchestra backing the pop star Neil Sedaka.

He was on 2nd alto and both tenors were big time local stars.

I learned more in that week than the whole year of lessons leading up to that.

Apprentice? Thrown in at the deep end. Thank you Bill Charlson.

(Obviously from that moment on I was buying the beers)
Good ole Bill. They all seemed to move in mysterious ways at LCM back in the day
 
I think there are a lot more paths than you're indicating.

For example, I am a non-academic saxophone player, I didn't spend my time during my formative years in "workshops and masterclasses"; I spent as much as possible of it on the bandstand. I've played with plenty of guitarists from Berklee or equivalent.

I expect more of the difference is that MOST young guitarists are in the rock scene and MOST young saxophonists are in the jazz scene and these have somewhat different approaches to how young musicians come up. But controlling for the style, I doubt there's much difference in the learning and growing path for a young jazz guitarist and a young jazz saxophonist, or ditto for rock or pop.
 
Then you get weirdos like me who is primarily a classical musician. My first musical experiences as a performer didn't start until my 30s when I started singing lessons and singing with various types of choir. I was doing a lot of choral workshops, early music workshops, choral weeks... Singing lots of repertoire in different styles is good for sight-reading.

Playing instruments came later, starting in my early 40s with bass then tenor viol (viola da gamba) and in my 50s sax and cello. For sax, most of my playing experience outside of lessons has been wind bands. The only jazz really has been the odd workshop. Being someone who is very used to performing from music - and I'm a competent sight reader - I find improv very challenging. I accept a large part of that is a lack of experience and that stems from lack of suitable opportunities for learning etc.

I've been to a couple of jazz improv events here recently and had my brain pretzled....
 
Already in 1973 it was clear for me that I never would be a professional saxplayer. It was never my goal. And even if was possible I would probably do something else. So why should I follow advice, education ... from persons that teach something I don't want to be? Music and music education is living in a bygone era.

I'm more or less self-taught. I had a saxophone teacher for 14 days (saw him 3 lessons). I was into Rock & Roll Saxophone, still is, and I needed some tips and advice about sound/tone, effects ...... . He was not able, maybe too much reading and playing big band music hold him back, to play Rock & Roll Saxophone and he couldn't help me. So he started to convinced me to learn more jazz and read music. So I started a 25 years long dessert walk, ok I played tenor in an amateur big band and bari in a punk rock band for some time, trying to find my own ways to have a nice Rocksax life. In the late 90's I met a blues-/rock guitarist and he taught me what he wanted to get out from a RockSax player. To play fillings, in the background and , here it comes, to blend with a Stratocaster. In the mid 90's I have made friends with some RockSax specialists in USA (most of them from Boston). The gave me advice and tips about playing Rocksax (mouthpieces, effects, fingerings, attitude ....). Sometimes you need 2, 3, 4 ..... instructors? I don't care if it's a teacher, mentor, self-taught playing mate ...... who gives me stimuli/instructions. Learning music is for me to learn feelings. Very much ad lib and some stuff you can't express correct in an easy way not even if you are a well-educated teacher.
 
The most important thing to not lose sight of is that great lessons/info/experience can come from anywhere - inside the walls of a conservatoire or out on the bandstand. It depends who is there with you. In some cases of course, it might be the same person.

Access to both worlds would likely be the best, but I think that (in the UK) it has probably been easier to take the academic route in the last few decades as so much live music has disappeared.

Not all types of learning are equally absorbed by all though, so again - there are caveats.

YouTube provides easy access to some incredible players, and of course thousands of terrible ones, also trying to ply their own knowledge. Good navigation is essential but the knowledge available on the net is far more than is available on a 3-year conservatoire course - the one thing that is needed is direction, which is difficult when padding your own canoe.
 
I think learning is a mix, or should be, of everything. Old learning structures are not working so well these days. I think it takes about 2 years to get "familiar" with the sax: basic blow and breathing technique, basic embouchure, basic articulation, to play all tones from the lowest bottom tone to the highest top tone on the sax in easy patterns .... . Maybe some basic reading and theory as well?

I think a sax teacher/mentor is like a PT. They should listen and analyze more to what the sax player want. After that they put together a program for the sax player. To work problem and solution oriented is good way for both the sax teacher/teaching sax player and the problem solving sax player? And it's probably not the same teaching persons you meet during the journey.
 
