Is having a thorough formal music training a barrier to being inventive?

[Woodinblack]

9 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

wouldn't say all the affected teachers are lazy though - many of those are employed by local authorities and are thus under a foul target system based on how their students do in the exams. They have targets for number of pupils taking exams, times between increasing grades, and the grades themselves. In that environment it's little wonder that the product is little robots.

What I found in school when I was there (and hope it is different) is that often the teachers were teachers for a 'proper' subject, who had some free slots so had to do music as they had a record collection.

 

[Ricky 4000]

4 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

What I found in school when I was there (and hope it is different) is that often the teachers were teachers for a 'proper' subject, who had some free slots so had to do music as they had a record collection.

 

Or they had a suitable name, like Mr Bell.

[4000]

Our music lessons at school used to be like something out of “Please Sir!” (hopefully some here may be old enough to remember that). Our music teacher, who was a pleasant older lady, spent pretty much every lesson trying and failing to control the rowdier elements of the class (not me, I hasten to add). Most lessons started with someone putting a bucket full of paper on the door so it fell on her as she came in, and then deteriorated from there. We all found it endlessly entertaining. 
She never even attempted to actually teach us anything about music. 😉

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, Ricky 4000 said:

Or they had a suitable name, like Mr Bell.

Ah, that probably explains our greek teacher, Mr Dorian Mixolydian

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, 4000 said:

Our music lessons at school used to be like something out of “Please Sir!” (hopefully some here may be old enough to remember that). Our music teacher, who was a pleasant older lady, spent pretty much every lesson trying and failing to control the rowdier elements of the class (not me, I hasten to add). Most lessons started with someone putting a bucket full of paper on the door so it fell on her as she came in, and then deteriorated from there. We all found it endlessly entertaining. 
She never even attempted to actually teach us anything about music. 😉

Not having been taught anything I take it that you are now immensely creative? 😁

[Bassfinger]

My music teacher at school was also a local radio DJ.  He really got me enthused about music, playing, and media,  He's still going, now with Radio Cambridgeshire full-time (A-ha!)

[4000]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

Not having been taught anything I take it that you are now immensely creative? 😁

Like you wouldn’t believe.😉

[odysseus]

Music lessons in school never taught me anything about music.  But that was over 30 years ago.. maybe things have changed?

[Bilbo]

To be fair, I am critical of my school for failing to recognise my developing interest in music and nurturing it but it was in early music lessons, when the teacher played us a video of Ravel's Bolero and Disney's Peter and the Wolf, that the fire ignited. I remember running home to tell Mum and, as chance would have it, she had Bolero on a record. I wore it out and still love it to this day. School started the ball rolling and then, sadly, missed a trick. 

[Ricky 4000]

We did Peter and the Wolf at junior school, I loved it too.

Then I remember doing 'music' during the first year at comp', but I don't remember much about it, except counting to four and clapping.

Which is exactly where I am now decades later, with the ABRSM Book 1 Music Theory. 🙄

[adamg67]

I know we did music at school but genuinely have no recollection of it at all.

I wanted to play guitar when I was about 12, parents made me do classical despite me having no real interest in the music. The teacher was a horrible man, put me off lessons for a long time. Apart from his complete disinterest in whether I was learning or enjoying it, I have fairly tight tendons and my hands are not very flat as well, so when I curl my fingers they all tend to come together in the middle and it's an effort to stretch them out. He would try and get my left hand in the proper position for some of the more stretchy bits and I would say "that hurts", and he would reply "no it doesn't, don't be stupid".

I do sometimes wonder where I'd be if I'd done more younger, but there's no point worrying about it and I'm learning lots now anyway.

I've got a really good teacher now, more like a music coach but primarily teaching me keys, and also happens to live a few minutes away, although I'd happily travel a lot further for her. I tried another piano teacher a while before that, told her what I was interested in doing (ABRSM Jazz and things to help my songwriting) and she ignored it all and started getting me to learn "The Entertainer". Sacked her off after two lessons.

[gjones]

I have a friend who has a degree in music. His main instrument is the guitar but to aid his creativity he collects and plays many other instruments. He feels the unfamiliarity with an instrument aids his creativity.