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It’s not you, it’s me….

Published at: 05:03 am - Wednesday March 23 2011

When you work with a student, you inevitably build a relationship with them. Usually, it starts out somewhat distant, with the student bringing a fair amount of anxiety into the studio regardless of how hard you may try to relieve their performance stress. Of course, each student is different, and not everyone becomes nervous playing for their teacher. However, when the relationship is no longer beneficial to the student, he or she should feel free to discuss this with their instructor and expect them to understand.

All too often, concern on the part of the student that they will hurt the teacher’s feelings by being honest with them limits their willingness to end a working relationship. When the student is a child, sometimes they don’t realize that they even have the option of speaking up and letting a parent know that they are no longer enjoying their lessons because they don’t get along with the teacher. It can also be the case that children simply do not realize that changing to another instructor is even a possibility. If they don’t like their teacher at school, they have no recourse other than to tough out the year and hope for better luck next time.

If the student is an adult, I think it can be easier to arrive at the decision to switch, however some folks go to great lengths in order to avoid the unpleasantness of seeing your former instructor as you are going into your lesson with a new person. It’s kind of like running into your ex at the bar with your date. You feel guilty, and perhaps as though you have hurt their feelings.

While this careful consideration of our emotions as teachers is certainly appreciated, this is not how you would approach other business relationships. Admittedly, the music student/teacher counterpoint is far more personal than perhaps your interaction with your dry cleaner. You spend time each week working to perfect assignments to please a person of expertise, and are hoping for encouragement with a personal goal or dream. However, if your dry cleaner wasn’t performing up to your expectations, you would be looking around for a new place to get your shirts pressed, and you wouldn’t think twice about how it might make them feel.

I guess I say all of this to impart that any teacher worth his or her salt would want to know whether you are feeling fulfilled in your quest to learn. If not, we should be attempting to better accommodate your needs. The ultimate goal is for you to be satisfied with your progress. If we are disappointed with your decision to go elsewhere, it should be with our inability to meet your needs, not with you as a person. If we know that we are not able to teach you what you want to know, we should have the wherewithal to tell you as much.

Posted in: Teaching by Cathy 2 Comments , , , ,

Board to Death – Gear Head Installment #1

Published at: 05:03 am - Tuesday March 15 2011

Look at all this stuff!!One of my favorite things when I show up to play somewhere is the look I inevitably get when I pull out my pedal board. Most folks aren’t expecting the fiddler to show up with as much gear as the lead guitarist, and on that note, they are generally correct. However, I take my sound very seriously, and I want it consistent and controllable — hence the heavy-ass board I cart everywhere. Of course, this is nothing compared to how heavy Jim’s gear is, but I have to compete somehow.

So for all you gear heads out there, or for the merely curious onlookers who think I’m nuts, I have a breakdown of what’s living on my pedal board. I had to hunt around for a while until I found one that was:

a.) Big enough
b.) Powered
c.) Affordable (this was the toughest part)

I got this Eleca model at GitterPicker in Twinsburg, where I spend a fair amount of my week teaching. Special thanks to Steve (the owner) on the suggestions regarding securing everything to the board. I now have everything tied down with eyelets and wire to keep them from slipping around. Velcro really can’t handle holding down the heavy stuff. However, when you need to move something, you’d better have your wire cutters handy! The only bummer is that the bag it comes with is not as sturdy as I would like. I’ll have to try and find another one here soon.

Across the top, you’ll find my Morley ABC swtich (no store in town carries one — I had to order it online) to switch between the three instruments I use through the other effects. To the right of the ABC are the preamps – one for each fiddle, and one for the viola. This way, I can control the sound for each one individually. These are Fishman G II Acoustic Preamps, but I would love to have a bit better model to use. The Pro EQ II or Platinum, or even a L.R. Baggs Para Acoustic; but those guys cost a bunch — so this is where we stand for now. The third preamp (the one that doesn’t match) is a Martin I borrowed from my dad. It has nice control, but the volume knob is way too touchy and goes from nothing to blasting within millimeters. I hope to replace that soon. Perhaps even before this post is live!

Below the inputs and preamps are the fun stuff. From left to right they are:

Mod Tone Chromatic Tuner – What a fantastic tuner! The display is blue instead of red which makes it really easy to see in any light. I have yet to use it outdoors since I only got it a few months ago, but I am sure it will be perfect even in direct sunlight. I got this one at Woodsy’s in Medina – another place where I teach.

