Mike's Oud Forums

A strange way to teach?

joseph - 7-16-2022 at 11:17 PM

I just wanted to share an observation about the different online Oud teaching sites such as Izif or the many different Youtube Oud teachers.

It is not my intention to downplay the effort of these teachers. I learned a lot from many of them, but there is something that I find a little frustrating. It is the the use of Solfege notation to teach a musical piece from beginning to end, rather than using musical notation and highlighting the difficult parts. I find this method frustratingly slow, but do beginners like it and benefit from it?

Another problem is the lack of levels in teaching. How many times can one hear the Bayati scale explained? Is it really efficient to have it explained again and again before each Bayati piece?

Again, I am grateful for the online teaching that made it much more easier for us who live far away from teachers, but I wanted to get everyone's thoughts of how this online teaching can be made more effective.



majnuunNavid - 7-17-2022 at 05:55 AM

I would really like to discuss this this since I'm one of these online teachers and always trying to see what people really want and need in terms of online tutorials.

I've been doing this for 10 years now and I still wonder what people need and want or find out what works best. But then everyone is different so what might work for one person might not work for another person.

My YouTube tutorials are a mix of different levels because there are a mix of different people watching them. So I sometimes repeat things I've said before.

My paid learning programs build on each other with small reminders here and there. So as you go through the course there is less and less hand holding.

I would love to hear any constructive criticism on my own tutorials if you have ever watched them.

joseph - 7-18-2022 at 06:28 AM

Hi Navid,

Yes I have seen some of your tutorials, and I appreciate the work you do in teaching the oud, and Arabic and Persian music.

The tutorials I had in mind for this post are actually in Arabic, and I think they assume few things. First that the learner does not know or want to learn any musical notation and want to learn only by rote. The second is that the learner has no background in music theory at all, but at the same time might want to know how to play Arabic songs that they are familiar with. Even the solfege notation as in do re mi syllables of a given song is not written down but has to be slowly repeated over and over after the scale is slowly explained. Learning by rote or by ear is useful when done face to face, and as a supplement but it seems strange to me as a technique to teach online. Also, I am wondering whether it is better to let students know that if you are really serious about the oud and want to put an effort to learn, then put some effort into learning music notation as well and this just makes the learning experience easier. Maybe this is even more true when learning online. Perhaps this is the point that would be interesting to discuss: Is it the role of the teacher to cater for all the different needs, or should we be saying to learners that you really need to learn music notation? The other option that might be helpful is to fit the lessons into grades such as beginner/intermediate/advanced. It would be interesting to read what others think.

Brian Prunka - 7-19-2022 at 11:56 AM

Hi Joseph, you raise an interestiing point. I do a lot of online teaching but my focus is more one-on-one where I can tailor the lessons to the needs, interests and strengths of the student.
I've done a couple of specific tutorials but have been too busy lately to do more - but since it is something on my overall agenda and I have a strong interest in how people learn, I'd also like to explore what you're talking about here.

I'll preface by saying that I don't really know much about some of these specific courses, but I do pay attention to what other teachers do - if there's already a great video explaining how to do something there's no reason to duplicate it unless I can add something. And of course, I'm still learning myself and hope to continue to do so as long as I draw breath. I'm just sharing some thoughts in response to your prompt, hoping that this creates some further discussion — I'm certainly very interested in different peoples' experiences with learning and what their preferences and goals are.
Quote: Originally posted by joseph  

The tutorials I had in mind for this post are actually in Arabic, and I think they assume few things. First that the learner does not know or want to learn any musical notation and want to learn only by rote. The second is that the learner has no background in music theory at all, but at the same time might want to know how to play Arabic songs that they are familiar with.


I've seen some of the videos like this and I agree with your explanation of the assumptions behind them.

However, the reality is that those assumptions do describe the vast majority of learners, at least in my experience and I expect the experience of the teachers involved.

Most students, particularly in Arabic music, are motivated amateurs who are doing this as a fun hobby. They are unlikely to know much theory or read music or be that interested in learning such things. They just want to learn some of their favorite songs and need some help to do so. This is not unlike the many guitar websites and videos that show people how to play popular songs. They may use chord or lyric charts, and sometimes tablature but it's rare that anyone uses standard music notation or theory.

