Many years ago, one of the primary lessons I taught the young men of the Boy Scouts was about rope leadership. What this has to do with clarinet lessons will become clear in a moment. Teaching 13-16 year old young men about leadership is tantamount to teaching a herd of cats about each waiting their turn. Not likely. 

Here's how it went: I explained that Scout leaders would be given a rope and told to use that in their leadership role. Try giving one end of the rope to the group and then push on the other end to see if that will move the group in the direction you wanted them to go. Laughter ensues.

Okay, now take the rope and give the same end to the group, but this time go out in front of the group and pull in the direction you want them the go. This empirically establishes what you want them to do. You show them by doing the task. Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. The young Scouts understood that demonstrating leadership is much more effective than words alone. This understanding is part of the reason Eagle Scouts have usually been successful in life. They understand rope leadership.

My family had some musical talent. At seven years old, my parents saw some talent in me and thought I ought to play an instrument. Since Wednesday evening was family night for us watching the Lawrence Welk Show. My folks loved polkas and were avid square dancers. Dad thought I ought to play the accordion, like Myron Floren, Welk’s featured player. 

Nope. Not for me. I was not a fan. But I was smitten with the jazz clarinet playing of Pete Fountain. There was my instrument. Dad agreed and through a family friend in the music business, found a barely-affordable advanced-student-model wooden clarinet. At the time, I did not realize the sacrifice my parents made for me. 

Through the same family friend Dad found an accomplished professional clarinet player in Hollywood who would teach me. Jacques Robinson did not usually accept beginning students but had the reputation of a very patient teacher as well as an in-demand classical woodwind musician. I was a fortunate student to have been given such a brilliant teacher.

Why was he brilliant? Simple. He would assign exercises which I dutifully practiced every day. At my lesson, he would hear me play, critique the results, and then play the same exercise with perfect professional musicianship. That example demonstrated to me the nuances I was missing. Gradually, I learned those nuances precisely because Jacques, patiently, showed me how. Words were not enough. Words, alone, would have been pushing the rope. Jacques gave me one end and then pulled me along with his superior musicianship. My musicianship, therefore, grew quickly and soon I rose to the top of my band class at school.

My family moved to Torrance, California in the mid-1960s, from West Los Angeles, and I found another teacher there who was more jazz oriented and an excellent musician and teacher. I longed for what he could teach me and appreciated that his approach was identical to that of my former teacher. Assign, critique, then demonstrate perfection. I soared through my high school music education and went on to college music. Opportunities came to play in pit orchestras for community theater, various college productions, and private band gigs.

Viet Nam was still blazing away in 1968, and after my considerable time in a practice room during my youth, I was not about to spend two years traipsing around the jungle shooting at people who had never done anything to me. So I auditioned and gained a contract to join the Air Force Band program. That was mostly a blast, although I was not “military material” as I was repeatedly told. 

After my enlistment ended, I enrolled as a music major at the California State University at Northridge. There I was assigned a clarinet teacher who had a very different teaching style. Roy D’Antonio was a brilliant and world-renowned clarinetist. He, like the other teachers, assigned lesson materials. However, during the time I studied with him, I never heard him play his clarinet, even once. I would play, he would critique, I would play, he would critique, over and over. He never once actually demonstrated what he wanted from me. I guess he thought words were enough. Pushing the rope never works. His lessons were required by my major, however, I did not improve much and really hated my lesson time with him. 

I began to study the tenor saxophone, on my own, with a first-call studio woodwind player in Hollywood. Bill Green drove a new Mercedes-Benz and had a very busy and well-appointed studio, where he taught a very select group of students. I was fortunate to have been included. It was obvious Bill knew how to navigate the music business. Teaching, for Bill, was a joy and he delighted in every student’s success. Again, as with all my successful, previous teachers, he would assign, I would practice and then play, he would critique, and then play it for me. I learned that playing music was more than just pushing keys on an instrument while blowing air through it. Music was organic. It grows with the player and becomes an experience unlike any other. 

Music is a healing art that cannot be taught with words alone. Example is a necessary part of teaching music. My successful teachers new this. The unsuccessful one may have had some kind of superiority complex which precluded him from actually demonstrating what he could do. The lowly student did not deserve his efforts to teach by example. Pride is a problem. 

We have come full-circle back to rope leadership. Any worthwhile effort at teaching, or conveying some idea or principle, cannot be coerced by pushing on the rope. Demonstrating the idea or principle by example is the only way. Which is why our Savior calls to us to follow Him. He gives us the end of His rope and provides the example we need to become more as He is. He is not prideful in keeping what He knows from us. His entire desire is for us to become more like Him. He knows this cannot happen without the example. Words, alone, will fail.