This is the transcript of the Open University online conference – evening of 29^th June 2001.

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Pip Eastop: Hi folks. This is Pip.

Linda D. Morris: hi Pip!!

Linda Robson 2: Hi pip, I'll keep a list of who is hear an reinvite anyone who looses their connection

Mornev Nevitt: Thank you Pip for giving up your time for a 'real time' chat. We appreciate it and feel honoured

Pip Eastop: Who would like to start?

Linda D. Morris: ditto

Jan Rushton: Hi Pip Firstly can I say that I really enjoyed your chapter, both from content and accessibility. A breath of fresh air!

Pip Eastop: Very kind of you to say that. Thanks. It was a pig to write

Pip Eastop: Not being a writer...

Linda D. Morris: I agree!! simple language - I could understand easily.....have you written like this before?

Linda Robson 2: Pip - in your chapter you demonstrate that the key skill you teach is self teaching -do you think you could effectively teach other instruments as this is a key skill every musician needs?

Pip Eastop: I've written a couple of things for the Horn Magazine (!) but I wasn't so initimidated by having to be "academic" in those.

Pip Eastop: Good question!

Pip Eastop: first reaction is YES

Jan Rushton: Can I ask why you went into the teaching side rather than continuing to play full time?

Pip Eastop: I think once you have learned a couple of languages the next ones get progressively easier.

Linda Robson 2: Jan - because most musicians are out of work?

Pip Eastop: so it is with instruments. I could learn another one quite quickly, relatively...

Mornev Nevitt: I've got your new improved website up as I type

Linda Robson 2: Pip - yes I found the second and third instruments i learned much easier

Pip Eastop: So I think I could pass that kind of skill on... I hope...

Pip Eastop: I play as "full time" as I can.

Mornev Nevitt: You have a great sense of humour Pip. Very evident in your website. Do you regard humour as a valuable asset in your teaching to help students relax?

Linda Robson 2: Do you think teaching self teaching is good for all musicians or only professionals? - I ask because the more aware I am of annoying the neighbours the less I play

Pip Eastop: turning down the "duff dates" frees up quite a lot of teaching time.

Pip Eastop: I feel I'm getting behind here.

Lyn J. Green: Pip I was wondering, do you think that getting people to 'listen' to themselves is a key skill, outside music? I wonder how many of us manage to do it?

Mornev Nevitt: We'll slow down for you!

Pip Eastop: Thanks, Mornev. Humour is very important to me.

Pip Eastop: Playing the horn is a pretty funny business, really.

Pip Eastop: Linda, uy

Linda D. Morris: funny in which way??

Linda Robson 2: Lyn - I think we should all listen (or reflect) on anything we are trying to learn or in fact everything we do to ensure it is effective

Pip Eastop: Linda, yes, I worry about the neighbours too. Why is that related to self-teaching?

Jan Rushton: You said that it takes a long while to get any recognisable sound from a horn - did you learn initially and continue with the practices because of parental pressure?

Linda Robson 2: The more I listen to myself the more aware I am of the mistakes which detracts from the pleasure of playing

Mornev Nevitt: You make it funny. Friends, while we are all online have you got Pips site up? If not go here and keep it open in another window.....

Pip Eastop: Parental pressure, yes, but i don't think they, or I, knew it was happening.

Mornev Nevitt: http://www.eastop.net/

Pip Eastop: thanks for slowing down. You got me sweating a bit.

Deb Wragg: but did you feel it was Pip

Pip Eastop: Linda, mistakes do distract from the pleasure of playing. I don't think of practising as playing - never have done.

Pip Eastop: In fact, if I simply play instead of practising, my playing gets noticeably worse.

Pip Eastop: In retrospect I can see that, sure, there was parental pressure. But it was a good sort of pressure.

Linda D. Morris: from someone who is totaly non-musical Pip - what is the difference between practising and playing?

Pip Eastop: Good question

Linda Robson 2: I guess being a a very low standard I don't differentiate between playing and practising - I haven't performed for years (adn then at a very low level) so don't do practice

Pip Eastop: Playing is where you sing through the instrument - make music on it, communicate, show off, entertain etc...

Pip Eastop: Practise, for me, is highly concentrated, focussed, solitary, unmusical, technical, private, meditative, self-training. almost never musical.

Lyn J. Green: I an interested in the practise V playing thing - do you think that many young people learn music too much on getting to the next grade rather than for creative outlet?

Pip Eastop: But, having said that, I'm now learning jazz, which seems to be almost completely the opposite.

Carol Airey has left the chat.

Linda Robson 2: Playing is when you just enjoy it, practising when you try to actively improve and perfoming is where you get all nervous!

