Long-Distance Learning

This morning I had a Skype lesson with a student of mine who returns to her family's home country of Ukraine every summer.  I had not realized that her family had set up cello lessons for her back there, and was very happy with her progress at having been able to have lessons 3 times a week.  From thousands of miles away, she told me the things her teacher had been working on with her, and played some of the songs, all different than ones than I know.

It was a different technical approach, and seemed to be working very well for her.  It's another one of those hidden bonuses of living in New York that I have the pleasure of having a student that goes home to another country, and can have a window into a different way of learning.  Styles of playing are quite different in different regions of the world, just like languages, cultural norms.  I don't speak the cello technique that she was being taught, but definitely understand and appreciate its value and now have a young teacher of my own.  It's fascinating to me to see the passing down of technique within a culture or tradition.  I believe some of my teachers had teachers like the one with whom she is currently studying.  I recognize the vestiges of the approach, even if it is different than the way I currently approach teaching.  It's opening my view of how big the world of possibilities can be, and what's allowed and valid.  And then it becomes a question of breaking it down for younger people.

Later in the day I got an Uber and the driver, when I told him I was a cellist, happily said he played violin when he was growing up in Georgia (the country, as he made clear).  Funny to have had a taste earlier of the Eastern European musical pedagogy, and then to be given a ride by somebody else from that tradition.  He asked where I was from originally, because as he said, "Your accent is a little different and you are much nicer than the people around here."

It is such a resource to have students that can bring gifts from other teachers.  It is one of the great things about the world that we live in, that we can learn from one another.  I admit that in my student in Ukraine, as well as another one I taught this afternoon that had grown from time at a summer music Institute, I wish I could be the teacher of the world.  I feel room to grow as a teacher, room to learn from others, and that can have a conflicted feeling.  But it is overshadowed by the growth that I see in them, and by knowing that I have something to offer and that to judge that is to keep it from them (which is unfair), and that growth often happens when students are exposed to new ideas, new teachers, new environments.  These are all incredibly valuable and important things to keep in mind.  It is not about the teacher, it is about the growth of the student.  And if I can grow a little in the meantime, all the better for myself and them.