The group of more serious-minded musicians with theory and readings skills (or a desire to develop them) is much smaller and for many teachers it's not going to be the main focus.

It's actually much easier and less time-consuming to teach from notation - doing rote videos like that is a lot more work. So the reason they are doing it that way is probably that more people respond to that.

Quote:

Learning by rote or by ear is useful when done face to face, and as a supplement but it seems strange to me as a technique to teach online.


I'm curious why you think that it makes any difference whether one is online or face-to-face for this kind of learning.
What is the difference from your perspective?

From my perspective, all that needs to be able to happen to learn by ear is to be able to hear, and that is the same in person or online. Learning by ear I find actually translates quite well via online platforms. And in pre-recorded videos like this I actually think it works better online — the student can pause and rewind the video as much as they like to catch anything they missed.

So I'd like to understand more why you feel it doesn't work so well. Obviously meeting in person is better in almost all cases if possible (for example, technique and posture are more difficult to correct without being in person.), but this is an area where I've found little is lost.

Quote:

Also, I am wondering whether it is better to let students know that if you are really serious about the oud and want to put an effort to learn, then put some effort into learning music notation as well and this just makes the learning experience easier.


I'm a big proponent of learning to read music and consider it a very good idea if one is serious about playing music. But I'd encourage you to examine more closely the idea that it "makes the learning experience easier." Does it really? And is that a good thing in the long run? Some things to consider:

- the #1 primary skill of any musician, more important than anything else by far, is to develop their aural skills. The ability to hear & recognize as well as clearly imagine specific sounds is at the core of every other skill (including reading beyond a novice level).

- developing these aural skills is best done contextually, gradually building up one's repertoire of recognition and imagination, and connecting those sounds to their expression via voice and instrument (and potentially via notation as well).

- this process does not feel 'easy' for most people, as it usually involves rewiring the brain in some pretty fundamental ways.

- reliance on sheet music can short-circuit this process as it can create an illusion of facility that is not rooted in audiation (the ability to connect your imagination to sound and understanding). For many musicians, this ends up being a crutch that prevents them from achieving freedom and mastery.

- Arabic music in particular is an oral/aural tradition and many aspects of it are not suitable to be notated (there is a kind of indeterminacy/openness at the core of the melodic conception that standard notation is not designed to accommodate). Sheet music often leads students to impose a rigidity of conception that is inappropriate.


Quote:
Perhaps this is the point that would be interesting to discuss: Is it the role of the teacher to cater for all the different needs, or should we be saying to learners that you really need to learn music notation? The other option that might be helpful is to fit the lessons into grades such as beginner/intermediate/advanced.


I don't think it's the role of any particular teacher to cater to all different needs, though it's an option with personalized lessons (more so than with prerecorded videos, where the limits of human capabilities run up against the multiplicities of individual variation). Some teachers insist on music notation, while others insist on not using any notation. Some teachers only use methods to perfect the talents of the 'gifted' students while others aim to draw out the potential of those with less inherent aptitude.

If one is designing a course, I agree that it should be graded by level.

There is a lot of basic stuff that all beginners need to learn, so it's easiest there to create a standardized course. But even at the 'beginner' level you will have a lot of variety in students' aptitudes. In an ideal world, I think many students should really spend a year or so singing and just playing rhythm before even starting a course on the oud.

I have one student who is very advanced in his knowledge of maqam, repertoire, and rhythm. He is a very advanced musician in many ways and a pro-level percussionist. But he is a total beginner to learning the oud and needs to learn really basic technical foundations. Another has a strong background in jazz and music theory, can read music well and has excellent general aural skills, but knows little about maqam and the specifics of oud style and technique.
Yet another has been playing the oud for some time and has a good technical foundation but has never developed his capacity for audiation and so has trouble with many 'simple' things.

All of these might be 'beginners' in one way but they have different needs and it's impossible for a general standardized course to avoid both redundancy or omissions - either you include stuff that will seem unnecessary to some people or you omit stuff that some people need. Ultimately, no one is perfect so likely some amount of both will always happen.

'Intermediate' is even more challenging, for obvious reasons - there are many ways to reach an intermediate level and one of the main challenges with an intermediate student is to identify and address their individual weaknesses.