Pip Eastop: Lyn, don't understand the question.

Jan Rushton: Your description of practicing is reminiscent of my son age 6 or so learning to play violion Suzuki style - it just all seemed like hard work and there wasn`t too much fun or enjoyment for him

Lyn J. Green: Sorry - I mean that children first learning get all caught up in passing their grades and I wonder whether that is too much of an emphasis

Linda D. Morris: Jan - is that the difference though between learning as children versus learning as adults which is more experiential do you think..?

Pip Eastop: Well, I'm not particularly in favour of grades. Its all too narrow an outlook.

Pip Eastop: I think that children learn in a different way from adults. it has to be fun when you are a child. it has to be painful when you are grown up - for horn players, anyway.

Linda D. Morris: Pip - do you teach just adults?

Pip Eastop: Sadly, just adults

Pip Eastop: apart from my four kids

Pip Eastop: ..and students!

Jan Rushton: How do your students remain motivated - do they all harbour an aim to be the most successful concert horn player?

Pip Eastop: ....who are like adults only have more spare cash.

Pip Eastop: wooops

Linda D. Morris: Pip - just been looking at your kidsoin your website - what beautiful children.......

Pip Eastop: God knows how they remain motivated. It may sound corny but mostly it's a love of the music.

Pip Eastop: Thanks, the kids photos are all out of date by two years.

Linda D. Morris: Pip- that the impression I got from your chapter!

Pip Eastop: Linda, I'm glad you got that impression.

Linda Robson 2: Pip - how do you feel about having us lot analyse your article?

Pip Eastop: Learning the horn is such an awesomely difficult mind-numbing uncomfortable time-consuming thing to do that there has to be a bloody good reason why so many stick at it for so long.

Linda D. Morris: I had no idea the complexities involved!

Pip Eastop: I hadn't thought of anyone analysing my article. I imagined a few people simply reading it and becoming, hopefully, slightly enlightened about just what cool people horn players must be.

Linda Robson 2: If they play a proper brass instrument they could join a brass band, spend sunny afternoons at village fetes drinking beer - motivation is much easier ;-)

Lyn J. Green: Will you be the first jazz F horn player Pip? Or do you play another intrument ort your jazz - that must be a challenge!

Pip Eastop: Brass bands, yes. Not my cup of tea. I was in one for a few years, though.

Pip Eastop: Cornet!

Jan Rushton: Sorry Pip et al but also having 4 kids I`ve got to go out on another child collection run - perhaps we shouldn`t encourage them to have so many interests :) I`ll try and pop back in later. Thanks a lot Jan

Pip Eastop: I have a forward facing F horn on order.

Pip Eastop: Bye Jan

Jan Rushton has left the chat.

Linda D. Morris: you talk of the dangerous time when ability becomes "unravelled", are you talking about this from a personal point of view??

Pip Eastop: Yes, it happens all the time.

Pip Eastop: some weeks my high register is in decline so I have to prop it up

Pip Eastop: other weeks my low register gets rusty.

Linda D. Morris: Pip - pardon?? bit technical for me??

Mornev Nevitt: I read Papert and your chapter at the very beginning of E211 and was delighted with the flow and the ease of reading and understanding the meaning. Then things got a bit heavy for me as the set chapters unfurled.

Pip Eastop: It's like housework (*I'm only guessing at this because i NEVER do any - so I'm told)

Mornev Nevitt: Ha Ha!

Pip Eastop: What's technical?

Pip Eastop: The register thing?

Linda D. Morris: low register/high register??

Linda D. Morris: sorry if I'm being a bit thick :o))

Pip Eastop: Ah, low register is the strange facial contortion you have to cultivate to get good sounding low notes.

Linda D. Morris: ah-ha!

Pip Eastop: The low register is equivalent to the left side of the piano keyboard.

Pip Eastop: Not thick - sorry to use jargon

Mornev Nevitt: Deb, have you got a question you'd like to ask Pip?

Linda Robson 2: Don't worry Pip - we ar all getting used to being faced with a barrage of indeciferable words

Pip Eastop: But all the different aspects of technique must be practiced an polished regularly - daily

Pip Eastop: Tell me which ones are indecipherable.

Linda Robson 2: sorry - that was a comment on your appology for using jargon - we face many long words inthe course.

Linda D. Morris: and your chapter was a breath of fresh air!!

Pip Eastop: Thanks

Pip Eastop: I read it agan this evening. Quite pleased with it.

Linda Robson 2: Pip - did you read any of the rest of the book your chapter is in?

Pip Eastop: not being a writer.

