Learning through teaching

One other factor in the learning practices of these musicians should be

mentioned here. Almost every member of the group spoke of the effect that teaching itself had had on their learning. Finnegan (1989), Green (2002) and Bennett (1980) all suggest that musicians may form bands very early in their learning careers (in some cases, before actually having an instrument to play); in the same way, several of the musicians I interviewed became teachers quite early in their learning careers, long before even they believed they were

competent to do so (this will be considered in more detail in section 5.3.1). As a result, teaching itself became part of the process of developing as a player. Even those who were already very experienced and highly skilled musicians when they started teaching were aware of the effect that teaching had had on their playing.

The effect of teaching on their playing took different forms. Edʼs ability to play was not expressly founded on the desire to master a certain sound; instead he spoke of the practicalities of teaching and the need to find a vehicle for his own musical ideas:

Q: Where do you feel like your “prowess”, if you like, on guitar, whereʼs

that come from? How did you get it?

Ed: Through teaching, and through learning stuff, and sort of inventing

stuff to teach people, and through my own songwriting as well.

Teaching in fact served as a substitute for solitary practice:

Ed: Teaching can be classed as practising, so I suppose I do practise

quite a lot, but other than that I haven't sat down and like practised a lot - I've done bits here and there and stuff but I don't do that.

Q: You haven't locked yourself away in the wood shed for months on end?

Ed: No, never done that.

For Bill the benefits were more theoretical:

The teaching is something that is related to me becoming a better player I

think, because it forces you to focus on explaining what youʼre doing,

making sure that you know why you're doing what youʼre doing, so you

can tell someone else how to, and that's really good for me, so I'm

getting quite a lot out of it actually. [Bill]

Helen made a similar point. Starting to teach had led her to fill in gaps in her own theoretical knowledge, for example by having to be explicit about musical choices she otherwise made instinctively:

Itʼs only now Iʼm trying to impart information to other people that Iʼm - jesus, yeah but why is it like that?! I know it sounds fine but how did I work

that out? And thatʼs quite hard to do. [Helen]

Carl gave an example of how working with a pupil who was ʻextremely goodʼ could benefit his own playing:

Carl: He comes to me saying can you play such and such a tune,

could you teach me such and such a tune, so I'll either work through it off of a record, which helps me cos it's a good bit of ear training...or he'll

come to me with something he's already worked out for himself and he

needs to sort of de-bug it if you like...So I spend quite a bit of time with him doing that sort of thing, and then working on variations, which is great fun

for me.

Carl: Oh very much so, because I often think I learn as much out of

doing those as he does, so that's great for me.

Frank described as ʻreally, really good experienceʼ the process of recording syllabus material for several tuition CDs. This took place under the watchful eye of his demanding musical collaborator, who acted as producer for the recording sessions: ʻI have to do it over and over and over again, and he will not let it go unless it's spot on...; heʼs really stretched what I can do a lotʼ.

The effects of teaching on playing ability were not unanimously seen as

positive however. Andy admitted ʻIʼm far better, far far better at sight reading since Iʼve been teaching than I ever was beforeʼ. Yet overall he felt that his ʻmusical skillsʼ had suffered during his time as a teacher ʻbecause I think Iʼve got the balance wrongʼ; in other words, he had spent too much time teaching and not enough time practising and playing. Graham yearned for the challenge of teaching a ʻreally high level pupilʼ and felt that with most of his students he spent too much time within his ʻcomfort zoneʼ as a player: ʻI have to remind myself I have a level to maintain even if Iʼm playing with people who donʼtʼ.

The idea that teaching might be, in itself, a learning practice is not one that has attracted much attention in the literature on informal learning, though

Walser (1993: 79) does mention that the heavy metal guitarist Randy Rhoads attributed much of his initial prowess on the guitar to teaching. In part this is because informal popular music teaching has attracted so little interest to date, and the number of teachers involved will be small compared to the total

population of informal learners, but also perhaps due to cultural assumptions about teaching. The commonplace view is that to become a teacher one must already be an expert, and thus unlikely to learn anything from students less able than oneself. There is also a common fear among teachers (as expressed by Graham, above) that teaching those less able than oneself is likely to have a damaging rather than beneficial effect on oneʼs playing; among the teachers Purser interviews, two express the fear that, through demonstrating in the lessons ʻthe result could be that they would end up sounding like their students rather than the other way round (Purser, 2005: 297).

There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that instrumental teachers may be more effective if they are only slightly more skilled than those they are teaching (Barry Green, 1986: 147-148 describes an instance of this). The musicians in this group started teaching at different stages of their development as players, but offered some interesting examples of the ways teaching had benefited their own playing.