by David E. Knauss
Ph.D. in Music Education
Doc. Humane Letters, Honoris Causa
Many people have been lead into wrong thinking about music skills so strongly, that the only way I know to make my point is to relay it as a personal testimony. From my K-12 public schooling and from my undergraduate music education years, I was lead to believe that there are those with music talent, and those without; those with music skills, and those without; and those who "get it" and those who never will. All these impressions are wrong, and the following is my personal testimony on how I learned differently.
I am a music educator, an artistic musician, and have taught public school music and private lessons to every age from preschool through elder adult, from non-tone matcher to master's degree musician. I have spent my entire career learning how to teach high-level, complex music skills successfully. I take the seemingly impossible and make it easy to attain. This is called the art of teaching. But many students simply didn't get it, and I blamed it on their "stupidity" or lack of talent.
God reprimanded me one day by saying in my thoughts, "There is no such person as a non-musical person. Music is from Me. I put music inside every human being because I am music, and everyone is made in My Image! Some people automatically connect with the music inside of them, and others do not. You are the teacher, so learn how to help them connect to it to praise me with the music I put in them."
With that reprimand, I discarded my erroneous beliefs that there are the "haves" and "have nots," the talented and untalented, and when I learned HOW to teach every one the two gateway skills of all of music (how to sing in tune and how to maintain a steady beat), and that EVERYONE can learn these skills, then everything fell neatly into place. After 40 years of teaching, I can assuredly say there's no such person as tone-deaf, monotone, or musically untalented. I have never met one!
The HOW consists of knowing the specific sequenced steps from unskilled to well-skilled, and discerning where exactly a student is along that sequence. But to arrive at this knowledge that paved the way to becoming a successful musician teacher, I had to destroy the belief system that undergraduate education and tradition taught me. If you hold any of these erroneous beliefs, take it from me, discard them now, and replace them with specific "How To's."
There are many music teachers and music students, but few musician teachers and musician students. Want to know more? Want to know HOW to make the complex, seemingly impossible skills and concepts in music very easy to teach and easy for students to learn?
Dr. Knauss mentors student teachers and regular teachers into teaching excellence. He taught for 3 decades in inner-city public schools, winning over street kids into being like family, became one of the principle curriculum writers for an award-winning, internationally-recognized music department. He retired from public schools, completed a Ph.D. in Music Education, and presently is an adjunct music education professor at Baptist Bible College.
Check out the nearly one hundred self-help music education teaching instructions at: www.classroom-music.info. Each "How To" is found under the tab of Music Education / Basic Music Teaching Skills / Advanced Music Teaching Skills / "How to Teach..."
www.classroom-music.info
Ph.D. in Music Education
Doc. Humane Letters, Honoris Causa
Many people have been lead into wrong thinking about music skills so strongly, that the only way I know to make my point is to relay it as a personal testimony. From my K-12 public schooling and from my undergraduate music education years, I was lead to believe that there are those with music talent, and those without; those with music skills, and those without; and those who "get it" and those who never will. All these impressions are wrong, and the following is my personal testimony on how I learned differently.
I am a music educator, an artistic musician, and have taught public school music and private lessons to every age from preschool through elder adult, from non-tone matcher to master's degree musician. I have spent my entire career learning how to teach high-level, complex music skills successfully. I take the seemingly impossible and make it easy to attain. This is called the art of teaching. But many students simply didn't get it, and I blamed it on their "stupidity" or lack of talent.
God reprimanded me one day by saying in my thoughts, "There is no such person as a non-musical person. Music is from Me. I put music inside every human being because I am music, and everyone is made in My Image! Some people automatically connect with the music inside of them, and others do not. You are the teacher, so learn how to help them connect to it to praise me with the music I put in them."
With that reprimand, I discarded my erroneous beliefs that there are the "haves" and "have nots," the talented and untalented, and when I learned HOW to teach every one the two gateway skills of all of music (how to sing in tune and how to maintain a steady beat), and that EVERYONE can learn these skills, then everything fell neatly into place. After 40 years of teaching, I can assuredly say there's no such person as tone-deaf, monotone, or musically untalented. I have never met one!
The HOW consists of knowing the specific sequenced steps from unskilled to well-skilled, and discerning where exactly a student is along that sequence. But to arrive at this knowledge that paved the way to becoming a successful musician teacher, I had to destroy the belief system that undergraduate education and tradition taught me. If you hold any of these erroneous beliefs, take it from me, discard them now, and replace them with specific "How To's."
There are many music teachers and music students, but few musician teachers and musician students. Want to know more? Want to know HOW to make the complex, seemingly impossible skills and concepts in music very easy to teach and easy for students to learn?
Dr. Knauss mentors student teachers and regular teachers into teaching excellence. He taught for 3 decades in inner-city public schools, winning over street kids into being like family, became one of the principle curriculum writers for an award-winning, internationally-recognized music department. He retired from public schools, completed a Ph.D. in Music Education, and presently is an adjunct music education professor at Baptist Bible College.
Check out the nearly one hundred self-help music education teaching instructions at: www.classroom-music.info. Each "How To" is found under the tab of Music Education / Basic Music Teaching Skills / Advanced Music Teaching Skills / "How to Teach..."
www.classroom-music.info