Mornev Nevitt: The testimonials written by your past and present students are glowing. Will any of them overtake you and want your job in the future?

Pip Eastop: I read Carrie's chapters (or pretended to)

Mornev Nevitt: We all pretend to!

Pip Eastop: it's very scary. One of them is very very good and everytime I hear him I think I can't play very well in comparison.

Linda D. Morris: how do you know whether the self-teaching techniques that you teach have worked? are they rigid or quite flexible?

Linda Robson 2: I wondered how you feel about having your crystal clear english in amongst all the academic high brow

Linda D. Morris: I think we are always more critical of ourselves than others though dont you think?

Pip Eastop: Yes, It's a very precarious position to be thought of as a good player. You are only ever as good as the last performance.

Mornev Nevitt: "One of them is very very good and everytime I hear him I think I can't play very well in comparison." yet you taught him all he knows?

Pip Eastop: There are some analogies with athletic events here, I think

Mornev Nevitt: Yes.

Pip Eastop: Linda, often but not always. you should here some of my students - awful!

Mornev Nevitt: Do many horn players use the Pip Stick and the Alexander technique besides the students you have personally taught?

Pip Eastop: No, I didn't teach him all he knows. I think I helped him to teach himself.

Linda Robson 2: Pip - do you see yourself as more of a facilitator or a teacher?

Mornev Nevitt: I ask this as I believe this makes you unique in your field

Pip Eastop: PipStick - a few people have had them made. Not many takers. i think my colleagues would be embarrassed to be seen to copy my seemily eccentric idea.

Mornev Nevitt: We must pause now for Pip to reflect and answer this deluge my friends! Do you think?

Pip Eastop: Facilitator - if I understand the meaning of that - yes. More than a teacher.

Pip Eastop: Mornev, yes, i think the Alexander Technique makes my approach unique, certainly different to all the others.

Linda Robson 2: Pip - do you play with or perform with your students (please don't read that the wonrg way!)

Pip Eastop: apres la deluge...

Mornev Nevitt: I hope Carrie is feeding you grapesd and wine while you go through this ordeal Pip..;{}

Mornev Nevitt: Linda! He just might read it the ......

Lyn J. Green: Pip I like the idea of getting people to listen to themselves, and I can imagine how painful that sometimes is to young people whose parents etc have told them they sound great!

Pip Eastop: Not very often, but after they have left college, and if we are still friends and if i want to encourage them and if they need the work etc....... I'll try to get them "in"

Pip Eastop: Lyn - yes, absolutely. Shocking for them.

Linda D. Morris: oh the kids are naggin me for bedtime reading so must go - many thanks for your time Pip

Linda D. Morris has left the chat.

Linda Robson 2: I was just wondering if it was more of a collabarative learning environment when you perform together

Pip Eastop: Still it's very difficult to get a good balance between encouragement and criticism.

Pip Eastop: Bye Linda - Thanks!

Pip Eastop: ah, no, that's where HornTennis comes in.

Linda Robson 2: HornTennis?

Mornev Nevitt: feedback matters..intrinsic or extrinsi!.Sounds like I'm into Block Four;{}

Pip Eastop: HornTennis is a teaching tool i developed. For my specific teaching needs.

Mornev Nevitt: Also sounds like I have a glass of Chardonnay here and I'm making typos!

Mornev Nevitt: Here he goes!

Pip Eastop: There's something about it on my website - can't remember where I put it - an essay by a student of my, Tom Allard

Pip Eastop: Mornev, to whom are you referring?

Lyn J. Green: Positive criticism I think is good - weve sat through excruciating school concerts (quite old kids) when I felt embarrased for them. Sometimes the truth hurts I suppose. Sorry I'm behind - slowest typist in Devon!

Mornev Nevitt: I have it and it is called Horn Tennis or Shuttlecock but it is a brilliant read..

Mornev Nevitt: You Pip..

Pip Eastop: Yes, Lyn. You have to be honest sometimes. Rather than put a student through four years of misery and faliure it might be better to tell them to give up NOW.

Pip Eastop: But this has its dangers, as you can imagine. what if they don't give up, then become a fabulous player and come back to haunt you years later.

Linda Robson 2: But if someone is doing something just for a hobby why not let them just enjoy don't something badly

Pip Eastop: I'm paid to turn them into the best player possible.

Pip Eastop: I think that's what I'm supposed to do...

Mornev Nevitt: Linda, look, you are online and you may have admired Carrie and Pip's kids, but do a bit of clicking and find out what the site is about. Glass of Chardonnay No: 2

Pip Eastop: I agree that it's nice to play something for fun. I'm a crap pianist but I love it and do it a lot.

