Saturday, September 24, 2011

Democracy or excellence?

When our kids were small they were regularly stationwaggoned over to our local Yamaha School of Music. There, in a well-trodden storefront they became minor masters of piano, guitar and the console of the mighty Yamaha. Before long, with glowing hearts, Carol and I decided it was time for them to appear in the Annual Yamaha Concert Event. In a huge rented venue, 150 kids demonstrated to parents, grandparents and various uncles and aunts the brilliance of the Yamaha method. We'd already filled our home with Yamaha products, so bringing our kids to the concert stage and amortizing our investment seemed the right thing to do.

After a torturous three hours of Fur Elise, Canon in G Major andBach Inventions, we were treated to the much anticipated Awards Ceremonies. What blew us away was that every kid got an award--some of them pretty impressive. Even Billy Puffer, our neighbor's kid, who had murdered Beethoven's Ode to Joy to the point of audience tittering, found himself in possession of a brass object the size of a Volkswagen.

"Most improved student?" I wondered, cautiously. Nope. These kids got awards for merely trying, for merely showing up.

I'm writing to you while waiting for an inter-island ferry. My daughter, Sara, and I are returning from giving our first father/daughter workshop--38 marvelously keen students. As is my habit, at the end we gave a few insignificant but useful prizes to what we thought were the best seven paintings of the week. Consequently, most artists left our workshop without a prize, and Sara and I are starting to worry about it.

These folks had all paid the same fees, worked just as hard and turned out similar numbers of works. Some made remarkable improvement during the event. Sara and I just thought that the work of the few we chose was a bit more successful than the rest of the group.

What do you think? Some of our workshoppers had been painting for 30 years, only to be beaten out on the prizes by some upstart whippersnapper. Is there a possibility that we may have discouraged more than we encouraged? Is there a possibility that we gave false hope to some who might need to further mature?

Oh, and another thing--Billy Puffer now pulls the lever on the Sno-Cone machine at the Duke Point ferry terminal. He no longer plays the piano.

Best regards,

Robert

PS: "Prizes are nice, but the real competition is with your performance yesterday."Irwin Greenberg)

Esoterica: Our workshop was at a marvelous retreat called Hollyhock on Cortes Island, BC, Canada. Hollyhock offers an alternative lifestyle, vegetarian cuisine, a riot of gardens and pristine beaches with optional bathing in the buff. The whole thing was pretty spiritual. Sara and I maintained a workmanlike focus and brought diversity to the crits and instruction. We made people work hard. We'll probably do it again--if we're asked. We've put up a selection of photos from our workshop at the top of the current clickback.

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