Teaching Saxophone
Originally published in 2008. Updated in 2025
My philosophy of learning is that unless there is something seriously wrong with us, most people never truly stop learning in their lives. What and how we learn has of course changed radically since I first published this article in 2008, but the fundamental principle of individuals as life-long learners for the most part still holds.
This concept of people as life-long learners is a critically important cornerstone of my value system as a teacher. It is informed by over 30 years of teaching youth & adults, as well as my graduate degree in adult education.
I know that I will continue to learn, and that some of my best & most important learnings will come from working with my students. Furthermore, to be a really good teacher, it is my solid belief that I have to be open to being challenged, and therefore open to learning from my students.
The blending together of these teacher/learner roles is in my opinion, what prevents instructors from getting stale, regardless of what they teach: be it saxophone in a private studio setting, or English 101 at a college.
As we work with students in our studios, we need to keep a few things in our minds.
Learnings are not always obvious from the outside
As a teacher, I might assume that a student hasn’t learnt because I don’t notice a marked difference after a learning opportunity. I need to recognize that perhaps the student has learnt, but learning is complex, and may not necessarily result in changes that are visible from the outside.
Furthermore, a student might encounter barriers that affect how, or even if, a change occurs. And to further complicate things, the student may not recognize that they did indeed undergo a change after a learning opportunity, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they did not learn something.
Working extremely hard may make you only somewhat better at something
Once a certain level of proficiency is reached, it may take much longer to attain a new level of performance. In the beginning stages, changes are much more obvious. The key as a learner is not to give up or be frustrated by the seemingly lack of progress. As a teacher, the key is to support the learner at whatever place they are currently.
What you think you know, and what is true are sometimes different
Making assumptions is a part of everyday life, and the majority of our assumptions go unchallenged. When an assumption is proven wrong, how open we are to re-evaluating our beliefs is an indicator of our willingness to learn and accept new ideas. As both a student and a teacher, being open to having our beliefs and assumptions challenged is what enables us to learn.
Our job as instructors is not necessarily to wade through all of this in every 30 or even 60 minute saxophone lesson, but to at least recognize and be aware of these realities when working with youth and adult learners. Because if we’re cognizant of things like this, it will change the way we interact with our students on a week to week basis, and will make us better teachers.
