simulatedworld
Freshman Member
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2008
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- MBTI Type
- ENTP
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- 7w6
- Instinctual Variant
- sx/so
OK, so someone's post on the "NTs who enjoy performing arts" thread made me think about this, and I had to write down my thoughts.
Background: I make a good portion of my living teaching private in-home music lessons (mostly guitar, but also piano and occasional bass) to children around the metro Atlanta area, and there are a lot of really interesting parallels between my type observations on the kids and their learning styles.
I don't imagine there are too many people teaching private, one-on-one music lessons semi-professionally and obsessively MBTI-ing their students, so maybe this will contribute something unique to the forum canon. Who knows?
Anyway, I've had students from all the temperaments. Probably not every single type, but the ones I can remember having include, but are not limited to: all the NTs, ENFP, INFP, ISTP, ISFP, ESFP, ISTJ, ISFJ and ESFJ. (Apparently I've never had an NFJ or EST student. Hmm...)
The SPs are the ones who want to brute force memorize all the data they need to play specific songs they enjoy, but none of the context. They not only don't give a damn about music theory, they actively avoid it. This approach tends to fail after a couple of years because it results in a lot of fragmented knowledge on certain extremely specific areas and very little to tie it all together into confident, cohesive playing. (On the plus side, it provides endless business for me, the teacher.)
One caveat, though: I did know one ESFP guitarist in college who was very into metal and could accurately get through, note for note, some extremely difficult material with astonishing technique. He couldn't write an original song for the life of him, but he did understand the value of iNtuition as it relates to music and thus had a much better understanding of theory than most people at my music school.
"I don't care what the name of the chord is; where do I put my fingers?" is what I hear from one ISTP student in particular, constantly. He never wants to play anything to a metronome, just wants to memorize how it sounds and play solely from that. As such his rhythmic understanding is comparatively quite weak, and it really holds him back.
NT students usually delight in learning all the little theoretical intricacies that explain why the music is enjoyable, why this approach sounds better than that approach, and so on. NTJ students, in particular, will actively search for flaws and inconsistencies in their playing and pointedly ask you to demonstrate how to improve upon them! What a blessing! As long as they are enjoying themselves, they are often the best students.
NF students are fairly similar to NTs in their broad, generalized learning approach, but they're generally less interested in technique and won't practice something much if it isn't a song that deeply moves them. One 8 year old ENFP student loves to make up new chord forms, ask me what chord THIS is, and then forget all about them. Part of this is just being 8 years old, but he's constantly experimenting with the guitar to make new fun sounds come out of it--and unfortunately he doesn't care enough about practicing formal technique (that's boring!) to really be very good at it just yet!
SJ students are very by the book, and they have an advantage in terms of work ethic and always being willing to practice what you tell them to. They have a bit of a tendency to focus too much on particular, singular aspects of their playing (one ISTJ student absolutely loves note reading) to the exclusion of others, but they generally take your authority as teacher so seriously that if you calmly and gently point out the areas where they need improvement, they will actively work on those skills until they improve. Also generally pretty good students to have.
Background: I make a good portion of my living teaching private in-home music lessons (mostly guitar, but also piano and occasional bass) to children around the metro Atlanta area, and there are a lot of really interesting parallels between my type observations on the kids and their learning styles.
I don't imagine there are too many people teaching private, one-on-one music lessons semi-professionally and obsessively MBTI-ing their students, so maybe this will contribute something unique to the forum canon. Who knows?
Anyway, I've had students from all the temperaments. Probably not every single type, but the ones I can remember having include, but are not limited to: all the NTs, ENFP, INFP, ISTP, ISFP, ESFP, ISTJ, ISFJ and ESFJ. (Apparently I've never had an NFJ or EST student. Hmm...)
The SPs are the ones who want to brute force memorize all the data they need to play specific songs they enjoy, but none of the context. They not only don't give a damn about music theory, they actively avoid it. This approach tends to fail after a couple of years because it results in a lot of fragmented knowledge on certain extremely specific areas and very little to tie it all together into confident, cohesive playing. (On the plus side, it provides endless business for me, the teacher.)
One caveat, though: I did know one ESFP guitarist in college who was very into metal and could accurately get through, note for note, some extremely difficult material with astonishing technique. He couldn't write an original song for the life of him, but he did understand the value of iNtuition as it relates to music and thus had a much better understanding of theory than most people at my music school.
"I don't care what the name of the chord is; where do I put my fingers?" is what I hear from one ISTP student in particular, constantly. He never wants to play anything to a metronome, just wants to memorize how it sounds and play solely from that. As such his rhythmic understanding is comparatively quite weak, and it really holds him back.
NT students usually delight in learning all the little theoretical intricacies that explain why the music is enjoyable, why this approach sounds better than that approach, and so on. NTJ students, in particular, will actively search for flaws and inconsistencies in their playing and pointedly ask you to demonstrate how to improve upon them! What a blessing! As long as they are enjoying themselves, they are often the best students.
NF students are fairly similar to NTs in their broad, generalized learning approach, but they're generally less interested in technique and won't practice something much if it isn't a song that deeply moves them. One 8 year old ENFP student loves to make up new chord forms, ask me what chord THIS is, and then forget all about them. Part of this is just being 8 years old, but he's constantly experimenting with the guitar to make new fun sounds come out of it--and unfortunately he doesn't care enough about practicing formal technique (that's boring!) to really be very good at it just yet!
SJ students are very by the book, and they have an advantage in terms of work ethic and always being willing to practice what you tell them to. They have a bit of a tendency to focus too much on particular, singular aspects of their playing (one ISTJ student absolutely loves note reading) to the exclusion of others, but they generally take your authority as teacher so seriously that if you calmly and gently point out the areas where they need improvement, they will actively work on those skills until they improve. Also generally pretty good students to have.