'Advanced' students should really be doing a mix of true self-teaching, studying one-on-one, and working with narrowly tailored materials geared towards refined techniques (etudes, etc.) An advanced student doesn't need someone to help them learn a song.

Just from my own observation:
All anyone ultimately 'needs' to learn any song is to listen to recordings of it. To the extent one requires more assistance than this (whether notation or a rote walk-through or other guidance), it is an indication of the gaps in one's aural skills and connection to one's instrument.

If one's goal is simply to be able to play some songs, then this is fine either way and you can learn by rote or notation and you will be able to play the song more or less to the level of your current development. It may not help you to actually improve much or at all upon your current level though — you'll just be able to play beginner/intermediate versions of more songs.

If the goal is to really be a better musician overall, the way to do that is to improve one's aural skills by learning by ear, not by notation. The goal then becomes not to learn any particular song more quickly, but to learn it in via a method that makes your ear faster overall. Eventually, each successive song will be learned more quickly. If it is too difficult to learn by ear, then likely one needs some more fundamental aural training involving singing.

Music pedagogy and learning in general are huge topics, so there is really a lot of consider. Apologies if my thoughts here are a bit disconnected - I don't intend them as a thesis here so much as some ideas for discussion and consideration.

joseph - 7-24-2022 at 04:04 AM

Hi Brian,

Thanks for contributing for the discussion. I feel there is some great advice here.

Quote:

I'm curious why you think that it makes any difference whether one is online or face-to-face for this kind of learning.
What is the difference from your perspective?


Thinking about this more, I wasn't comparing like with like. In face to face classes I had, the teacher will play some phrases and the student would repeat. If the phrase got too complicated, the teacher would slow down or play shorter phrases or give away hints, so there was a lot of interaction. In the online classes I have seen the teacher would simply read the solfege syllable of all the notes, so it wasn't learning by ear.

Quote:

- the #1 primary skill of any musician, more important than anything else by far, is to develop their aural skills. The ability to hear & recognize as well as clearly imagine specific sounds is at the core of every other skill (including reading beyond a novice level).

Good advice. I will try to put it more into practice in my own learning.

Quote:

There is a lot of basic stuff that all beginners need to learn, so it's easiest there to create a standardized course. But even at the 'beginner' level you will have a lot of variety in students' aptitudes. In an ideal world, I think many students should really spend a year or so singing and just playing rhythm before even starting a course on the oud.


I can relate to this personally, and I wish I learned this earlier. I learned on my own for years and I only realized how wrong my rhythm was when I played with others. I feel that working on rhythm alone had the biggest effect on improving my playing.
Quote:

Just from my own observation:
All anyone ultimately 'needs' to learn any song is to listen to recordings of it. To the extent one requires more assistance than this (whether notation or a rote walk-through or other guidance), it is an indication of the gaps in one's aural skills and connection to one's instrument.


That is interesting. I certainly find this difficult or hard work particularly with more complicated songs. I find it easier to hear the sound of a music that is written in front of me, than doing the opposite and writing what I hear down, or playing it without missing out some parts. It obviously takes many years to develop this skill, so wouldn't this would create a dependence on the teacher for every song one wishes to learn, until the student is able to achieve this mastery?


majnuunNavid - 7-24-2022 at 07:07 PM

I made this video recently and I'd love your thoughts on it Joseph as to whether or not this is something an Oud player of your level could learn from. Is it too much, too little? Is it even useful?

https://youtu.be/N4qELixjZrk

joseph - 7-25-2022 at 03:56 AM

Hi Navid,

Regarding the Al-arasia song youtube tutorial in your link, for my level, this is almost enough. Perhaps a brief explanation of some of the interesting ornamentation would be nice. The reason is that, for me, I can read the notation that is displayed while you play.
Cheers
Joseph

Brian Prunka - 7-25-2022 at 12:01 PM

Quote: Originally posted by joseph  
Hi Brian,

Thanks for contributing for the discussion. I feel there is some great advice here.


