I just read a really great article by Paul Woodruff, “How I learned to heal my soul, with help from love and Socrates”, which describes Socrates’ thoughts on healing the soul. It makes me realize that Socrates has had a long-term effect on my soul, my thinking. His teaching method, the Socratic method, is well known and has been a constant light in the back of my head since learning of it long ago. I studied philosophy in college, turned toward music, and found my most valued teacher ever, John Anthony Lennon, who taught composition in the manner of Socrates. He didn’t correct my scores, tell me what was wrong, etc., he simply asked me what I meant by various things, if I really wanted it that way. Of course this makes total sense for a composer, someone who creates, because some of the greatest music has come from people consciously choosing to do something other than the normal. Telling someone they are wrong when they follow that kind of path is just downright harmful, harmful to the soul.
I’ve very much patterned myself on Jack’s teaching, and the Socratic spirit has merged with contemplative practices and a focus on energy as described in this blog. After spending an entire teaching career veering in the direction of grade suspicion, of assiduously not telling composers what to do, rather encouraging further work through asking questions, I now encounter the article. It awakens me to the fact that my practices, while seemingly based on contemplative practices (they are), it’s that non-invasive approach that grows from the Socratic method that is really at the core. What my teaching is, and what the workshop I seek to carry around brings, is to set up the conditions for learning, fueled by the belief that people are inherently interested in things (especially composers in graduate school!), and that once the conditions are set, a simple spark will light the flame of attention and pull a person into the fire of creation.