Three Types of Student - Hypothesis_2

College Majors Music Major
1

I have been watching high school music students for the last 2 years at various rehearsals, auditions, and performances. My experience is biased to drum corps and jazz bands. Without knowledge of music theory or much of an ear, I felt like I noticed “something” broad, and I described it to S. S said that he had been noticing something similar, and he defined 3 groups of people, which I then gave names. He believes that there would be a general sequencing in which ones will fall away from music performance sooner. This will be known as Hypothesis2 (I used Hypothesis1 earlier), that these 3 groupings of students exist:

(1) achiever
(2) listener
(3) player

The achiever is very good at processing tasks. One of their tasks is playing music. They might be the best, or maybe not. They equally well process the tasks of soccer, math, and English papers. They could “go the distance” with music, but they might choose to go the distance with something else.

The listener is a fan of music, and they listen to music a lot. They will practice and play their instrument so they can play the music they like to hear. Their instrument time might be compromised by enjoyment listening and other fascinations with the world of music.

The player loves to play their instrument, as they have things that they want to “say” through their playing. They listen to music, too, but maybe more so that they can learn how other people say things, so that they can say more.

What is the point of Hypothesis2 - is it an arbitrary divisive tool to stir up debate? No. Something that creeps into your mind is there for a reason. I want to mention Hypothesis2 to compare observations. Maybe there are 5 types. Maybe there is a continuum. Maybe knowing the types can help us estimate how far the student will go, or maybe not. Thoughts?

2

Your categories resonate with me. D is a 3.

3

Very interesting theory!
My D is mostly a 1, now in college not studying music. S is a 3, getting his MM in cello performance at a conservatory.

4

I have 2 musicians in my family. My D is a flutist and mostly a 1, but slightly 3. She is studying aerospace engineering, but could not even think of going to a school where she would not have significant opportunities to play her instrument and at least minor in music. My S is a senior and doing the whole audition thing right now. He is honestly slightly 1 and mostly 3, although the thought of him processing soccer is humorous. He could do anything he wanted to, and do well, but definitely has all of the qualities of #3.

5

If you are strictly looking at this from a college point of view (studying music performance), I would put it on a continuum as such:

listener — achiever — player (performer)

A listener may not want to “study” music or if they do may not last in the theory/ear training etc classes. Going into college, my D had some friends who loved singing and being in shows…but they did not love theory. In fact they hated it and changed majors. It is one thing to enjoy music, it’s another to study it. There’s no shame in changing.

The achiever/player could both study music. I think this is the group that can move back and forth in college. A student may enter a player and then become more an achiever (more academically focused) and vice-versa. I saw a lot of VP and MusEd students…so you can see the bend one way or the other. It is hard to tell before college where kids will fall. And some of it does depend on the college journey.

However, I firmly believe that achievers who could do music BUT COULD DO SOMETHING ELSE will move on early in their studies bc it takes a certain single mindedness to study music. Some of the achievers may come back to music in grad school. They may not become performers (or maybe) but they could become academics in music.

Players (or performers imo) have no where else to go. They may dabble in common fantasies of being a photographer or yoga instructor (but never act on it). They continually come back to: it’s performing or nothing.

Hoping it’s not nothing for my D!

6

My S is definitely all 3.

Achiever: He is equally comfortable with a calculus problem, on the soccer field or behind his bass. His father (an engineer) is concerned about the income of a musician. I see this aspect of his personality and don’t worry. He’ll be fine.

Listener: Besides his bass he plays guitar, electric bass and to a lesser extent drums. He listens to all kinds of music and loves to arrange something he heard on one instrument for another instrument. (Most recently Little Wing by Jimmy Hendrix for double bass. It’s cool.)

Player: This is where it all comes together. He believes music is transformative and hopes he will be able to “speak” to the world this way.

Honestly, I don’t think they are 3 separate categories. You have to have at least a little of one, and a lot of two, to be a three.

7

I agree with @BassTheatreMom! And, yes, my son believes music is transformative too.

8

@basstheatermom I think has the right idea, that it is a blend of all three, and my personal thought is that if someone doesn’t have aspects of all three, they won’t be able to make it as a musician (what those levels are is a different story).

For example, the achiever, who can work hard at things, who does things ‘the right way’, can achieve a pretty good level of playing because of the ability to ‘achieve’ as you call it. The problem is, if music is not particularly a passion, if they don’t particularly listen to music in an interested way, or have something to say while playing, they likely will grow bored with it, as a skill they are good at, like maybe a math talented kid who finds he/she prefers writing.

The kid listens to music, loves the sound, and wants to replicate what they heard but lacks the other two items, will likely never make the level needed even to pursue music at a higher level, because getting their requires an ‘achiever’ mentality (however you want to define it, a combination of inate talent and desire to work at it) and also requires the passion to want to say something, other than replicating what they felt was cool.

3 is about the passion, wanting to say something with the instrument. A teacher my son did a sample lesson with described #3 pretty well, that this is someone who is speaking through their playing, as opposed to what in my S's case they called a 'violin jock', someone who was interested in the instrument as playing it for playing the instrument 'perfectly' or whatnot, to astound people with their prowess, whereas to me a #3 cares about the music and is expressing it.

