Technology = Technique
Pete Jutras Ph.D., NCTM, is Assistant Professor of Piano, at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music of the University of Georgia in Athens, GA, where he serves as Piano Pedagogy and Class Piano Specialist. Prior to his recent move to Athens, Pete maintained an independent teaching studio in Dallas, TX for ten years. His research on adult piano students has been published in the Journal of Research in Music Education, and he is a frequent presenter at national and local conferences.
Technology is technique.
Technique is, in a sense, technology.
Both derive from the Greek word tekhne, meaning art or craft.
Now before you think that I’ve gone entirely off the deep end, let me say that I’m not proposing that technology is a substitute for muscular control, agile fingers, voicing within the hand, or any of the countless components that make up a good piano technique. I am, however, going to say that technology and technique are working in the same manner towards the same goal. They are both a means to an end, and they both help us achieve our art, our craft.
What is technique?
Whenever I teach a pedagogy class on teaching technique, we take some time to explore what the word actually means, in the worlds of both language and music. A dictionary definition is typically something like this (from Oxford):
“Manner of esp. artistic execution or performance in relation to mechanical or formal details; the mechanical or formal part of an art.” and also: “A skillful or efficient way of doing or achieving something: a knack, a trick.”
One of my favorite musical quotes about technique comes from the great Josef Hoffman:
Technique is a chest of tools from which the skilled artisan draws what he needs at the right time for the right purpose. The mere possession of the tools means nothing: it is the instinct — the artistic intuition as to when and how to use the tools — that counts. It is like opening a drawer and finding what one needs at the moment.
I think we would all agree that technique is important to making music, but technique alone is not the ultimate goal. A good technique is what allows us to strive for the ultimate goal — musical expression. We all practice technique, but when we’re on stage we don’t perform our scales, arpeggios, and chord exercises (nor do we pay money to hear others play scales and exercises). We do, however, perform and pay to hear performances of music, and a good technique gives an artist the freedom and ability to create the sounds that make a performance captivating. As Hoffman so eloquently points out, technique provides the tools that, if used properly, aid in the creation of something artistic.
How is technology the same?
Technology ( Oxford definition: The branch of knowledge that deals with the mechanical arts or applied sciences; …the application of [any of] these) works in much the same way: it is some sort of tool, based on applied knowledge, which allows us to achieve our goals.
Just as scales and arpeggios can help to improve our playing, technology can provide tools that improve our teaching.Technology can be a motivating tool, a communicative tool, an analytical tool, or even an illustrative tool when it helps the student hear different sounds and sonic results. Technology can be a tool for efficiency in learning—helping us to deliver content and practice material in a faster, more organized manner.
Even if you don’t have MIDI, computers, or digital pianos in your studio, you use technology in every minute of your teaching, employing tools that teachers before you didn’t have (the ballpoint pen, spiral notebook, and stickers come to mind). When we use these simple items, we’re not dazzled by their novelty, we just employ them to help us execute our teaching efficiently and effectively. To help illustrate this point, we’ve included a timeline of technology that begins with this column and runs throughout the feature article. As you’ll see, many aspects of keyboard instruments that we now take for granted were important technological developments in their day!
I strongly believe that as a profession (and I include myself in this category) we need to spend less time being “wowed” and overwhelmed with musical technologies and more time using them as useful tools. Your students spend hours everyday with technology, and while they are sometimes enamored with it, they are also used to it being an everyday part of their lives.
In essence when it comes to technology we need to get over it and get down to the business of connecting what we do to our student’s worlds. If this means we use iPods and websites to help them learn more about music, so be it. If using these items helps us to communicate and connect, then we can move our students forward faster and achieve more at the piano. When used properly, these technologies become much more than just “neat tricks” — they facilitate real learning and progress.
With that in mind, I hope you enjoy this issue’s feature describing how three different generations of teachers employ technology on an everyday basis to achieve their teaching goals. You’ll see how Serena Mackey is able to seamlessly integrate her students’ gadgets into their lessons, read how George Litterst adapted to new technologies as his career grew, and learn how Paul Sheftel can use advanced technology in his teaching while letting others worry about the details of how it works.
To me, this article is an inspiring demonstration of what technology should be — not something that adds effort to our lives, but something that helps us spread more music to more people. As you read, think of these technologies not as cool new gadgets, but instead as an extension of our technique — a growing part of the repertoire of tools that we use to help our students have meaningful and artistic musical experiences. Just like scales and arpeggios, technology is a means to an end — a tool to help us get the most out of what we do — teach!