Teaching a traditional Korean art form : descriptive analyses of individual lessons taught by three gayageum sanjo master teachers

The present study represents the first systematic description of music teaching by gayageum sanjo masters. I observed and made video recordings of three renowned masters of sanjo who were teaching lessons to advanced-level students. I organized my descriptions around rehearsal frames, intervals of instructional time devoted to the accomplishment of identifiable proximal performance goals. Many of the characteristics of the teaching I observed are consistent with those identified in the teaching of artist-level Western musicians. Teachers strategically identified proximal performance goals that could be accomplished within brief time intervals and with few repetitions by the student. Thus, students consistently experienced successful outcomes throughout each lesson. As the students were performing at an advanced level and had already learned and could play the pieces they were working on, teachers were particularly focused on refining elements of musical expression and inflection. Perhaps as a result of this focus, teacher vocal and instrumental modeling were prominent features of all three lessons. Seldom did teachers address an aspect of student performance without providing some form of model. Data from these observations may provide a useful starting place for the formal study and further development of gayageum sanjo pedagogy.