Director of String Studies Melissa Knecht will spend the semester on sabbatical, focusing her efforts on finishing a book, studying other professors in action, and performing with professional string ensembles.
Danae Witter and Emily Rolka, both commuting from Ann Arbor, will work together to take on Knecht’s immense workload.
“[Knecht] typically teaches 16-18 private lessons a week,” Music Department Chair James Holleman said. “She takes on a huge load, and works all day, every day. Not only will she now have the ability to do a research project, but sabbatical also gives her a chance to not be in this sort of intense, non-stop teaching week. It’s a nice chance to go and focus on something totally different.”
The biggest project for Knecht’s semester is completing “Developing your Music Memory Bank,” a book she has been working on since her last sabbatical, more than seven years ago. Knecht has gathered research from studying performers in the Chicago and Toledo symphonies. She said she has already shown the book to Shar Music in Ann Arbor, Mich., which is the largest string supply store in the country.
The two-part teaching manual is for private string teachers of advanced students. The first part contains a test of musical expertise, which incorporates how experts process music mentally.
“It examines how some people get better and others don’t,” Knecht said. “A lot have had expensive lessons, and stop at a certain level. Maybe 95 percent of all students quit violin or never get better after a certain age. The way the 5 percent organize things is the way any expert does, in chunks. A musical scheme is like any other language.”
Knecht sets out to understand this type of music comprehension by comparing the language of music to the rules of spoken language.
“In music, the expert has to remember hundreds of things, and the way they ‘chunk’ things together allows them to remember many things at once,” Knecht said. “Nobody ever applies music theory to their instrument. This does some of that, applying music theory to the actual instrument, and what we call knowledge of the fingerboard. [Many] know it is a deficiency. It won’t be every solution, but it’s a start.”
Knecht is currently planning for fieldwork to make sure her theory works in action. She plans to get reviews before the book is published, and has lined up teachers in Ann Arbor to study this semester.
Later this fall, University of Michigan’s Professor of Violin Stephen Shipps will allow Knecht, who earned her doctorate from Michigan, to observe his classes in action.
“He is one of the most famous violin teachers in the world,” Knecht said.
Shipps teaches students age 11 to 25, when he is not traveling and performing as a solo violinist.
“We talk specifically about how to deal with different age groups, and what types of music pieces and exercises are appropriate. It’s important that even really good teachers don’t injure their students with too much enthusiasm, just like in sports. It’s all about healthy practicing,” Shipps said.
Shipps’ godfather, the late Louis C. Pitchford, Jr., was a history professor at Hillsdale College from 1971 to 1982. Shipps said that because of this, and because he has been visiting the school for performances and guest classes for over 30 years, he loves and thinks very highly of Hillsdale.
In addition to observing in Ann Arbor and working on her book, Knecht has a few “side projects” going on. She is the director of the Michigan Solo Competition, and she serves as the Education Consultant for the Toledo Youth Symphony. She also plans to deliver two lectures. One will be at the Michigan Music Conference in Grand Rapids, and the other is for the American String Teachers Association in Salt Lake City, Utah in the spring.
“My personal practice is going to be important this semester. I try to keep up with that, but now I will really have the opportunity to increase my repertoire, including increasing my 20th century repertoire in violin and viola. I will also have more time to play with the Ann Arbor symphony,” Knecht said. “The more time I have to dedicate to that will hopefully make me better professor at Hillsdale College.”
