The Stick in the classroom

The Stick brings some unique advantages to the classroom environment. The piano, of course, serves as a perfect instrument to express concepts found in common practice harmony, form, figured bass etc., and by no means is it deficient in any way, but the Stick has helped out in ways I hadn't anticipated.

1. Though I play piano consistently for the class, I find The Stick to be the perfect continuo instrument. When it comes to realizing figured bass it seems the Stick was built especially for it; bass in the left hand, harmony in the right, voicings all day long...it's fantastic.
   
   

2. There's something to be said about mobility and portability. To be able to walk between an overhead projector, the chalk board, toward students while playing and speaking at the same time is a tremendous aid in pacing and continuity. Though there's no accounting for taste, I believe it's important in medium to large-size classes to keep moving rather than being propped up behind the piano the entire time, and the Stick facilitates that movement.

3. Being able to control the tone and having a large sonic palette has subtle advantages when it comes to expressiveness - certain pieces or concepts can benefit from shifts in timbre and color, and by having a variety, students will be less likely to tune out. This is a subtle psychological point, but repetition - in any form - can be detrimental to attention span of a student, and the Stick is capable, by way of amplification, of providing a great deal of variety.

4. Of course, even though the students have seen it, the Stick is captivating to them. They know how it works and all, but still gaze incredulously at an instrument generating much more sound than they would expect from either a guitar or bass.

5. For aural skills classes, being able to work on harmonic dictation and melodic dictation from the Stick provides a departure from certain ruts that can be associated with the piano, or any instrument if it's the only one being used. Students often associate certain cognitive skills with timbre (especially when they are learning them for the first time) and it's not unusual for a student to do very well with the piano, but poorly, say, if the same melody was played on flute or some other instrument. The Stick's ability to provide a multi-timbral palette, again, has pedagogical and practical advantages.

As I said, I have no complaints about the piano, and the Stick for me is not meant as a substitute - the piano gets plenty of attention in my classes. The point I'm trying to make is that the Stick can play a very important role in teaching music theory, aural skills, improvisation, arranging...you name it. It's such a 'complete' instrument, that it's not beholden to the kinds of idiomatic restrictions that prevent other instruments from doing the same.

Sean Malone