Book recommendation: Lies My Music Teacher Told Me
By Gerald Eskelin, Doctor of Music Education and founder of the Grammy-winning L.A. Jazz Choir.
Definitely worth purchasing or checking out from the library. It’s fairly technical but appropriate for adults or teenage students. It fits with many of the ideas we’re using in lessons. I will elaborate in a future blog post, but for now suffice it to say that counting rhythms and staff-note-name or interval recognition are not appropriate for the early stages of formal music instruction. Unfortunately they’re more likely to turn away students with great potential than they are to build a solid foundation of musicianship. If I had heard this five years ago I would’ve disagreed heartily…but it’s great to continue to learn new things as an adult! (Great for my students, too.)