Linda Robson 2: sorry - i meant in gerneral, and refering to school concert level

Pip Eastop: Nice one Mornev.

Pip Eastop: In general, fine. if I was a school music teacher I would get them all performing as often as possible, however badly. Make it fun

Pip Eastop: But, I'm trying to help people polish an already excellent skill into something world-class. that's my job. Pass the Chardonnay

Mornev Nevitt: I do think your website, your student comments, what you do as a unit with Carrie says so much and it is all there..Glug...Glug...Slurp!.

Pip Eastop: Hic!

Lyn J. Green: Yes, I did sound rather miserable (but it IS awful sometimes unless youre their mother!)

Pip Eastop: Carrie's around - drinking rum.

Pip Eastop: Anyone would think she's just had her OU leaving do!

Mornev Nevitt: Are you there Linda, Deb, Lyn, and logged into the Eastop site? Our actual chapter is online..

Linda Robson 2: yes Mornev - I am doing as you told me to adn reading it right now!

Pip Eastop: She's starting a new job in September and will only be doing her E211 tutoring after that.

Pip Eastop: she made me type that

Lyn J. Green: What a boozy night, Mornev its taking me long enough to keep up with one screen thank you!

Pip Eastop: I had to beg official permission from the LadyWife to post the essay on my website.

Mornev Nevitt: Leaving do? Only OU Tutoring? Thank goodness for that

Mornev Nevitt: I was delighted to see it there and well pleased Pip

Linda Robson 2: Pip - you should alway insist on keeping copyright for your work - with all these students on E211 you c ould make millions from royalties!

Pip Eastop: As a musician, the concept of royalties has no interest to me whatsoever.

Pip Eastop: I think that could have been ironic.

Pip Eastop: We never get them, you see.

Pip Eastop: if we make a CD or something, a film, whatever, we are "bought out".

Mornev Nevitt: I wonder what everyone will make of this Saved Chat when they get it?

Lyn J. Green: Sorry I must leave now, thank you for my first EVER chat Pip(coulnt have been in nicer company for my first time)

Pip Eastop: A miserable fee and we sign our rights away.

Pip Eastop: Thanks Lyn. My first one too!

Mornev Nevitt: Lyn! First ever? Well done then x

Lyn J. Green has left the chat.

Mornev Nevitt: Never your first Pip?

Pip Eastop: Who's still here?

Linda Robson 2: Pip - as it is your first time how do you rate this environment for teaching in?

Pip Eastop: SLOW!

Mornev Nevitt: Good Question

Mornev Nevitt: It isn't teaching, its communication

Pip Eastop: Why don't you all come round, and bring the Chardonnay.

Linda Robson 2: Do you think you could use it to enhance the teaching you offer to your students?

Mornev Nevitt: Love too...let me see...four hoy=urs from Dorset

Mornev Nevitt: Another good question Linda

Pip Eastop: Linda, no I don't think it would help. Not in real time, anyway. maybe some kind of bulletin board might do it. But, there's no substitue, in my opinion, for my kind of teaching, for one-to-one work.

Linda Robson 2: what about if you added video and audio? Is it possible to have a virtual horn lesson of any knid?

Pip Eastop: We don't have hoy=urs in London. you'd have to bring some of that as well as the Chardonnay.

Pip Eastop: with audio and video, great, it would work fine.

Mornev Nevitt: Just been to fill my glass and I'm laughing

Linda Robson 2: excellent I'll set up a webcam and ask for some tips on my baritone palying - I think you would run for cover!

Pip Eastop: with audio and video it would not be a virtual lesson. it would be real, in the same way that a phone conversation is not virtual, but real.

Mornev Nevitt: I've just been road testing voice conferencing, Lyceum as a futire learning tool for the OU and that looks great

Pip Eastop: Baritone? do you really play one of those?

Linda Robson 2: Mornev - the oU have been using Lyceum on other courses for years

Pip Eastop: You spelled futile wrong.

Linda Robson 2: Pip - yes I used to play in a brass/silver band

Pip Eastop: Which one?

Pip Eastop: If I were to teach over the internet using Lyceum or something - how would I get the private students to pay me?

Linda Robson 2: I'm embarased now - Hightown Brass in Luton, General Motors wind band (I pretended to be a euphonium) and various school and saturday morning music school bands - noone famous!

Linda Robson 2: Pip - you could get them to send a cheque!

Pip Eastop: A baritone, for anyone interested, is an anorexic euphonium. Used in WW2 for fighting band-to-band on horseback.

Pip Eastop: Send me a cheque - just to test the system (address to follow)...