Boss RV-3 Reverb/Delay – The best one on the market. I bought this one off of my brother, and I’m so glad I did. It has a level of control that is unparalleled. Unfortunately when Boss upgraded it to the RV-5, their revamping took away a lot of the ability to control the delay length and depth as well some texture in the reverb sound. If you are looking for one, go used and get the RV-3. The RV-5 is a disappointment.

DigiTech JML2 JamMan Stereo Looper and Phrase Sampler This thing is the best part about my board. I started using one when I saw what Jim was able to do with his. He uses it to loop his voice and sing harmonies, however I use mine to loop my instrument and play against my own melody/rhythm line. I only recently used it for both vocals and fiddle. It’s a bit tricky but has amazing potential. It has a bunch of on board stuff we never use. We are both of the opinion that live music should be LIVE, so we don’t pre-record anything that we use in a show. And honestly, it’s too hard to ensure that you have the exact right tempo and that your recording matches your current tuning. I have ideas and other sketches stored on it for my own sake, but I never use those in performance.

It comes with on-board rhythm tracks and the ability to set a tempo, among other things. The way we use it is to record a section as we play/sing it, replay it and either harmonize against it or record (overdub) over the top of your initial section. That is how I perform Catalyst, Dunmore Lasses and several other tunes that use the looper. When you hear multiple vocal lines that build upon one other in layers, it’s all going through the JamMan. It’s an amazing way for two people, a guitar and a fiddle to sound like a big damn band playing. You can also make some spectacular mistakes along the way!

Seymour Duncan Preamp Booster – I needed to find a way to cut over other things that might be going on during a song when a solo comes up without having to try and adjust volume on a preamp. None of the instruments I currently use at gigs have on-board volume control, so this was my solution. You set the level of boost ahead of time and just leave it in reserve for when you need a little extra push of sound. I grabbed this one at Woodsy’s in Kent.

I am hoping to have a flange pedal in here soon, but I have no idea where I would put it. I guess I’ll be looking for another board at some point. Good grief….. Just play the fiddle, dammit! Do you really need all this junk??

So there you have it — all the boring details you could ever want about a fiddle player’s toy box. I’m going to include info about my fiddles in future posts, so be prepared to yawn some more. If you have suggestions about other items to try — I’m all ears. I love checking out shiny new playthings!!

Posted in: Fiddles, Gear by Cathy 4 Comments , , , , , , , , , ,

Musical Catch-22

Published at: 05:03 pm - Wednesday March 09 2011

I recently had the privilege of being asked to adjudicate scholarship auditions at one of the schools where I am on faculty. Hell, I just like being able to use the word adjudicate. I had never done this before, although I have been on the other side of that long table many times over the years. It’s a nerve-wracking thing, performing an audition. You don’t have the same kind of adrenaline that you do before a performance. You feel like it is a far more intense performance when you audition, as if you were on a job interview or a first date. I personally find it much more difficult to play with only one of two people in the room than I do a hall of several hundred. When there’s only a handful of people present, you know that they are listening to every small mistake and in this case, judging your worth based upon a single snapshot moment. Or, even worse, you can tell when they are not paying any attention to what you are doing at all; as if you weren’t even there. Whether or not these kids are thinking of it this way, I can’t be sure, but I know that’s the case, so I am nervous for them.

Their ages ranged from 8 to 17. It was so interesting to see the different levels of playing ability within that age span. There were a few players who were accomplished enough that they could have as easily been auditioning for college. Then there were older children (13-14) who had just started playing an instrument. I am finding a lot more of these players in my own studio. Kids who for whatever reason, didn’t get to start an instrument until middle school, when the previous trend was kids starting while still in elementary grades.

However, what I found most difficult about the whole process was how to rate these kids. Think about it — if you have access to lessons, and have had the benefit of a private teacher, you are far more likely to be a better player than a student who has only recently come to the instrument and may not have had many of those advantages. So which student deserves to get a scholarship to help pay for more lessons? They are all currently studying with a faculty member at this school, but some have only been playing for a month or two. the teacher put them forth for scholarship consideration based upon their desire to learn the instrument and their demonstrated potential, but those attributes are not always obvious to the judges sitting there listening to that snapshot, taken at a moment in time.

So here’s the Catch-22: Do you recommend the kids who are already good and want to be better? Or do you recommend the ones who need the help even more since they are just beginning to learn?

