Knowing vs. Playing
The reason that we don’t teach theory directly.
FIRST Music Academy Guitar Book 1, 2018
But first, a short anecdote.
When I was in school, all of my friends were constantly complaining about the amount of homework they had to do. One of my buddies even told me that there was a study done by some fancy university that I can’t quite remember the name of, that showed that homework has no effect on in-school performance.
So naturally, I believed him and stopped doing my homework.
Why am I telling you this?
Because after I stopped doing my homework, my grades were obliterated. And the reason why- was because I was understanding the material, but I wasn’t practicing it. All the information was inside my head, but I didn’t know how to use it.
How does this apply to what we do?
Our lessons are 30 minutes, once a week. As a result, when we cover material in class, it can’t be dense. We expect that our students can understand and recall the very small amount of information needed to play.
The one thing that we can’t teach them how to do within the half hour, is how to play something well.
This requires practice that is supported by the head knowledge they’ve picked up during lessons.
This is why our musical theory concepts are weaved throughout the curriculum. There is no benefit to learning it on its own, because you are not given the opportunity to apply the knowledge.