Student’s question:
I’m currently taking private lessons and I love my teacher. The lessons are a combination of instrument practice and learning songs. But I’m also fascinated by everything I’m learning with IFR, and I’m not advanced enough to see the connections between the two approaches. Do you think it’s a problem to keep doing both?
How we think about this in IFR:
As we go through our life journey, we’re going to find many people along the way who can give us little pieces of the puzzle we are trying to assemble. No single person can solve the entire puzzle for you, because it’s YOUR puzzle. All we’re hoping for is to discover the people and situations that can lead us to find the missing pieces. If your current teacher is helping you with both the physical technique of playing your instrument and also exploring beautiful songs that you enjoy playing, you can rest assured that this is one of those precious puzzle pieces that you need.
My advice is to not put any pressure on yourself to see the connections between your lessons with your teacher and what you’re studying here in IFR. They are most definitely connected, but for now you might need to keep building them separately. What you’re learning from IFR is global vision of our musical system that will serve you as a container for all other musical knowledge. Meanwhile the songs you’re studying with your teacher are like little gems of musical knowledge that you will eventually store in this IFR container.
IFR is not in conflict with any other teaching method or activity. Everything you’re studying with your teacher can be perfectly described and understood within the IFR framework. But there’s no rush to do that. Just learn everything you can from each activity, and give yourself completely to each activity in the moment. Keep building your global framework of harmonic understanding with IFR. And keep learning all of those precious musical lessons that you’re discovering with your private teacher. And just trust that one day very soon you’ll find that both of these worlds will reveal themselves to be one and the same.
