Jane Magrath is Professor of Music in Piano and Piano Pedagogy at the University of Oklahoma. She has presented over 200 recitals, workshops and masterclasses in over forty states as well as in locations in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia. She is a regular writer of New Music Reviews for Clavier, and her articles have appeared in the major piano journals. She has written, compiled, and/or edited over 25 volumes including the multi-volume series Masterwork Classics, Practice and Performance, Technical Skills, Masterpieces With Flair, Melodius Masterpieces, and Encore for Alfred Publishing Company. Her major reference book The Pianist's Guide to Standard Teaching and Performance Literature was published in 1995 by Alfred Publishing. She has served as Coordinator of Piano for the National Conventions of the Music Teachers National Association and in major capacities for other organizations including the National Conference on Piano Pedagogy. She has also served as the Rildia Bee Cliburn Lecturer at the Cliburn Piano Institute at TCU in Fort Worth, TX on two different occasions. A recipient of the University of Oklahoma Regent's Award for Superior Teaching and a two-time recipient of the Associate's Distinguished Lectureship, Dr. Magrath is a McCasland Foundation Presidential Professor at the University of Oklahoma where she serves as Chair of the Piano Department and teaches applied piano and courses in piano pedagogy.
Jane Magrath
School of Music
University of Oklahoma
Norman, OK 73019
jmagrath@ou.edu
405.325.4681
I'd like to quote from the opening of James Conlon's address to the competitors in attendance at the recent Van Cliburn Competition closing night's awards ceremony. "Being a musician is not merely a profession, it is a way of life. It is a passion, a vocation, an obsession. It is a privilege and a scourge which brings great satisfactions and great torments. Classical music is a spiritual force. It inspires, uplifts, and invigorates; consoles and edifies; challenges us to confront our inner selves and our destinies." What could be more true and more basic to the belief hierarchy of a classical musician?
For just a moment, I'd like to explore the relationship of this to today's music education circles. In teaching circles we talk often about what we can do to motivate the student. What makes an effective lesson? What is the best way to present a repertoire piece? What are some modes of learning and how can we match our teaching to the student's learning style? The list continues. We work ceaselessly to find the right answers and push the magic buttons in teaching to create just the right atmosphere and just the right combination of factors to allow our students to do their best. All this is quite well and good, especially since it signifies and represents the importance of teaching and of communicating with a student that many of today's most effective and most successful teachers believe.
I wonder if, through our excellent methods, we may skirt the central issue. Undoubtedly our experiences with some piece or pieces of music - classical, jazz, rock, or otherwise - brought us to a decision to make music ours for life. The music itself made us commit to being professionals; the music lured the amateur to discover the luster of practicing, of listening, of analyzing, and of further practicing.
We are musicians because of the very musical idiom itself - because the lure of music of quality is absolutely irresistible. The art music itself is what captivates, and what turns our students on. Are we teachers first, or pianists first, or music-lovers first?
Perhaps we miss the mark when we look too hard for too many teaching supplements and motivators, looking past the art itself: the very quality of the music that the students and we ourselves play. The zeal comes through the music. While the teacher, the music class, the choir director, the jazz director, and so on may be the facilitator, the very best of them places the art - the score - above all in affixing the music to the human soul.
Teachers bring light to the score and facilitate their students' ability to transform a score to life. Professional performers make music real. Amateur performers bring the music to life, and through that lend their enthusiasm for the music to anyone within shouting distance.
That should be the goal of any teacher - to have the student bring the score to life. All too often I'm afraid that teachers, in their most conscientious ways, strive to do everything with a student but that. It is the life in the music that keeps us thriving.
If you have a minute, look up James Conlon's address for the closing night's awards ceremony for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition delivered in Fort Worth during this past June 1997. You can find a large portion of it in the piano journal Piano Today, Fall 1997 issue on page 4. I continue with his thoughts on the satisfactions rendered through being a musician. Conlon, in talking with the contestants at the Cliburn competition, encouraged them to remember that "the only permanent satisfactions come from the love for the music itself, and joy in passing it on to others without asking for anything in return." He continues: "We must also remind ourselves and our audiences that we are not only passengers on a joy ride through the classical repertory, but caretakers and guardians of a time capsule."
Without the human performer - student, teacher, professional performer - to transmit the music, there is no music. It is the music and the act of making music that feeds our musical souls. It also feeds the souls of our first year piano students, the third year piano students, the junior high student, the college student who practices into oblivion, and the compulsive closet practicer, drawn irresistibly to their instrument and the music.
- Jane Magrath
| TABLE OF CONTENTS |
|---|