In honor of the opening NBA season, it seemed smart (haha) to open a discussion about how one of the NBA’s greatest coaches, Phil Jackson, has to do with music and what his methods have to do for other music teachers and bass teachers.
Jackson was a famous coach for coaching against the grain. Scholars even calling him a counterculture coach because of his unorthodox coaching methods rooted heavily in Buddhist and Hinduism teachings and philosophies.
What lead to the successes of Jackson’s Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and Lakers with Shaq and Kobe Bryant creating:
- Flow between players and the game,
- Awareness and
- Merging personalities and egos into one coherent, unified unit
Conversely, Jackson challenged the status quo by downplaying micro-management, dictation, favoring the start talent and being the archetypical “shouting coach”.
All qualities that the coach has traditionally taken and sometimes leads to short term success, but very fragile and not usually lasting success.
What Does This Mean for Music Teachers and Their Students?
Music teachers are, in their own way, a kind of coach. Though they’re not often seen as such or identify with that title.
If you’re a music teacher, consider this…
Music teachers:
- Work to develop a skill in a pupil.
- Pass knowledge and insights onto students.
- Position themselves to work for the best out of their students.
- Inspire, challenge and motivate pupils.
But often times, teachers will fall into the same traps of:
- Micro-managing the student.
- Stifling a student’s budding identity as a musician.
- Imparting the “my way or highway” approach to learning leading to the point above.
- De-motivating a student to learn and begin to associate teachers with negative outcomes.
- In a group setting, favoring the talent and downplaying the rest of the group.
So what does this mean? How can Coach Jackson’s lessons of awareness and flow help teachers teach music more effectively?
The next time you are teaching a student music, try this one, singular tip and see how the results work for you:
Try letting your student see for themselves what works and what doesn’t work.
This method works particularly well in the discussion of form when playing by presenting to the student one way of holding the bass versus another and letting them see which one works best for them.
Phil Jackson stressed awareness in his coaching.
Awareness in the fellow players, awareness of the self, awareness of the game in the moment and in the future. But most importantly, self awareness of what works and what doesn’t work.
A coach can only yell and drill their students whats right and wrong so long until the student will either buck the teacher off and start resisting their insights.
By giving the student to see for themselves what works and what doesn’t is a way for the student to feel empowered with their decision making and as a result, more likely to stick to it. Barry Green also made note of this point in his book, The Inner Game of Music.
Coaching (or teaching) doesn’t need to be an experience akin to pulling teeth. It can be a dialouge and it can be an experience that yields tremendous results for both you and your student or students.
Check out the interview below of Phil Jackson and Oprah discussing how he applied mindfulness to to his Lakers:
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