Basically, he would devote the lesson to coaching a student on new pieces before the student had time to practice them. You might call this doing "intro work."
I think the most common teaching/learning sequence goes like this..
- teacher assigns it
- student works on it
- student plays it in a lesson and teacher works on it
- teacher coaches student on it in a lesson
- student works on it
- in the next lesson, teacher coaches student on new pieces
Now, I know what you're thinking: where's the accountability? Well, I believe that comes in the form of playing tests a few times each semester in which the student must be able to play the pieces for a grade.
Bear in mind that these are college students I'm talking about. I realize that presenting a piece to a middle school band with regular rehearsals is a completely different animal.
It is an interesting idea. After all, it is harder to re-learn something after having learned it incorrectly. Why not get students off to a good start?
Of course, in some ideal world, we would have unlimited time for lessons and could devote quality time to both ends of the equation.
But usually, the clock is the enemy and another student will be waiting outside your door in one hour.
No big conclusions here because there is no one right way to always do it.
Still, I think it's something worth thinking about...
devote to the "before" side of teaching and how much to the "after" side?