Mornev Nevitt: Big giggle at the anoreix euphonium

Mornev Nevitt: My spelling?

Pip Eastop: it's also an anagram

Linda Robson 2: Pip - cheque is in the post!

Mornev Nevitt: oh no! of what?

Pip Eastop: you can find out by re-arranging the letters

Mornev Nevitt: My favourite is Courtenay Pine, but....!

Pip Eastop: Hi there this is real Carrie interrupting to ask Mornev if you could save this at the end and post it in the NC as I am not entirely sure how to do it and I know you do now how to. Would that be OK?

Pip Eastop: yes, I wonder if he knows yet?

Mornev Nevitt: Yes Carrie, I am as our TG want it as well

Pip Eastop: That's me, Pip, back again, BTW

Linda Robson 2: he? who knows what?

Mornev Nevitt: On a serioous note, I used your chapter so much on my last TMA

Pip Eastop: Courtney Pine and his anagram.

Mornev Nevitt: Not here please

Pip Eastop: I'm glad it was useful. How did you use it?

Mornev Nevitt: I only read it

Mornev Nevitt: Purleese

Pip Eastop: I only wrote it.

Mornev Nevitt: So your first realtime chat must be rather enlightening Pip?

Mornev Nevitt: And yours Lyn?

Pip Eastop: I am now enlightened. As never before.

Pip Eastop: as a method of communication it relies on fast typing and patience.

Mornev Nevitt: It isn't necessarily constructive, but it can create a feeling of communicating

Linda Robson 2: Pip - have you had any students which you concider to have failed with and why? Or does you method really suit everyone?

Pip Eastop: Do you mean that I feel I have failed with them, or that they have failed?

Pip Eastop: I don't think my method suits everyone.

Linda Robson 2: I mean that your approach to teaching didn't suit their learning style

Linda Robson 2: If I suddenly leave it is because my partner has just arrived home to discover I have built a shed in the carport - don't ask!

Pip Eastop: Yes, I think this happens. Some are obviously reluctant to get into it - as I can tell by their results - but when they eventually get it it's amazingly rewarding.

Pip Eastop: Bye Linda!

Pip Eastop: Some fail - or decide it's too much like hard work and they weren't going to be all that good anyway.

Pip Eastop: Constantly telling them how to become a good player, or a good self-teacher, is very good for me, by the way. I get to hear myself saying the same things in different ways time and time again - and it's very good for my playing.

Linda Robson 2: can you honestly say you practice what you preach?

Pip Eastop: Yes, but not enough.

Pip Eastop: which is to say that if I did more of it I would be a better player.

Linda Robson 2: Do you have a teacher?

Pip Eastop: I tend to do just enough to "get away with it" these days.

Pip Eastop: Myself.

Pip Eastop: My students teach me, too.

Mornev Nevitt: Self Teaching?

Pip Eastop: I listen to an incredible amount of music. That's the way I learn the music side of things, rather than the technical.

Linda Robson 2: I think you said somewhere that your students can go for some time without a lesson because they self teach - implying that they need a top up lesson every so often - do you not need costructive criticism occasionally from someone

Pip Eastop: I do need it, yes.

Linda Robson 2: and not your students as they look up to you and want to prise you

Mornev Nevitt: I'm going to Save As and say goodbye now, so after this moment any further chat won't be passed on. Thank you for this Pip, it is special. Goodnight. Mornev

Pip Eastop: Thanks Mornev! goodnight.

Mornev Nevitt: Bless

Pip Eastop: Linda...

Linda Robson 2: yes?

Pip Eastop: I do need constructive criticism but I find it very hard to get this.

Deb Wragg: sorry I've not been joining in the dogs needed walking but I didn't want to miss anything

Mornev Nevitt has left the chat.

Pip Eastop: I can't get it from my students for the reason you mentioned.

Linda Robson 2: have you tried co mentoring with another player? I co mentor with someone who teaches the same course as me

Pip Eastop: I've actually gone as far as taking a lesson with one of my ex students.

Pip Eastop: it was the best lesson I ever had!

Linda Robson 2: that must have be interesting

Pip Eastop: It was - I had to learn a particular piece in a very short time, and I knew he had played it. he was brilliant at telling me how to take the thing apart and sort it out and where i could "coast" and where I had to work hard.

Pip Eastop: I'm going to wrap this up now. Any last points before I do?

Linda Robson 2: thanks for coming online and chatting

Pip Eastop: My pleasure! It was an experience. thanks for your interest.

Linda Robson 2: Good night

Linda Robson 2 has left the chat.

Pip Eastop: Good night

Deb Wragg has left the chat.

Phew!