The Adult Beginner - Is it all about Talent?

Last night I did some fascinating reading about teaching older students. I had been questioning my views on teaching older adult novice flutists. Below are some quotes and some interesting avenues of discovery.
Comments are welcome!

Quote: from Unleashing Talent by Ricardo Iznaola

The Myth of Innate Talent

TRADITIONAL musical pedagogy is still tainted by the conventional wisdom which teaches us that musical talent is an innate ‘gift’ with which a few privileged people are blessed, and that its presence or absence is not necessarily related to a vocational calling, which may exist in the ‘untalented’ individual. This deleterious viewpoint shuts the door to the riches of musical training to untold numbers of people who never give themselves a chance to pursue their musical dreams, in the belief that they were born without a talent for music.

The belief in ‘innate talent’ is also a convenient expedient to excuse pedagogical failure; indeed, how can we blame a method or a teacher for the difficulties encountered by this or that ‘not very talented’ individual, poor soul, full of desire and enthusiasm but ‘not gifted’? This pedagogy of predestination has to be counteracted energetically and without compromise.
Traditional musical pedagogy must follow the lead of the great early childhood training methods (like those of Orff or Suzuki) and ground itself on the premise that everyone who shows a strong desire to ‘do’ music has a talent for it. This is the only truly disinterested pedagogical posture because it places the burden of responsibility where it properly belongs – with the teacher, instead of the learner.
We, as pedagogues, must come to believe in talent as a function of method.

The Adult Beginner
The success of early childhood musical pedagogies lies in their assumption of a universal musical capacity in children not dissimilar to that which allows them to learn their mother tongue by rote, through imitation, playfulness, trial and error, etc. This success gives credence to modern 'generative’ theories of music which assume similar mental structures for music as Chomskian linguistics speculate may exist for language.

Be that as it may, these pedagogies deal with a stage in the development of human beings when the spiritual ‘slate’ is cleaner, less burdened, than in older individuals, who carry a heavier emotional and intellectual load. Our main interest, pedagogically, lies with the musical training of the latter.

Post-adolescent musical pedagogy is notoriously deficient in handling the challenge presented by the ‘passionate adult beginner’: what to do for those students intensely in love with music but possessing little or no training, who usually bring with them deeply ingrained convictions about their lack of talent, their being too old, too physically badly coordinated, their lack of aural ability and other such negative self-concepts. Where to begin? What goals can we realistically expect to achieve? How far can they go?

There is no denying that the passing of time does have a deteriorating effect on the human body, with joints becoming more stiff, reflexes slower, stamina and endurance lessened. These effects of ageing, however, are not strong enough to produce noticeable malfunctions usually until well past middle-age and are practically irrelevant in most normal adults until the sixth or seventh decade of life. Even more, some radical medical thinkers are now disputing the unavoidability of old age’s dereliction and are beginning to offer alternative viewpoints of far-reaching implications.

Of even less consequence is the effect of age on mental/spiritual capacities, except in cases which are pathological in nature. We can keep fully functional intellectual and emotional capabilities for most of our life. We must then conclude that much more important than the obstacles imposed on us by physiology or the passing of time are those created by our psyche, by our self-concept, by our relationship with authority figures, etc. In short, by the world surrounding us, and our interpretations of it.

The sad fact is that, in most cases, the students of whom we speak will never experience the full realization of their true potential because their real needs will never be addressed or even recognized. Their own self-concepts (and our implicit assumptions as their teachers), will deny them that right. The negative expectations about their lack of success will become self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating and, in our faculty lounges, we will look at each other with a knowing wink as if saying, ‘See? I told you so.’

For those of us involved in academia, this scenario is a familiar one (and who among us can claim innocence?): the distinguished master, talking about his ‘star pupil’, with glittering eyes, hushed enthusiasm in the voice, pride in the accomplishment of the pedagogical mission...or talking about ‘that other student’, eyebrows raised in disgusted surprise, a sneer, and a dismissive shrug.