Someone with #3 alone would have problems, because with the #1 “achievement”, and some of the number 2 hearing music and thinking it is neat, would be great to play it, would likely fail, they wouldn’t achieve the mastery without the work, and someone with a message, an idea of what they want to play, but without knowing what it is (which listening IMO gives), can end up playing in his/her head more than playing the instrument.

There are of course various ways to say these things, and you could end up with maybe an infinite number of permutations, but I agree the person with all 3 of those mixed together, which will vary which are stronger and which are less, probably is what makes it work.

One othe possible mix, which isn’t necessarily about music and may be part of number 1, and that is someone with persistance, who when they face obstacles keep going, despite the doubt, plug away at it when frustrated, and also don’t let comparisons with those more advanced or “better” overwhelm them, that they can see the prize they are going for, see their weak points but also see the strong ones (and this one is huge, my S still struggles with that after 4 years of conservatory and having high level teachers wanting to teach him for grad school, and getting a lot of positive feedback over the years, I blame the #***$ who taught him in high school, that is one of my regrets, that we didn’t get him another teacher). … and it can be the difference between making it and giving up.

9

Of course you have to be a fan of music to want to play it…isn’t that kind of a given? But, yes, a blend of all 3. When I think of the type of music fan my kids are, it is vastly different from their peers. They listen to classical and band music, plus concertos. Not so much anything that you would hear on the radio.

10

I wonder how this correlates with the categories in the Double Degree Dilemma :slight_smile:

11

Just wanted to add to my comment above since the discussion has expanded a bit. Of course people are more complex than fitting neatly into one type of a category, whatever that may be. Listening to music is a large part of both my kids worlds and I think it has shaped them both in various ways. For my S listening to music is hugely important in forming who he is as a performer. They both have elements of all the categories above as well as others not listed. When my kids both started taking music instrument lessons years ago their teacher said the most important thing I could do to foster their musical growth was to have them listen to a lot of music. And I agree with BassTheatreMom that they are probably not separate distinct categories per se but I do see both of my kids falling more into one than another as described.

12

@uniformmom:
You would hope that as music students they were a fan of music, loved music for music’s sake, but that isn’t necessarily always true, there are a lot of ‘instrument jocks’, especially on the solo instruments, who are into the instrument and not necessarily the music, talk to music students at the conservatories studying classical music and a number of them outside their playing rarely listen to classical music or go to performances. One of the hallmarks to me of someone who will become a solid musician is someone who is interested in music and not just their own genre, there is a curiousity there (and again, my opinion). During WWII Heifetz played jazz piano as part of the USO under an assumed named, and later on amused himself by doing arrangements for violin of popular pieces, the interest of people like Bartok and Kodaly in folk music led to other things, musicans like Yo Yo Ma and Itzak Perlman love and play other forms, too, and so forth:).

I also tend to agree that it is so complex that coming up with categories is difficult, I suspect there are a ton of dimensions in music students and musicians that feed into who they are, and the answer so to speak is in the mix.

13

I took the question as looking at the more dominant traits in high school students who participate seriously in music and are considering a “performance” degree. I do still think the 3 types are notable in high school.

My D would get gently teased by some close friends bc they knew every “serious band” and every classic rock song ever recorded. My D listened to the classical station…and has only a general interest in rock but does enjoy some pop music. Some of these kids probably spent more time listening to music and building their knowledge of rock than my D did. She spent a good amt of time on stage not at home listening to music each night. I noted this even when I was in high school…the knowledge of some kids in certain genres of music were quite extraordinary…but their ability to perform seriously…not so much.

Then there were the academic kids. I mainly saw this in theater. They knew every playwrite…every Shakespeare play…every acting “method”…and would have really insightful interpretations on new works…but alas they were mediocre actors. They may however be a great theater professor/administrator some day. I actually just heard of a friend of my D’s who was definitely more on the mediocre side of acting but very intellectual and is now working at modern art museum (not sure if she’s an assistant curator or working in the the gift shop…still it seems like a good fit).

I think @compmom poses an interesting question. I think it may be different depending on the type of music. For example MusEd would require the more achiever/academic bend. I would suspect composers might lean more strongly to the listen/achiever side of things. VP, imho, requires the ability to act (player). You can “listen” and “study” all you want (and of course its important) but at the end of the day, if you aren’t a performer…it ain’t going to work.

And maybe it depends too on the musician. I remember once a statement that performers never tell “their secret”. I have definitely seen more intellectual actors and more intuitive actors. But both use some intellect and intuition. So they bring something fresh to each role. That is what makes art interesting.

14

Do you have a listener when he says, “the windshield wipers are moving in 6/8 time.” LOL.
I do agree is it complex and it takes all three!

15

@bridgenail This really resonated with me:

“But both use some intellect and intuition. So they bring something fresh to each role. That is what makes art interesting.”

I am a writer and I find that my writing suffers greatly when I am overwhelmed with deadlines and don’t have time to read widely and just take in others’ viewpoints. When I am at my best, I am reading from all genres and my own work is so much more fresh and thoughtful (I’m a medical writer, so creativity is always a challenge).

I think this is true for any art form. The more you fill up the well, the more you have to draw from for your art. So I think the achieving and listening can contribute tremendously to the playing - assuming the necessary discipline is also there.