Sure thing! I'm very glad if anything is helpful. As a teacher and a lifelong learner I find the entire topic of pedagogy and learning a really interesting and helpful one to discuss.
Quote:

Thinking about this more, I wasn't comparing like with like. In face to face classes I had, the teacher will play some phrases and the student would repeat. If the phrase got too complicated, the teacher would slow down or play shorter phrases or give away hints, so there was a lot of interaction. In the online classes I have seen the teacher would simply read the solfege syllable of all the notes, so it wasn't learning by ear.


Ah, that makes sense. Yes, it's true that a more specifically focused ear-training scenario is a bit different than someone just naming notes. There is some gray area in between, and even simply naming notes this way probably has some ear training benefit, but simply naming notes (whether using the solfege note names or English naming) is not really ear training per se.



Quote:

That is interesting. I certainly find this difficult or hard work particularly with more complicated songs. I find it easier to hear the sound of a music that is written in front of me, than doing the opposite and writing what I hear down, or playing it without missing out some parts. It obviously takes many years to develop this skill, so wouldn't this would create a dependence on the teacher for every song one wishes to learn, until the student is able to achieve this mastery?


You make a good point - the goal should be to help the student teach themselves and not be too reliant on the teacher. So simply walking the student through one piece after another is not likely to lead to much improvement (or at least, it will simply vary from student to student depending on their aptitudes for listening vs. reading, etc.)

But I think some of your ideas here need to be examined more closely.
"I certainly find this difficult or hard work particularly with more complicated songs."

Yes, it is difficult and challenging work. But perhaps this is a sign that it is the most necessary work? "Difficult" and "hard" can be reframed as the feeling of truly "learning". When I have the feeling of something being very difficult, I find it really helpful to update my mental context of that feeling - rather than being a frustrating sense of not getting it, the "struggling" feeling can just be understood as what it feels like to retrain your brain. In this way, "difficult" can be reframed from a negative feeling into a positive one.

"I find it easier to hear the sound of a music that is written in front of me, than doing the opposite and writing what I hear down, or playing it without missing out some parts."

Reading music can certainly supplement one's memory, and make it easier to grasp larger structures or explicitly parse certain details. But if it is much easier to 'hear' this way, it's possible that you are simply not 'hearing' very well regardless, including when you are reading. What reading is doing in the case of many students is actually just masking the deficiencies in their core musicianship skills.
This is actually totally fine from a certain perspective - if you want short-term results, reading is perfectly sensible. But often what happens is that it allows a student to 'fool' themselves because they are able to use alternative strategies to keep up, so their true weaknesses are not being exposed. The longer one keeps relying on non-aural strategies for playing music, the more difficult it become to unlearn those habits and develop core aural skills.
So while I don't know you, if I were to guess, the fact that you find reading to be much easier suggests to me that you are likely to be relying too much on it.

"It obviously takes many years to develop this skill"

It really depends on the person and the methods and effort employed. Most importantly, one shouldn't look at it as something you either "can" or "can't" do. There are different levels of complexity and unfamiliarity in the music, and one can utilize differing degrees of assistance, and one can be fast or slow at it. So, learning a simple tune like "Jayibli Salaam" by ear is much different from something like "Daret al- Ayyam". With my students, I'll often assign them a simple tune to learn by ear but work with them on more complicated tunes (or have them learn what they can by ear an then help them with the complicated/difficult parts). Like anything else, you get better as you practice it and can handle more challenging material and be more confident in your skills. It often feels really difficult and unfamiliar at first, but it's not as impossible a task as it may feel. "Mastery" is really a process, not a destination.

From my perspective, the teacher is ideally really trying to help the student get better at this process so that they can learn on their own - simply being shown individual songs (whether via sheet music or note names doesn't really matter) is secondary to the true point of study for serious students. It's worthy in itself to learn repertoire, and it can be a means to further development in various ways (so not like it's not worth doing).

So you're right that reading gives you some access to repertoire beyond a teacher and that's useful as far as it goes (though there are particular issues with sheet music for Arabic repertoire with regard to accuracy, false precision, and interpretation). But it's not much better to be dependent on sheet music: that doesn't really lead to lasting overall progress either. More important is learning not to depend on either sheet music or a teacher.


There are many things in Arabic music that can only really be learned if you learn them by ear yourself. A teacher can show you what to learn, and even give you some tips on how to go about it, but they can't learn it for you. At some point, sheet music is like training wheels.

