G
Guest
Guest
Though speaking of music, this essay has a depth of thought to offer any of us who receive or give criticism. I offer it here because of recent discussions and the pervasive diffidence I read among Lit. authors (including myself). I do think age has something to do with how we receive or reject criticism, especially anything negative, however constructive. I would urge those giving criticism (even on more personal threads) to take Tomes' ideas into consideration. [Emphases mine.]
Casting pearls before pedants
on the delicate balancing act between praise and criticism
Susan Tomes - September 27, 2003 - The Guardian
In the world of music it's usual for advanced students and young professionals to continue having lessons, attending masterclasses, and seeking advice from players they admire. This means that well into their 20s they are submitting their playing for criticism, often in public, at a time when most young people would expect to have finished their training. Obviously it takes a special kind of open-mindedness to keep on asking whether your playing can still be improved. On the other hand, these mature students are old enough to be able to take or leave the teachers' advice.
Recently I coached a young Japanese chamber group. They were all excellent, but what struck me most was their insecurity. Their stage manner wasn't as convincing as it could have been, given their finesse; they radiated a sense of "please do not find us good if you do not think it appropriate". So, as well as giving musical advice, I decided my main task was to bolster their egos. I told them they were fine players, but that they were wasting energy in self-doubt when it would be much more productive to use it in communicating with their listeners. They seemed to find this useful.
A few months later I had a letter from them. They had just returned from what the French would call a "stage de perfectionnement", a high-level music seminar with middle-European professors. They reported that after they had played for the first time, the teacher had folded his arms in an ominous silence before saying, "Well, well, well. Where to begin?... Let me ask you what you thought was wrong with your performance." They were taken aback, but one recovered enough to say, "It was perhaps not so unanimous now as it is in our rehearsals." "No," said the professor. "That's not it. Any other ideas?" Another player said, "Perhaps we do not understand Beethoven's style?" "I didn't mean that." Someone else said, "I think maybe we did not make the structure clear." There was a silence. Then the teacher said, "Well, if you do not know, I will tell you. It was not in tune!"
Now to an observer it seemed clear that such a professorial gambit should be taken with a pinch of salt. It was the equivalent of seeing someone in a glorious outfit and only commenting that their shoes were not polished. Or like looking at a beautiful garden and only saying there were places that hadn't been weeded. To me it was obvious that the focus of this lesson had been trivial, perhaps deliberately so.
However, what I hadn't expected was the students' reaction. They felt their faults must have been so basic that there was no point in speaking of higher matters. After several such lessons, they were so dejected they could hardly play in front of the audience. But maddeningly, they seemed to think this would turn out to be a salutary experience, a kicking they probably deserved if they were only smart enough to figure out why. Moreover, they thought that because I (a woman) had been nice and this other teacher (a man) had been horrible, he was the one who must be right. My praise was a candle easily blown out by his criticism.
I wrote back: "I must advise you not to be depressed by lack of compliments. If a teacher is critical, it doesn't necessarily mean that he or she is 'more right' than another who appreciates your playing. Sometimes, not paying compliments is a way to have power." It was my turn to feel despondent.
When I was a post-graduate student I spent a very happy semester at the Banff Arts Centre in Canada with my former group Domus. Instead of having a permanent teaching staff, the centre had a rota of visiting players and professors who stayed for periods ranging from just a few days to a week or two. Students were invited to sign up for lessons with any or all of these, though we were warned that if we were unsure of our own style and ideas, it would be unsettling to have lessons from too many people. We had already had several years of concert experience together, and we felt pretty sure of our aims, so we signed up for lessons with absolutely everybody.
It was both fascinating and enriching and I wouldn't have missed it for the world, but what became clear was that each visiting professor looked at things from his or her own angle and "with their own agenda", as we didn't say in those days. We took the same piece of chamber music - Fauré's C-minor piano quartet - to umpteen different gurus and let them shine their own particular lights on it. Gradually we realised that we had been told our playing was delightfully French, not French enough, too "Germanic", too piano-oriented, too string-oriented, too democratic, and not democratic enough. One person applauded our British reserve, while another felt it was handicapping us. We were told we were pleasingly individual, and also that we were not unanimous enough. Someone told us he had never heard the work so faithfully and idiomatically played, while another felt we needed to stop looking at the score and let our imaginations run riot. Memorably, I was told by a very distinguished cellist to "stop playing the piece as a blonde and try to play like a redhead", an instruction that is still beyond me.
It became obvious that there was no over-arching advice that took everything into account and transcended the personal. Furthermore, within our group, people varied quite a bit in their assessment of which advice was true or "right for us". We didn't even agree among ourselves about who had most truly held a mirror up to us. According to our different temperaments, some felt that praise was inspiring and helpful, while others felt that only criticism should be taken seriously. Finally we realised that all we could do was to understand the piece as well as we could, given our own characters and contexts. Even good advice was sometimes impossible to follow because of who we were. This was chastening, but also uplifting. We had to find something that rang true to us.
But knowing what rings true to you is no easy matter. How, after all, are our personal beliefs formed? Many young performers are happy to take on trust the views of respected or beloved teachers. It may take years to develop one's own individual viewpoint, and in fact it may not be possible, or even desirable, to be original. Advanced students are often in thrall to the opinions their teachers have of them, especially if they have only one teacher. If their teacher sees them in a negative way, it takes the strongest of characters to feel confident nonetheless.
