From Being Taught to Self Motivated Practice - A Continuum Approach to Music
From Taught to Self-Directed: A Continuum Approach to Musical Practice The purpose of musical teaching is not permanence. It is passage. Yet much of music education behaves as though the opposite were true: as though the teacher were meant to remain central, visible, directive—an ongoing authority whose presence is required for progress to continue. In such models, practice is assigned, monitored, corrected, and measured. Motivation is managed. Independence is promised later. The Continuum Approach begins from a different assumption: that teaching exists to make itself gradually unnecessary. Practice, in this view, is not a task handed down, but a capacity that must be grown. It is not sustained by supervision, but by understanding. A student who practises only when instructed has not failed; they have simply not yet been taught what practice actually is. Practice and the Problem of Compliance The word practice is often used imprecisely. It is treated as synonymous with r...
