Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales
How do you feel when so-called “experts” say things that just don’t match your experience? Is their academic learning superior to your practical experience? Does their input leave you feeling more, or less confident than before?
Practical experience and academic learning ideally go hand in hand, the one neither replacing nor outbalancing the other. But it’s helpful to consider how the right balance between the two is best achieved.
A Daoist Perspective
Daoism is rooted in scientific and systematic enquiry as much as it is in lived experience, and has always celebrated the acquisition and development of formidable skill and fresh understanding. But in common with many other traditions, the Daoist classics highlight the disparity between academic expertise and a deeper wisdom, equating the latter with authentic experience.
As Deng Ming-Dao puts it in his book 365 Tao Daily Meditations (1992):
“When we are in touch with Dao, it is not our academic learning that is speaking, but the spirit of Dao itself. The old texts are very specific about this. That is why there is such a vast difference between the words of scholars and the words of a practitioner, just as the words of academics differ from the words of poets.”
Let’s consider one of those “old texts”.
According to the Huainanzi, a Han Dynasty text compiled between 206 BCE and 22 CE (translated by Eva Wong, 2015):
“Some people fail to catch fish even though they are skilled at fishing. Others only have to drop a net into the water and the fish will swim toward it.
Novices succeed when the experts fail because experts often rely on technical know-how and abandon intuition. In contrast, novices are more likely to be in tune with the workings of Dao because they are not blinded by the “tricks of the trade”.
As a result, they succeed where the experts fail.”
The intuition of “beginner’s luck” suggests that neither academic learning nor practice can fully account for the development of expertise.
Learning Together
Most of us will at some point have met the learned academic who tries to put their knowledge into action, only to appear painfully inept to an experienced observer. Having the “right” or the latest fashionable ideas does not always lead to confidence or competence in putting those concepts to work in the real world.
The academic expert is unlikely to become a confident pianist without the teachings, support, advice and inspiration of an experienced player.
And though they may understand the latest educational theory and content, they are similarly unlikely to develop into a good teacher without the feedback and observations of a more experienced mentor, giving practical and career advice.
However experienced we are, meanwhile, we can all surely enhance our practical know-how through academic study.
Experienced pianists benefit from the insights of those who can explain context, historical background, technical and musical theory. Such knowledge is an essential prerequisite for informed performance practice.
And the experienced teacher equally benefits from the academic’s research and insight into educational theory, psychology, performing arts medicine, and the repertoire we teach. Without these, our work (however sincere) is likely to be misguided.
Simply put, we are all on a continuing journey, and need to be circumspect. Any journey is improved when we are accompanied by a good guide. And we thrive when we set aside our personal and professional pride, devoting our energies to collaboration rather than competition.
Committed to learning from one another, we can all develop wisdom and genuine expertise.
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