I don’t wholly agree with this. I think it takes a good 5 years to gain a “solid platform “ of technique for someone who has advanced at a relatively fast rate.
An ABRSM “grade 8 “ player if that yardstick means anything to you. Someone ready for conservatoire or “advanced “ lessons.

I DO agree that a teacher is like a sports coach.
 
No don't be alarmed, this thread is not about the TV show. I had the thought this morning that one thing that perhaps distinguishes learning the saxophone (and like instruments) is that traditionally people learn closely working with veteran players. For example contrast a young jazz saxophonist with a young rock guitarist. The horn player is going to jam sessions, workshops, master classes etc. and the guitar player is doing open mics, bar shows and jamming with people generally at a similar level of ability (and of course listening to a lot of records but that's a different kind of apprenticeship I think).

I don't think there's as much an emphasis on being tutored for the rock guitarist. Am I on the mark here? Maybe my coffee hasn't kicked in...

This relates I think to many adult learners like people on this forum who for various reasons don't learn in the same apprentice/teacher environment, but being aware of that is maybe one more reason to seek out situations where you can learn in that way.

How many of you feel you've had this kind of apprentice experience? Was it important in learning the saxophone?
IMHO you haven't chosen the best two instruments for a comparison.

Guitars and people who call themselves guitarists, for whatever reason...are omnipresent and I would imagine one of the best if not THE best selling instruments there is.
So the number of guitar hobbyists/garage band players/call it what you will...is astronomical. Very common instrument. Self-teaching material for the guitar has been around and readily available since at least since the 60's....

Sax, on other hand, not as commonly purchased, generally more expensive, usually not decided upon relatively cavalierly, fewer around, fewer produced, and the majority of players (I posit) came to the instrument initially through some sort of academic setting.

So in an instance like that, likelihood is a horn player IS going to get initial learning through some sort of established program or teacher.
This has changed certainly since internet, but I doubt horn self-learn programs or online tutorials or zoom or skype lessons for sax still exceed those available for the common guitar.

It is when a guitarist SEEKS to do something more than the typical power-chord rock/pop/folk thing...that most, too, would enter the world of tutelage of some sort, whether by private lesson or well-established virtual lessons or learning materials.

Add to this: SOME instruments can be seemingly 'learned' rather quickly (by this I mean you can start playing songs and sound pretty good on the songs you know). I always say of electric bass "Quick to sound OK on, difficult to master'. It's a user-friendly instrument in that respect. But what one is really doing, albeit perhaps not intentionally, is 'fooling' the listener.

Guitar can be like this as well.

Flip side...Violin, Cello, Sax, Clarinet.... to name a few...notsomuch. You aren't gonna be an inexperienced player fooling a whole lotta folks.
 
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There is a difference between “playing an instrument” and “being a musician”. On the job training is required for the latter part.
Exactly. It's like the difference students go through at college as they transition from a "recital" to a "performance."
I've met well educated (academic) sax players that couldn't play the national hymn or a birthday song with out sheet music. They were not so good at interact with others as well.

@skeller047 ,@Pete Thomas you are probably mentor to other sax players and how do you deal with the other questions/advice to sax players? More management/business questions? Most of the professional players I know have a mentor for the other questions that they probably wasn't learning at "schools".
 
@Pete Thomas you are probably mentor to other sax players and how do you deal with the other questions/advice to sax players?
Well I have given private lessons once or twice many many years ago (ask @GiGi ) And I did a very brief stint teaching at University. What kind of other questions/advice do you mean?
 
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Exactly. It's like the difference students go through at college as they transition from a "recital" to a "performance."
I know what you mean, but wrong choice of word (2nd cousin of Mr Pedantic tapped me on the shoulder). “Recital” is used at the highest level.
 
I've met well educated (academic) sax players that couldn't play the national hymn or a birthday song with out sheet music. They were not so good at interact with others as well.

@skeller047 ,@Pete Thomas you are probably mentor to other sax players and how do you deal with the other questions/advice to sax players? More management/business questions? Most of the professional players I know have a mentor for the other questions that they probably wasn't learning at "schools".
What do you refer to - things like how to behave on the bandstand; around “stars”; how to be a “dep/sub” ?
 
“Recital” is used at the highest level.
I wouldn’t argue but I would hope at the highest level, whatever it’s called, there’s more to it than just reciting and it’s that extra that makes a performance of what otherwise would just be a recital.

Anyway I know what you mean it’s just that those seem to be the best words to make the point when Mr Pedantic is otherwise engaged.
 

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