When you watch kids color, it looks like an explosion of crayons and markers. The sun is purple, the people might have three arms and no legs, and sometimes it just doesn’t seem to make any sense of all. Yet, a lot of people find these drawings adorable. 
As we get older, coloring outside the lines seem to be more and more unacceptable. Creativity isn’t as treasured as it used to be. We’re not supposed to have drawings that don’t make sense, well that is before we learn the rules of how to paint. Somehow, once we understand what we’re not supposed to do, if we still break the rules it suddenly has much more artistic value. A few others in the class has told me that it is the same case in music. I find it interesting that knowing the rules makes all the difference when you’re breaking them.
During the show at the 92nd Y, they spoke about a different teaching method from the one that is traditionally used. Instead of teaching them scales or rules about music, allow the students to learn by interacting with the music and not the rules. I’ve never really had an official music lesson, so I’m not sure what works best. Do the arts really just come to us naturally? Kind of like instincts, but only we have to dig a little deeper?
There is a powerful and popular method for teaching violin known as the Suzuki Method. This is a Japanese pedagogy based on the “mother tongue” method. Students learn to play the violin by rote, and learn a number of songs before they ever see a single note of written music. This is much the same way that language is acquired by children. Children learn to speak, to be creative, to be persuasive, to be articulate with speech for a long time before they learn anything about how speech is notated, and they wait an even longer time to discuss the mechanics (syntax) of how the language they have acquired is constructed and governed by rules of grammar. In music lessons, the structure, the syntax, etc. is often emphasized, because it is easy to quantify, isolate and discuss. It can also give the impression that a lot of “content” is being covered, but it is just as easy to miss the essence of the subject. I think great art, great music, great literature does not just “happen.” I believe it is the result of deep understanding, hard won technical expertise and hours and hours of hard work. But it also requires the ability to be inspired, to think out of the box (or outside the lines) and to retain the wonder and awe of childlike observation while developing the technical expertise of a dedicated adult. Art is hard.