Music teacher etiquette and politics

<p>We really like my son's cello teacher. He has recently decided to take it seriously and has a lot of catching up to do for college auditions next year. My son's conductor (violin)has been working with him a lot and has offered additional ear training. Is this stepping on his teachers toes? They have 2 different styles. His cello teacher is a little more hands off and wants him to find his own voice and the other one is very precise and is quite good at getting my son's to get to the next level. Is it possible to get the best of both worlds?
Also, his cello teacher didn't seem thrilled about our state school for music. We aren't either but feel it could be a good financial safety. He'll be taking a sample lesson and tour. I'm going to inform his teacher. His teacher is at an expensive small liberal arts college and isn't as strong musically either. Is it in my head that I'm sensing tension and disapproval?</p>

<p>I don’t have experience with cello, but we have encountered similar things with piano. There is a lot of competition out there and music teachers tend to be very possessive of their students. My sons teacher likes the idea of my son getting other peoples opinions; however, she is very firm that in competitions/auditions/etc. he do things her way. </p>

<p>As far as schools go, the teacher is not paying for the school or taking the courses, that has to be something you decide as a family. My son does not want to do performance and we have gotten SO MUCH grief and disapproval from SO MANY sources it is not even funny. We had to deal with a lot of tension and disapproval last year and as parents we became our sons strongest advocates and showed a united front in his decision about his chosen path. </p>

<p>My biggest advice is to not worry about what other people are thinking. We have been fairly quiet about the college search and it has alleviated much stress.</p>

<p>Awkward. It sounds like conductor is not altogether pleased with your son’s intonation, and his cello teacher is defensive or concerned about something else or …? Being a top notch string player first and foremost depends on intonation. If this is an issue, it must be addressed. If it is not fixable, other options/majors should be explored. </p>

<p>If you’re sending tension and disapproval there’s probably tension and disapproval… and it does sound as if you may have a possessive teacher. Ordinarily I would not expect a private teacher to mind if his student were working on ear training with another teacher (in college ear training is a separate class, as it is in many precollege programs.) But your teacher may have negative feelings about the conductor, so tread carefully.</p>

<p>Thank you. Even the cello teacher at the state school said she didn’t want to step on any ones toes. I was like how else will we find out what a school is like if we don’t check it out? Honestly, we wouldn’t switch teachers if she was a better teacher at this point. </p>

<p>The conductor is good friends with my son’s teacher. They just have different philosophies… and I don’t think my son should give up yet on music because he has intonation issues. He wants to improve and his conductor is thrilled he is taking it so serious and wants to help. He’s cycling through younger students now that his older ones have gone to college and wants to do some advanced studies with my son. Btw, his intonation isnt horrible but certainly needs work in order to prepare for college auditions. When he gave feedback to my son for auditions, it was very helpful.</p>

<p>Lorelei I think I misunderstood you. Perhaps his teacher is being defensive. Hmmm. </p>

<p>While it could be that the teacher is ‘possessive’, another alternative is that she is ‘insecure’. I would argue that there is a big difference between the two. The possessive teacher behaves in that way because they don’t want anyone else messing with their ‘work in progress’ while the insecure teacher behaves in that way because they don’t want you/others to see that your son might not be getting the instruction he needs. The latter obviously has more serious consequences for your son’s development.</p>

<p>I cross-posted with Lorelei. When you said “ear training”, I thought you meant the branch of music theory that is associated with pitches and intervals, not that the conductor was doing intonation work (which is a different thing.)</p>

<p>If your son has intonation issues, that will certainly affect his audition results for college. As a teacher once told my daughter: panels generally cannot agree on issues of style and interpretation so we stick to what we can agree on: intonation and rhythm. Even if he comes across as talented and musical, poor intonation will hurt his chances for acceptance. You may want to address this with his teacher? It could be that his teacher finds his friend’s interference as meddlesome. </p>

<p>I agree glassharmonica. I will tell my son he needs to communicate with his teacher about what he wants more clearly. </p>

<p>Glassharmonica, it sounded like interval type ear training. Maybe some on his instrument. I was mostly perturbed by how another close college teacher was worried about stepping on toes with a sample lesson. Maybe she I meant the near future versus for college.</p>

