From the original broadcast on 03.25.2024:

Today we’re talking about stating the obvious… but if you look at the title of this episode, you’ll note I’ve placed quotation marks around the word, “obvious”.  My point being, things that are obvious to us as teachers are… well, NOT always obvious to our students.

Because we can’t read our students’ minds, it’s REALLY important that we take special care to say all the necessary things.  And – furthermore – that we say them in the right order.

Presenting ideas in the right order is a key component of good teaching that we don’t spend enough time talking about.  I suppose that needs to be its own episode…

But back to stating the “obvious”!

Let me tell you a story that’s going to feel fairly random at first, okay?  When I was a teenager preparing to get my driver’s license, there were two parts to the driving test.  One was the road test… which, obviously, involved driving an examiner around town, following his instructions to, “turn left here”, etc. The other part of the driving test was called Maneuverability.  This portion of the test involved a specific maneuver you needed to complete with your vehicle, involving five orange safety cones. My driver’s ed teacher was very experienced at teaching students to complete this drill.  The first time we tried it, she told me exactly how to do it:  how to set the cones up to practice, where to stop the car, where to turn the wheel a quarter of a turn, when to put the car in reverse, how to feel the wheel spin back a full circle and a half… you get the point.  She gave me EVERY step. It seemed like she handed the solution to me on a silver platter.

But… ahem… guess who had a REALLY hard time with that maneuver?  Yep.  In fact, I failed that portion of the test twice.  Remember last week when I told you I count humility as a core value?  Well, here I am, just trying to keep it real.

I finally passed that portion of my driver’s test on the third try.  Here’s where it gets interesting, friends.  I was celebrating with my friends, and I made the comment, “I’m just glad we didn’t have to parallel park.  I would have NEVER passed the exam.”  After all, I’d seen many television shows and movies where teen drivers and parallel parking had proven to be an unsuccessful pairing.  To this day, I can still see the look on my friends’ faces.  They were really confused… and eventually someone said, “you DID have to parallel park.  That’s what you were doing.”  And then, it hit me.  ALL those months of practicing this drill… all those quarter/half/whole turns of the steering wheel… looking for the safety cone to be at the midpoint of my passenger side window… all the things, friends… and I never had ONE SINGLE CLUE what I was ACTUALLY simulating with that maneuver.  The cones represented other cars.  Now – you are probably sitting there wondering how I could miss something so obvious… and, obviously, I still wonder the same to this day.

But the truth of the matter is, I had an instructor, two parents, and an older brother… all whom had helped me with this drill at different points… and NONE of them ever actually stated what I was really trying to accomplish.

Do you know HOW MUCH EASIER it would have been to figure out that maneuver if I’d actually realized the goal?  I literally thought it was a sequence of turns and the like.  I’d completely missed the point.

Now… I’m sharing this less-than-shining moment in my life with you because we have ALL been the instructor in this situation.  Maybe not guiding students behind the driver’s wheel, but definitely guiding them around their instrument.

Let me give you an example from Piano Teacher World:  Let’s think about how we teach pedaling.  It’s VERY easy to jump straight into the mechanics and the timing and the technical intricacies of how to pedal properly at the instrument.  But PLEASE, friends: we must state that which is obvious to us. We must start with THE SOUND.  We must explain WHY we’re going to use pedal in this instance.  Is it for a bell-like effect?  Is it to maintain a consistency of sound?  WHAT IS THE ACTUAL POINT?

I promise you, we are all guilty of this in one way or another.  We miss opportunities to state the obvious.

…and some of our students are comfortable enough… or intuitive enough to catch on regardless.  There are many students who came out of that same driver’s education experience understanding the fact that they were learning to parallel park.  But I’m a fairly intelligent person, and I definitely missed that one.

As professional musicians, we have worked so deep into the intricacies of our instrument for so long… it’s really easy to get sucked into a trap where we are neglecting to say the most basic essentials.

Since I’m on a roll here… let me tell you another driving-related story.  This past fall, I was booked to speak to a group of music teachers in Indianapolis.  I left my house with PLENTY of time to spare, but ended up getting stuck in traffic for quite some time.  I had the address of the meeting location in my GPS, but I made the unfortunate mistake of not actually looking up what area of Indianapolis I was heading to.  So, after the standstill traffic finally got moving and I was back on track for an on-time arrival, I ended up missing an exit.  In construction traffic.  And so began a VERY harrowing series of wrong turns and missed exits and… oh man, it was bad.  I should also tell you that I get terrible anxiety on the highway, so I was just an absolute mess.  I ended up being REALLY late to that presentation.  And I felt SO badly about it.  The group was amazingly gracious to me… but the reason I’m telling you the story is this:  Had I taken the time to figure out the AREA of Indianapolis I was actually heading to, I could have used my own brain to help figure out how to get there.  Instead, I was stuck relying on GPS and construction signs and all these things that can be very helpful, sure, but they were just showing me STEPS; not the END RESULT.

