Behaviorist and Cognitivist approaches to Teaching Performance

            Using a behaviorist approach to teach the first 16 measures of the Beethoven “Pathetique” sonata would include an expectation that particular stimuli would elicit a particular response. First, I would present the music to a student who already has strong associations between the written pitches and how they should be performed. The student must read the music and respond by playing the correct pitches and rhythms. I would also expect a certain level of stimulus generalization with phrases and patterns that the student has seen before. The sixteenth-note motion is not uncommon in a classical sonata and the student should generalize their response to the musical stimuli. If they have not encountered such figures before they would then begin to develop the proper response to the music during repeated practice.

            Written fingerings should also illicit a mediational process whereby the student utilizes a series of stimulus-response bonds they have developed for piano fingerings. The written fingerings are appropriate for the music so this process would be beneficial more than detrimental. While mediational processes may be detrimental to finding more creative solutions, the teacher can guide the student to the best solution.

            In the process of practicing, the student should strengthen their stimulus-response better connecting the visual stimulus of the music to the proper performance expected. Further behaviorist ideas might be used to provide motivation to practice through external means. Creating a stimulus-response bond between practicing and an external reward should help further the behaviorist approach to teaching this piece. The teacher should closely monitor the learning of this piece so that proper stimulus-response bonds are developed. Improper bonds will result in poor performance and a likely delay in attaining mastery of the music. Since the learning of a piece is simply the attainment of a high degree of stimulus-response, the goal for performance is proper execution.

            Using the cognitivist approach to teach the first 16 measures of the Beethoven “Pathetique” sonata would include the assimilation of new stimuli into already created categories and processes. The music being learned contains a variety of material that should be added to “cognitive data storage.” As the student learns the music they should put particular physical actions, phrases, and other aspect of the music into their proper place. This placement will also aid in the learning of the music as prior learning informs new learning. The new music may be easily forgotten if the student fails to include the specificity of the new knowledge in its proper place. Prior learning about fingerings, phrasing, melodic structure, accompaniment figures, and other aspects of the music will be critical. It is for this reasons that the structure of the overall curriculum should be purposeful as each piece builds upon the learning that preceded it. This approach of careful organization fits best with Ausubel’s “reception learning.” If a more “discovery learning” style is desired, the student is more active in organizing material. This alternate approach would also likely lead to a more individualized creation of categories and processes. This approach is often seen with popular musicians and has its benefits and drawbacks.

            In the process of practicing, a cognitivist approach would value a more thoughtful approach to practice. While practice is necessary, it is not simply to match stimuli to the proper response. Instead, practice is the acquisition of skills and knowledge and its application to proper places in the brain. If the student struggles with the multiple voices in the sonata being played simultaneously, they should spend time slowly putting them together until the correct processes have been developed and filed in the brain. The developmental approach may be intrinsically motivating as students notice their incremental improvement. The overall goal, then is the development and categorization of the experience of playing the Beethoven into correct processes and categories.