The greatest teachers I have had are the ones that knew when they were speaking technically in a way that fostered curiosity, trial and error, and insisted that I think deeply independent; as they were adamant that I was critically aware of my own experiences of playing the instrument.
They rarely gave me dogmatic solutions and they afforded me a severe amount of freedom that forced me to rely on and develop my own awareness, instincts, and judgments. This was a massive gift, and a horrific indictment; to take full and complete responsibility for all of my foolishness, liabilities, and ignorance.
I am grateful now, to have been so singularly challenged with this type of apprenticeship. It gave me the chance to develop an autonomous; independent and un-coerced encounter with history and repertoire: to be fully formed in the music. Profound artifactual creation occurs within a time and space where the most serious and personal part of one’s ontology is manifested.