ROB UPTON · TEACHING
The approach
Build ability. Develop understanding. Leave room for curiosity.
Learning an instrument offers more than a new skill. A quiet student can discover confidence through performance. Learning to listen critically can help identify a difficulty and work through it. Playing alongside musicians with different strengths can develop patience.
Teaching an instrument should not start and finish at showing someone how to play an instrument.
For Rob, understanding matters as much as ability. Music has a depth and breadth that extends beyond playing faster, louder or at a higher grade.
Listen beyond your instrument.
Guitarists often work with drummers, but may never sit behind a drum kit and experience the challenges a drummer faces. Rob introduces guitarists to basic drums, and helps drummers explore melody through basic piano skills.
Those connections help build a musical understanding that can otherwise be left behind in the pursuit of technical progress.
A place for structure and imagination.
Rob’s own musical education was through examination, and he values the structure that exams can offer. He also places great worth on experimentation through improvisation and composition: ways to get to know an instrument while allowing creativity and imagination to develop.