SamirCanada - 7-26-2022 at 05:32 AM

Very interesting discussion so I’ll jump in with my 2 cents if you will allow. But I will begin with saying that Brian really nails it here.

Personally, I first learnt music in high school by taking up trombone and playing with the school orchestra 5 years. Almost all the instruction I received beyond the this is how you make sound with your instrument was based on sheet music. I got very proficient reading and playing what was in front of me but you couldn’t ask me to play an improvisation that made sense or even to play a song by ear. Also more importantly I think, I wasn’t singing these classical pieces in the shower and listening to them in the car or in my Walkman.

As Brian says, developing your ear is the key. But a teacher in my view is not needed there. I started the oud just before university days, at first was a very slow process because I didn’t have a teacher to show me the very basics but fortunately I found this forum and learnt the basic maqam scales and beginner exercises learning to play basic familiar songs. Once the basic things are out of the way.. (how to tune , how to play with the risha, play basic melodies, etc…) I think the very best way to become more advanced is to listen to the songs you enjoy in Arabic music , sing them and hum the Melodies all the time and develop the ability to learn them by heart and transfer this into the way to express them by playing on the oud. It sounds complicated but slowly you will be able to increase the length and complexity of the songs you can play. I never learnt the oud by reading music , I actually can’t read music in the key of Sol very fast (trombone music is written only in key of Fa)

The downside is well you can’t remember how a song starts sometimes or you haven’t listened to a song in a while. Sheet music can really help there but I bet you professional musicians have the sheets in front of them and more than often aren’t reading them when playing the classics.

Something else, surround yourself if you can with people you consider good players and play music together or just watch them. If you don’t have that watch a lot of YouTube videos of great players. Try to live and breathe the music, listen to what you enjoy and what you want to play. I don’t know your background but it also doesn’t matter as I have met people from all cultures develop this love and appreciation for Tarab music. an idea of a good time for me is sparking my shisha with some friends and Arabic music classics going in the back and someone playing the oud. I am sure that’s something shared by many on this forums



Brian Prunka - 7-26-2022 at 10:12 AM

Thanks for your perspective Samir. Overall I very much agree with you, and you make really good practical suggestions.

One reservation I that pops into my mind reading your comments is this: people really have quite a lot of individual variation in their aptitudes and skills. So while in a certain sense a teacher is not "needed," a lot of people will find the approach of just learning by ear to be a quite intimidating and formidable task to take on with no guidance. So it can be helpful to have a teacher observe difficulties and make suggestions.

Even though it sounds like you didn't feel that your trombone studies were very connected to the actual music, I suspect that the experience of learning the trombone still gave you a bit of a leg up when you went to study the oud. Brass instruments are closer to singing in that they require a certain amount of audiation in order to hit the correct overtones (though the use of slides and valves makes it less straightforward than singing). So someone who is really coming in with no musical background really might just find it too challenging without any help at all.

This is aside from the technical aspects of playing, where I think a teacher is almost always really necessary: learning correct posture, risha grip and picking technique, being relaxed, hand and finger positions & shifting, etc.

In addition, I think a teacher can model learning processes and offer insights so that the student's mind is opened to aspects of learning that might not be discovered on their own (or might take many years). While much of playing music has to be personally rediscovered by every musician, we can also learn from others successes and mistakes in order to build on them. A healthy balance is best, in my experience.

SamirCanada - 7-26-2022 at 07:47 PM

Absolutely, I think that really captures it. I think if had a teacher I would have achieved a higher proficiency and much faster. But certainly a teacher who would have focused on sight reading vs a teacher that would have focused on all these finer points you mention above is probably also the difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher for this instrument and what it requires. No doubt my trombone studies helped, more than anything I think learning in that classical way also provides you the discipline and knowledge of “knowing how to learn and focused practicing” by starting with basic fundamentals and building on it by practicing. But like you also said, a teacher can’t train your ear for you (they can help by describing what to pay attention when listening). That said with basic knowledge of music theory, knowing how to learn and having a good ear I got myself to an intermediate level ( even though you said advanced players are at the level they can teach themselves a song, I guess that makes me an advanced player hhahaha). I believe that if I had taken lessons with masters I could have been at a much higher level but I don’t think it would have made a difference if I had spent considerable time into learning to play while sight reading. And to me, potentially to others as well, the hallmark of a oud master is the ability of expressing a melody you have in you head through the instrument in an authentic and emotional way as one would with their voice or even better.

