Another post from my drafts file …

I often tell people that I have been learning to play the guitar for more than thirty-five years – and that I still can’t play. They think it’s a joke. It’s not. Although I love music and in particular the sound of a well played guitar I am not a natural musician. I have the technical knowledge – in that I can identify lots of chords and guitar fingerings – but I can’t get both of my hands working in unison.

So what’s the problem? Am I unmotivated? No – I really would like to improve. Is my equipment poor? I don’t think so. I have a couple of good guitars and I listen to lots of examples of wonderful musicians. Maybe I haven’t been taught well? My current teacher has excellent skills and patience. Perhaps I don’t practice enough? Maybe …

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new album on iTunes. A song on the album really got me and when I listened to it carefully I realised that it was probably very simple chords. Sure enough  a quick look at YouTube and I saw that I could play the song with my acoustic guitar. Then I had a go on the electric guitar. Because the song is played with a capo (to change the key) I transposed the song and played it with barre chords. After a couple of days I worked out the lead guitar parts – although as yet I haven’t cranked up my tiny practice amplifier to get the soaring sounds of the original. Now I can even sing and play at the same time. Woo hoo!

So why can I play this song but struggle with other music? While some of it is definitely about the technicalities of getting two hands working independently but also in harmony, I think the real problem is ownership. When you go to a guitar teacher they teach you the songs they know are good because they give you a whole lot of important skills and techniques. And those songs may or may not be tunes that you like. When you work away at a song on your own, because you simply enjoy it, you just go for it. And learn whatever.

It’s no different in formal learning situations, in schools. On the one hand you need explicitly taught “stuff”. And on the other hand you need to really get into “it” rip it apart and get stuck into the other stuff.

This term most New Zealand schools will “do” the Olympics. There will be much flag creating and waving and there will be countless posters, Powerpoints and podcasts made about small countries and unknown sports. The Olympic website and the Wikipedia will suffer from cut and paste overload. There will be Olympic Days and whole schools will parade and compete in mini-Olympic events. Teachers will talk about being authentic and current. But how many classes will get stuck into the really current stuff like the relationship between China and Tibet? Or controversies like delving into the advantage of wearing new-fangled Speedos? Or the desperation felt by swimmers who are willing to face the wrath of their sponsors to wear the lastest LZR suit? Big ideas and questions? There are a multitude more.

The Olympic Games are an amazing global event. The history, the people, the places and the events can be looked at in so many exciting and interesting ways or they can be “done” the way that they have always been “done”. To death.