Our jobs were to judge based on ten criteria (we’ll see if I can remember all ten): Accuracy, Dynamics, Tone Quality, Fluency, Intonation, Phrasing, Rhythm, Tempo, Stage Presence and Sense of Style. Out of all of these, I found the factors for Stage Presence and Sense of Style to be the ones where I gave kids the most leeway. there was one girl who showed up and played even thought she was obviously fighting a very bad head cold. Another boy got full marks in these categories from me because when he made a glaring mistake, he not only played through it, but smiled (a personal habit of mine — if you see me smiling at Jim at a gig, I just screwed up. There’s a fun drinking game for you at one of our shows!). And yet another kid who was so visibly nervous that her hands were shaking almost violently, but she played anyway and tried to hide it.

Another difficulty for me was that we were supposed to be very bland in our responses to the performances. We were supposed to use non-judgemental language like just saying “Thank you” after a performance instead of “Good job” or “Nice”. They got the wrong people for the job then on this one, because my fellow judges (very cool people I was happy to meet) and I are all the same — a teacher first. We couldn’t let these kids leave feeling like they hadn’t been appreciated, and we couldn’t put aside being a teacher and offering a small amount of praise for even showing up and trying. Sure some kids were better than others, and some had obviously prepared better, but they were all kids; and we all knew what it feels like to be in that situation and leave feeling like you may have failed.

So I got to spend the better part of a day judging kids whom I thought were all quite talented, who all seemed to have the drive to continue to grow and learn. I doubt that the school will be saving any money on scholarships this year, because I tend to grade high. We’ll see if they ask me to do it again next year….

Posted in: Teaching by Cathy 1 Comment , , , , , ,

I Got Some Ink! (No, Not A Tattoo)

Published at: 10:02 am - Wednesday February 23 2011

I had the great privilege of being interviewed for an article for the first time a few weeks ago. This is such an interesting experience, and I’m sure loads of you have done this before, but for me, this was unique. I’ve been so very fortunate over the course of the past few years, and especially the past several months with regards to opportunities coming my way, yet this was a new one for me. Why on earth would anyone be interested in what I do? Hell, half the time my own kids could care not care less.

It’s a nerve-wracking thing to know that your conversation is being recorded — I mean, what if you accidentally say something stupid? Or, god forbid, say it on purpose thinking it was funny?? Thankfully, my interviewer Helen Marketti was kind and focused and kept me from veering too far off of the conversational track. It’s a difficult thing being an interviewer, I am sure — getting people to talk about themselves is no problem. Getting them to say something interesting……that’s a talent.

So included here is the end result of that conversation, which appeared in the February 16th edition of The North Coast Voice. Thank you Helen for the opportunity to share what I do, and for the new experience!

Cathy Miller Interview North Coast Voice 2-16-2011

Posted in: Articles, Press Materials by Cathy 3 Comments , , , , , , , ,

Inner Ear Reflection

Published at: 07:02 pm - Sunday February 06 2011

I have been wondering lately if teaching beginning students for the last 17+ years has had a deleterious effect on my sense of intonation. Has anyone else wondered the same thing? No? Hmmm. It must just be me.

During lessons over the last few weeks, I have been pondering whether constant exposure to players whose intonation is still very under-developed (ear and therefore finger placement) has effected my own sense of intonation. I still feel as though I am able to play in tune, but has my level of tolerance been compromised? I suppose in order to be able to teach at all, you have to develop a survival mechanism that keeps you sane as you teach beginners, but at what cost?

Don’t misunderstand — I love teaching, and I love working with folks who are new to the violin. However, if I had my druthers, I would probably rehearse, gig or record every day instead. Unfortunately, that’s not financially sustainable…yet. So, teaching it is.

I find that in order to work on other aspects of a person’s playing, I sometimes have to overlook wrong notes so as not to overwhelm them with corrections. So, I will adjust my own pitch so that we aren’t *so* badly out of tune. But do you sacrifice the muscle memory of your own hand position in an effort to reduce stress on your student (and own ear!)?

I would be interested to know if this has occurred to anyone else. Please feel free to let me know your thoughts.

And if you happen to be one of my students, I am not talking about you or anyone in particular, and everyone has to learn somehow — being out of tune is inevitable…. at least for a little while.

Posted in: Teaching by Cathy 3 Comments
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