Anyway we are fortunate to have YouTube and other resources to listen to the many recordings and watching the players.

SamirCanada - 7-26-2022 at 08:40 PM

Absolutely, I think that really captures it. I think if had a teacher I would have achieved a higher proficiency and much faster. But certainly a teacher who would have focused on sight reading vs a teacher that would have focused on all these finer points you mention above is probably also the difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher for this instrument and what it requires. No doubt my trombone studies helped, more than anything I think learning in that classical way also provides you the discipline and knowledge of “knowing how to learn and focused practicing” by starting with basic fundamentals and building on it by practicing. But like you also said, a teacher can’t train your ear for you (they can help by describing what to pay attention when listening). That said with basic knowledge of music theory, knowing how to learn and having a good ear I got myself to an intermediate level ( even though you said advanced players are at the level they can teach themselves a song, I guess that makes me an advanced player hhahaha). I believe that if I had taken lessons with masters I could have been at a much higher level but I don’t think it would have made a difference if I had spent considerable time into learning to play while sight reading. And to me, potentially to others as well, the hallmark of a oud master is the ability of expressing a melody you have in you head through the instrument in an authentic and emotional way as one would with their voice or even better.

Anyway we are fortunate to have YouTube and other resources to listen to the many recordings and watching the players.

Brian Prunka - 7-27-2022 at 12:21 PM

Complete agreement Samir!

Quote: Originally posted by SamirCanada  

we are fortunate to have YouTube and other resources to listen to the many recordings and watching the players.


Absolutely, it's really fantastic - even just being to watch closely the hands and movements of masterful players is very enlightening! The old videos of Farid and others rarely focused on the hands in the kind of detail that you can see easily nowadays.

Labels like "beginner" and "advanced" are a bit misleading, because playing music, especially improvising, really involves many different skills and we are all at different levels with respect to different skills. So one could be advanced with respect to ear-related skills (what I was referring to regarding learning songs by ear) while still being a beginner/intermediate from the perspective instrumental technique.

This is actually pretty common from my experience with "amateur" musicians who grew up with a soomewhat musical background but didn't get much formal technical guidance - a good ear and musical instincts, but various gaps in the approach to technical expression.

One thing I've thought about quite a bit is the relationship between technnical knowledge/skills and musical knowledge/skills as far as overall instrumentalist development..

When we first attempt to play an instrument, the very obvious difficulties are all technical: how do you hold the instrument properly, where do my hands/fingers go and at what angles, what is the best posture, how do I make the appropriate motions, etc.

This can obscure the fact that the majority of musicianship is in the acquisition of musical knowledge/skills (such as audiation, repertoire, singing/memory, rhythmic knowledge, etc.). Some of this includes connecting musical skills to their execution on the instrument, but the main task is really not instrument-specific (which is why people who have achieved a high level on one instrument are often able to translate their knowledge to a second instrument relatively easily).

After some reflection, I realized that there is another technical level, where one is trying to achieve ever-finer levels of mechanical refinement and precision in order to have the widest palette of expression.

In a way, perhaps these could broadly be the beginner-intermediate-advanced levels with respect to learning an instrument.
I would probably estimate that something like the first 20-30% of learning an instrument is fundamental technique, 50-70% is musical skills/knowledge, and 10-20% is advanced technique.

One obstacle I've seen many students run into is that they try to jump from fundamental technique to the advanced technique without doing the hard work of the intermediate level (mainly ears and musical skills). Others have good musical intuitions —strong ear, musical memory etc. but haven't learned the more disciplined practice techniques required for technical mastery.

Based on my experience, it's important to get the balance right and work on things in the appropriate sequence - many "advanced" techniques will never work unless one has developed the ability to "prehear" the desired sound in one's imagination. One could waste a lot of time (I certainly did!) trying to work on advanced things that one isn't prepared for at the musical level. Once your ears are ready musically, the "difficult" parts will flow much more easily in my experience.