Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

The Japanese way of teaching as you describe as "not so much explaining as imitation" and "not so much praise as constant criticism" is a good description of how my Japanese sensei teaches but I don't really follow his teaching style with my own students.  I don't know if I necessarily give more explanation but generally I try to give more positive feedback than criticism. I've noticed that some Japanese students don't always respond well to the 'Japanese' way of teaching.  As for the question "Which do you think is better?" it may depend on a variety of factors such as the expectations and past experiences of the student. Also, some Japanese teachers are better at explaining things than others, and some do try and use praise as well as negative feedback; I don't know if there is always such a clear dividing line between Japanese and Western styles of teaching.

Different people excel at learning in different ways, therefore an excellent teacher is one who can shift the teaching style to match the student.

Zak

airin wrote:

Zakarius wrote:

Different people excel at learning in different ways, therefore an excellent teacher is one who can shift the teaching style to match the student.

Zak

I couldn't agree more!

Hence when one has found a teacher that can do that, they've found a rare and special person.

On the other hand (there's always another hand, isn't there?), much can be learned from a teacher that 'rubs you the wrong way'.

I would agree that each teacher is individual and some of my teachers here in Japan teach in a different way than how they were taught by their teachers. Though I have little experience of studying music in a Western context, people do say that there is more talking in lessons in the West (I mean for music in general). I have noticed that the teachers here in Japan who are particularly geared to teaching Western students do seem to be the ones who talk more, so I suppose that is in response to that. Personally I like to teach (and learn) as directly as possible using the "target language", which in this case is the sound of the shakuhachi. That is, I want the attention to be as much as possible on the sound itself, or the movements. It's only when the sounds or movements are not being perceived correctly or clearly, or the reasons for them are not understood, that verbal explanations come in handy. And it is here that some Japanese teachers may be lacking, indeed the teaching styles of other Asian countries too, which sometimes just leaves it for the student to "get it" by himself. This can lengthen the learning process unnecessarily I believe. Sometimes there are mistakes students may be making for years which could have been remedied by a kind word from the teacher at any stage. I have seen this is martial arts for example.

And as others said above, it depends on the student. Praise is indispensable of course. But how much criticism, or how many details one would point out really depends on what the student is ready for, and also how willing they are to take what you might have to give them.

Taking the question of the thread in a slightly different angle, I could say that when teaching the shakuhachi, I think there is no need to stick to the teaching method of ones teacher. We may learn how to play the shakuhachi from our shakuhachi teacher, but learning how to teach can be another story. Personally I would say that my main way of learning how to teach has been by observing myself, observing how I learn. How I have responded when studying various arts in particular, but also even back at school. So I remember how I responded to the different methods and approaches, and how the other students also responded as I observed their learning process. This has been very instructive for me.

Hi Sarah,
I've been studying with the same teacher in Kumamoto, Japan for the past 23 years or so.  His method of teaching is typical to what one would call 'The Japanese Way'.  I have to say that I was something unusual in his regimen though, simply because when I started lessons with him, I spoke no Japanese and he spoke very little English.  This may have been something of a blessing though as it was impossible for me to ask many questions (which my western ways naturally wanted to do) and for he to answer or instruct verbally.  In that way, I would come into his teaching space, sit in front of him in a seiza manner, ready myself and bow to him with the words yoroshiku onegaishimasu which is a politeness used often in Japanese society.  He would commence by either asking me to play a piece or a part of a piece that we had been working on either with him, or with him singing the notes as I played, or with him simply keeping the time while I played, or with just me playing.  If I made some kind of mistake, he would say some things that I understood as to mean that I was doing something incorrectly and he would then play a part.  I would then try to emulate what he just played.  If he was satisfied, we would carry on.  If he wasn't, he would somehow let me know and play the part again for me to understand.  After the lesson, I would bow again and say arigato gozaimasu and get up carefully, pull my things together and leave.  Probably this wasn't so different from other Japanese students of his, with the exception that he could talk freely with them.  Hope this helps.

Thanks for starting this thread, James. It is particularly relevant for me as I am going to be in Kitakyushu 4/11-4/21 studying shakuhachi with Yamato Shudo. I am skoshi Nihongo(very) and he doesn't speak much English so these posts are helpful to say the least. I hope I have time to get around to meet some of my shakuhachi forum compadres.

Hi James and also to Sarah.

There are - as already mentioned - great variety of teaching methods among Japanese teachers in my experience. But the most common method of learning is playing along your teacher as Jeff and Dan's description also shows.

Being trained in Western classical music I found - to my surprise- this teaching method to be quite liberating - although what you are doing is just imitating your teacher. But because of the memory-aid character of the notation, your playing become much more flexible than if you were following such a precise notation as the staff notation. When you follow a teacher - you are following a human being. It means he is not going to play the piece exactly the same way twice. You develop your ears much more learning with this method and your playing become more flexible. However, it is more time consuming than learning from a precise notation.

Although my main teacher Okuda Atsuya taught this traditional way, he gladly answered questions if asked. But you needed to ask them. And that is also my experience with the other teachers I studied with in Japan during shorter periods of time.

When teaching myself I do a combination of methods - I suppose. I do perhaps explain more than what was the case when I learned, but I base my teaching on the playing along method. I find this method to be the best in really getting the feel for honkyoku playing (I only teach honkyoku or new music).