Sadly, the converse is not true. If a teacher gives lots of praise and support, a self-critical student may feel that the teacher's powers of discernment must be lacking. For a teacher, deciding whether to praise or blame becomes fraught with peril. Some students open up like flowers when you support them, while others need that piece of grit in the oyster shell that encourages them to make a pearl.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1050391,00.html
Casting pearls before pedants
on the delicate balancing act between praise and criticism
Susan Tomes - September 27, 2003 - The Guardian
In the world of music it's usual for advanced students and young professionals to continue having lessons, attending masterclasses, and seeking advice from players they admire. This means that well into their 20s they are submitting their playing for criticism, often in public, at a time when most young people would expect to have finished their training. Obviously it takes a special kind of open-mindedness to keep on asking whether your playing can still be improved. On the other hand, these mature students are old enough to be able to take or leave the teachers' advice.
Recently I coached a young Japanese chamber group. They were all excellent, but what struck me most was their insecurity. Their stage manner wasn't as convincing as it could have been, given their finesse; they radiated a sense of "please do not find us good if you do not think it appropriate". So, as well as giving musical advice, I decided my main task was to bolster their egos. I told them they were fine players, but that they were wasting energy in self-doubt when it would be much more productive to use it in communicating with their listeners. They seemed to find this useful.
A few months later I had a letter from them. They had just returned from what the French would call a "stage de perfectionnement", a high-level music seminar with middle-European professors. They reported that after they had played for the first time, the teacher had folded his arms in an ominous silence before saying, "Well, well, well. Where to begin?... Let me ask you what you thought was wrong with your performance." They were taken aback, but one recovered enough to say, "It was perhaps not so unanimous now as it is in our rehearsals." "No," said the professor. "That's not it. Any other ideas?" Another player said, "Perhaps we do not understand Beethoven's style?" "I didn't mean that." Someone else said, "I think maybe we did not make the structure clear." There was a silence. Then the teacher said, "Well, if you do not know, I will tell you. It was not in tune!"
Now to an observer it seemed clear that such a professorial gambit should be taken with a pinch of salt. It was the equivalent of seeing someone in a glorious outfit and only commenting that their shoes were not polished. Or like looking at a beautiful garden and only saying there were places that hadn't been weeded. To me it was obvious that the focus of this lesson had been trivial, perhaps deliberately so.
However, what I hadn't expected was the students' reaction. They felt their faults must have been so basic that there was no point in speaking of higher matters. After several such lessons, they were so dejected they could hardly play in front of the audience. But maddeningly, they seemed to think this would turn out to be a salutary experience, a kicking they probably deserved if they were only smart enough to figure out why. Moreover, they thought that because I (a woman) had been nice and this other teacher (a man) had been horrible, he was the one who must be right. My praise was a candle easily blown out by his criticism.
I wrote back: "I must advise you not to be depressed by lack of compliments. If a teacher is critical, it doesn't necessarily mean that he or she is 'more right' than another who appreciates your playing. Sometimes, not paying compliments is a way to have power." It was my turn to feel despondent.
When I was a post-graduate student I spent a very happy semester at the Banff Arts Centre in Canada with my former group Domus. Instead of having a permanent teaching staff, the centre had a rota of visiting players and professors who stayed for periods ranging from just a few days to a week or two. Students were invited to sign up for lessons with any or all of these, though we were warned that if we were unsure of our own style and ideas, it would be unsettling to have lessons from too many people. We had already had several years of concert experience together, and we felt pretty sure of our aims, so we signed up for lessons with absolutely everybody.
It was both fascinating and enriching and I wouldn't have missed it for the world, but what became clear was that each visiting professor looked at things from his or her own angle and "with their own agenda", as we didn't say in those days. We took the same piece of chamber music - Fauré's C-minor piano quartet - to umpteen different gurus and let them shine their own particular lights on it. Gradually we realised that we had been told our playing was delightfully French, not French enough, too "Germanic", too piano-oriented, too string-oriented, too democratic, and not democratic enough. One person applauded our British reserve, while another felt it was handicapping us. We were told we were pleasingly individual, and also that we were not unanimous enough. Someone told us he had never heard the work so faithfully and idiomatically played, while another felt we needed to stop looking at the score and let our imaginations run riot. Memorably, I was told by a very distinguished cellist to "stop playing the piece as a blonde and try to play like a redhead", an instruction that is still beyond me.
It became obvious that there was no over-arching advice that took everything into account and transcended the personal. Furthermore, within our group, people varied quite a bit in their assessment of which advice was true or "right for us". We didn't even agree among ourselves about who had most truly held a mirror up to us. According to our different temperaments, some felt that praise was inspiring and helpful, while others felt that only criticism should be taken seriously. Finally we realised that all we could do was to understand the piece as well as we could, given our own characters and contexts. Even good advice was sometimes impossible to follow because of who we were. This was chastening, but also uplifting. We had to find something that rang true to us.
But knowing what rings true to you is no easy matter. How, after all, are our personal beliefs formed? Many young performers are happy to take on trust the views of respected or beloved teachers. It may take years to develop one's own individual viewpoint, and in fact it may not be possible, or even desirable, to be original. Advanced students are often in thrall to the opinions their teachers have of them, especially if they have only one teacher. If their teacher sees them in a negative way, it takes the strongest of characters to feel confident nonetheless.
Sadly, the converse is not true. If a teacher gives lots of praise and support, a self-critical student may feel that the teacher's powers of discernment must be lacking. For a teacher, deciding whether to praise or blame becomes fraught with peril. Some students open up like flowers when you support them, while others need that piece of grit in the oyster shell that encourages them to make a pearl.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1050391,00.html