<p>Maybe she thought you were trying to change teachers right away? (Which, given some of what you’ve said might not be unreasonable.) Teachers do not want to get the reputation of poaching one another’s students. It’s possible others from the current teacher’s studio have approached her in the past. But don’t make the mistake of sticking with a poor fit of a teacher because you’re too intimidated to leave. You have to do what’s best for your son, in the end. </p>

<p>If the conductor is going to teach your son ear training, as in intervals and pitch recognition and so forth, I don’t know why the cello teacher would feel threatened. While ear training, because it is based on relative pitch, can help a student identify intonation issues in his own playing, it is not the same thing as teaching the cello or cello technique. On top of everything else, if the conductor is a violinist, he can hear intonation issues, but it isn’t his instrument, a cello and violin are in the same family of instruments, but are very different in other ways.</p>

<p>The reason the state school teacher may want to have tread lightly is she may be afraid that the current teacher might assume the state school teacher would start teaching the student. It is not uncommon for students who think they want to go into music, to study with a college teacher privately, in part because college teachers know what is required on auditions, and party with the idea it would make getting into their school/program easier. A sample lesson shouldn’t create tension, if that is all it is, unless the current teacher thinks the student would automatically study with her…if she is the only cello teacher at her school, then she pretty much would decide who gets in (which is likely, given it is a small school) and probably assumes the student should work with her in college…</p>

<p>Okay, time for me to be brutally honest…if his current teacher is that possessive, I question their value as a teacher. My S studied with a teacher for almost 7 years before college, the teacher he had teaches at a state school, but they would not hear of him studying there, because quite frankly the program as a whole isn’t that great, and the teacher wanted him to succeed,plus they also recognized that as good a teacher as they are, most successful musicians study with more than a few teachers, as they did. Good teachers know their limitations, and if they are more concerned about their turf and maintaining ‘their’ studio, rather than looking at the good of the student, then I would really question worrying about them…yeah, you find jewels out there, there are great teachers at no name schools that may be perfect for a student, where the school offers them a lot of money in merit aid and so forth, but if she teaches at a school that is likely to be expensive, and she is not exactly (fill in some famous cello teacher), it doesn’t sound like much of a match for college.</p>

<p>In the end, you need to do what is good for your S and to get him the best result. I think he should audition at his current teacher’s school, and maybe the state school, never hurts to have options, but to be honest, I would be looking at the broader picture and see what cello teachers are out there at the college/conservatory level, see what others think of them, and find the best teacher that meets your criteria. One of the biggest things I can recommend is to find a high level cello teacher someplace, and pay for an evaluation (not a sample lesson, evaluation), and see where your son is. If you feel your S has shortcomings in intonation or technical prowess or whatever, if the evaluation confirms that, then why would you want to stay with the current teacher or study with them in college? (if on the other hand the evaluation says he is on track, bit different)…If the evaluation highlights more than a few issues, given that your S is a junior and will be doing prescreens late fall and auditions this time next year, might be worth finding a stronger teacher and if the current one isn’t happy, well, that’s their problem…you have to do what works well for your S, and as they say, knowledge is power:). </p>

<p>More specifically I am concerned that his current teacher is not adept at hearing and addressing intonation issues, and his conductor realizes this and is trying to address the issue on the side. Your mention of them having different philosophies implied to me that perhaps his current teacher is more adept at basic technique, perhaps is more interested in issues of style and phrasing than musicianship (intonation and rhythmic accuracy). His current teacher may not hear the intonation because of preoccupation with the other issues or because of his/her own inadequacies. I quizzed a very famous violinist on “what is talent” when it comes to string player (as a voice teacher, I am amazed at the idea that one can “upgrade” ones instrument). His response to me was that in his opinion the core issue of talent for a string player is intonation, and it cannot be supplanted or overridden with anything else. Hence my remarks about the importance of this issue. If the conductor is only addressing music theory training, there would be no reason for concern about conflict with the teacher. Work on intonation will affect technique. I apologize if I have misread what you are trying to convey about the conflicts between them. Good luck to your son. </p>

<p>I think things will work themselves out. I have discussed with my son the importance of communicating with his teacher and to be insistent on things that matter to him. I have a lot to ponder over what many posters have brought up that didn’t even occur to me.</p>