How commonplace and how terribly unfair! Surely ‘that other student’ is more a victim of who knows what complex circumstances than of a cruel fate that has deprived this pupil of ‘talent’.
If only the illustrious and no doubt well-intentioned master would take the time to educate (bring out) rather than instruct (pile upon). If only the teacher could empathise rather than criticise and could become an ally instead of a judge…

Seen in this light it becomes evident that a primordial pedagogical responsibility remains in the discovery or, more precisely, uncovering of hidden talent. For diverse reasons, many people have their talents buried under layers and layers of emotional debris. These are the people we consider untalented (as they themselves do). The talented are those who have managed to maintain unimpeded access to their talent: those souls who are relatively free from the burdens that scourge the human spirit.

In particular this pedagogy avoids:

•the overbearing authority of historical traditions, which may easily lead to dogma and rigidity. This is the greatest enemy of intellectual freedom.

•critical statements which express, explicitly or implicitly, moralising value judgements. This is the greatest enemy of emotional freedom.

•standardised or formulaic procedural approaches to technique which constrain the playing mechanism by their narrow and unimaginative perspectives on the issues of technical control and security. This is the greatest enemy of physical freedom.

Instead this pedagogy searches for:
•tangible evidence demonstrating the existence of connecting, integrative principles whose applicability is based on contextual interpretation rather than pseudo-apodictic certainty.

•ways to stimulate the student’s discovery and identification of problem areas that are viewed as opportunities for learning and progress rather than as reasons for condemnation or derision.

•the fitting application of functional movement, and its related sensory feedback, to each individual circumstance presented by the ever-changing technical procedures contained in the work under study.

Read the full articles at these links:

The Adult Beginner - Is it all about Talent?
http://www.egta.co.uk/content/sloboda
http://www.egta.co.uk/content/unleashing_talent
http://www.egta.co.uk/content/unleashing_talent2

Jen continues:I wonder if some of the physical tensions that adult novice flutists can present with would be helped by The Feldenkrais method? So I spent a little time researching that as well. Here are some interesting avenues of thought:

Unlearning tension and increasing "feel" article by Feldenkrais

Working with an older musician (brief article about uses of Feldenkrais with a 70 yr. old composer/pianist with neck and back pain from posture habits).

Book excerpt from: Awareness Through Movement by Feldenkrais

Video of Moshe Feldenkrais working with stiff necked person (from whiplash).

ATM Feldenkrais floor work on video

And all levels of musicians may want to read about:

Quote from Feldenkrais use in the performing arts.

This refers to accomplished musicians who may find that they currently play with emotional/physical stress:

Working with a Berklee Saxophonist:
A saxophone player once came to me suffering through arm, shoulder and back pain. He was familiar with the Feldenkrais Method because he had taken the group classes, called Awareness Through Movement, during his college music training. His practices were becoming more and more troublesome and he found he needed to inhibit certain movements in order to make it through a performance. Technically, he had mastered his instrument. His level of virtuosity was quite apparent. Yet, he was physically uncomfortable. This same virtuosity, as well as his livelihood, was being threatened by his current condition.

In the beginning of one of our first lessons, I asked him (an accomplished saxophonist) to play a few musical passages that were: a.) easy and comfortable, b.) difficult and required significant effort, and c.) poignant and full of emotion. Observing him play, I noticed a great attention to the music, but considerably less attention to himself. The musical notes were the foreground, and his body a distant background. I noticed there was little acknowledgment of the ground through his feet. His difficulty manifested itself in back and shoulder pain. His eyes were strongly tensed and his head position forward, as if he were trying to reach the musical notes on an imaginary music stand. His habitual tensions were forming the quality of tone, effort and expression in his playing. Read more....

I hope to explore more of this topic in the future, and try out Feldenkrais for myself and report back. As a flute teacher, I find that the ease and balance of the physique is critical to the freeing of the emotion and learning of an instrument in a student. Who knows? It could increase the perception of "talent".

Please do comment if you have interesting ideas on the above cornucopia of information about freeing talent, freeing the body and freeing the musician.
Best,
Jen