So, the takeaway here is actually NOT that I am a terrible driver. 😊  I assure you, I can, indeed, parallel park.  And I can, indeed, successfully get to locations in Indianapolis.  But – as it turns out, I *do* need to know the obvious-yet-sometimes-overlooked details of WHAT I’M ACTUALLY DOING.

And I’m quite sure you have students who are in the same boat.  So when we’re talking to them for the umpteenth time about the shape of their fingers or the tension they’re carrying in their shoulders… let’s make sure we explain WHY these things are an issue.  See… our beginner students often don’t care about supported fingertips because they *can* play their beginner pieces without them.  We have to tell them, “Look: I know this probably doesn’t seem like a big deal right now, but there IS going to come a time when you won’t be able to play your music with those floppy fingers.  It’s going to be SO MUCH HARDER to fix it then, so I really want to build them correctly now.  Sorry, not sorry.  Let’s try that again.”

We prescribe all these practice techniques to our students, but do they know WHY they are doing them?  Because – if your student doesn’t know WHY you’re asking them to change articulations or practice on alternate rhythms – they are NOT going to do it at home.  And, even if they do, they probably aren’t doing it effectively, because they don’t understand the objective.

I believe one of the primary shortcomings of teachers – and students – is failing to name objectives.  I have a whole episode dedicated to that idea, it’s episode 45: Cheers to Naming Your Objective.  There’s another episode, number 62, called Cheers to Not Missing the Point that also feels relevant here.  I’ll link both of those in today’s shownotes for you to check out, in case any of this resonates.

One more story before we wrap up today, and no, this one is NOT about driving. 😊  When I was in the hospital after giving birth to my first daughter, I had THE BEST nurses I could have imagined.  They were seriously so great.  I feel forever indebted to them.  But for some reason, I kept waiting on them to give me permission to take a shower.  There is, um, a lot of aftercare post-childbirth, so they’d walked me through all kinds of do’s and don’ts… and I assumed I must not be allowed to take a shower.  It was customary at that time to stay 48 hours in the hospital post-birth, so for almost TWO DAYS I did not take a shower.  This is gross, people.  Finally, a few hours before we were to be released, I finally asked one of my nurses if I could take a shower.  She looked at me and said, “of course you can!”.  And wow – did I make a beeline for that shower as fast as I could.  The nurses were so funny as they came to see me after I’d showered and CHANGED CLOTHES and all the things.  They were like, “Wow! You look so nice!”.  So the whole time they were probably wondering why this gross lady wasn’t taking a shower… when it turned out I was waiting for permission.

Now – psychoanalyze me all you want – but again… you have students who are waiting for permission for all kinds of things you don’t realize.  Students who don’t think their practice time counts if they’re revisiting older pieces.  Students who think they have to come to you and ask for sheet music for that song they heard on the radio, rather than just sitting down and trying to sound some of it out.  Students who think those YouTube tutorials are off-limits to them.  Who want to branch out their repertoire but are waiting for some kind of permission slip from you… whatever the case may be.

I know I’ve told a lot of embarrassing stories today, but seriously, friends, I hope today’s episode serves as a solid reminder to STATE THE OBVIOUS in your lessons.  Relentlessly name your objectives.  Know that some of your students are waiting for your permission to do the thing that seems obvious to you.

And now… let’s wrap up with a toast:

Studio music teacher friends from all around the world: Ours is a job of leaving no stone unturned.  Great teachers are those who say everything that needs said… in as few words as possible.  Go figure that one.  May we be aware of those traps we can fall into where we tell our students all the steps, but forget to tell them what they are ACTUALLY working to accomplish.  May we remind our students they don’t need our permission to explore or to experiment.  May we continually seek to be more clear in stating our objectives – both for ourselves, and in communicating them to our students.  May we keep our eyes on the prize, friends.  It’s very intentional work we must do, right?  This is me, raising my glass to you.  Here, here.

That’s a wrap on Episode 162, friends!  Here’s hoping you still have some kind of respect for me after I’ve confessed so many questionable moments from my past.  I want to offer a serious thank you for being the best Internet Teacher Friends a girl could ask for.  If you’d like to hang out in real time this week, or catch a replay of what’s SURE to be a terrific teacher chat, make sure you check out the Patreon community where $6 buys you entry to Teachers Teaching Teachers.  Check out the shownotes for today’s episode, or go straight to ChristinaWhitlock.com/patreon.  Until next week, friends!  Onward and upward toward stating all the “obvious” things.