The Technical Phase: Designing for Fluency

Designing Musical Growth – Essay 2

In the first essay of this series, I introduced three modes of musical growth: Technical, Embodiment, and Sharing. I argued that technical fluency is not the destination of music learning, it is the beginning of the journey. That raises an important question.

What is the purpose of the Technical phase?

For many of us, the answer seems obvious.

We teach notes.

Rhythms.

Fingerings.

Tone.

Balance.

Blend.

Intonation.

Technique.

Those skills are undeniably important. In fact, every meaningful musical experience depends on them. But I don't believe the ultimate purpose of the Technical phase is technical excellence itself.

I believe its purpose is fluency.

Fluency is what eventually allows students to stop thinking about how to play the music so they can begin thinking about why they are playing it. That distinction has changed how I think about nearly every rehearsal I teach.

Technical Fluency Is Not the Destination

Sometimes when I talk about ownership, audience connection, or meaningful music-making, people assume I'm suggesting that technique isn't important. Nothing could be further from the truth. Without technical fluency, students cannot embody music. Without technical fluency, they cannot truly share it. Technical learning is essential. The question isn't whether we should teach technique. The question is:

What is technique preparing students to do?

I have come to believe that technical instruction is valuable because it creates the possibility for the next phase of musical growth.

Why Students Look Like Statues

Earlier this year, I wrote two articles exploring a question that has bothered me for a long time: Why do some ensembles sound accurate but look lifeless? (Accurate but Lifeless - Part 1, Part 2)

I argued that lifeless performances are rarely the result of students not caring. More often, they result from how we design rehearsals. If every rehearsal is devoted to learning notes, rhythms, and fingerings, and to avoiding mistakes, it shouldn't surprise us when students step onto the stage focused on the same things. Their attention has been trained inward.

I still believe that.

But as I've continued thinking about it, I believe there's an even deeper explanation. Perhaps students don't look like statues because something is wrong. Perhaps they look like statues because they are exactly where they should be in the learning process.

Educational psychologist John Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory offers a helpful explanation. Sweller proposed that working memory has a limited capacity. When learners encounter many new pieces of information simultaneously, most of their available attention is devoted to processing them (Sweller, 1988). As learning occurs and knowledge becomes organized into schemas, those mental processes become increasingly automatic.

Fred Paas, Alexander Renkl, and John Sweller later argued that instructional design should account for these limitations in working memory. Rather than overwhelming learners, instruction should be designed to support the gradual acquisition and automation of knowledge (Paas, Renkl, & Sweller, 2003).

Think about what a beginning trumpet player may be processing during a single measure. "What's my fingering? Is that an F-sharp? Did I remember to breathe? Was that an accent? Where's beat three? Is my tone okay?" There simply isn't much attention left to think, "How can I shape this phrase?" or "How might this music affect the audience?"

Seen through this lens, the statue isn't a sign that students lack expression. It's a sign that they're learning. They're doing the difficult work of building technical fluency.

That realization has changed how I think about the first rehearsals of a new piece. I no longer expect students to embody the music immediately. I expect concentration. My responsibility isn't to force expression before students are ready. It's to design technical learning experiences that gradually free their attention so they can eventually move beyond execution.

And that's where I think many music educators, including myself, have unintentionally stopped. We've become very good at designing for technical fluency, but we often assume that once students know the notes and rhythms, expression, ownership, and audience connection will naturally appear. Sometimes they do. But I no longer think we should leave that to chance. Technical fluency is not the end of musical growth. It is what makes the next phase possible.

Designing for the Next Phase

This is where I believe the role of the music teacher changes. We are not simply teaching notes and rhythms. We are designing technical experiences that eventually make ownership possible. That means every technical decision we make should be made with the next phase already in mind. When I choose repertoire, I no longer ask only,

Can my students perform this?

I also ask,

Will they eventually stop thinking about this music and start living inside it?

That single question has changed how I think about repertoire. The goal isn't to choose the easiest music. The goal is to choose music that students can eventually stop thinking about and start living inside. Sometimes that means selecting music that is technically simpler than students could probably perform. At first glance, that sounds like lowering expectations. I don't think it is. I think it's redefining success.

Redefining Challenge

For generations, music educators have often equated challenge with technical difficulty.

The harder the piece, the greater the accomplishment. There is certainly value in challenge. But challenge should serve musical growth, not become the goal itself.

If a piece remains so technically demanding that students never move beyond decoding notes and rhythms, they may eventually perform it successfully. But they never reach the point where the music begins to belong to them. The technical demands never release their attention.

Sometimes learning fewer pieces more deeply creates richer musical experiences than preparing a larger concert program that never progresses beyond technical execution. Technical fluency should create opportunities for ownership. It should never become a barrier to it.

Evidence of Fluency

If fluency is the purpose of the Technical phase, then our assessment should reflect that purpose. Rather than asking students to demonstrate expression or audience connection too early, we should look for evidence that fluency is developing. Evidence might include secure pulse, accurate rhythms, reliable fingerings, confident entrances, consistent tone, and the ability to recover naturally after mistakes without disrupting the musical flow.

These aren't simply performance skills. They are signs that technical processing is becoming increasingly automatic. As that happens, attention begins to expand. Students gain the cognitive space needed to enter the next mode of musical growth.

Looking Ahead

Perhaps one of the most reassuring ideas in this framework is that students don't have to look expressive on the first day. They don't have to move with the music. They don't have to communicate with an audience. They don't have to embody the music yet.

If they look like statues, that's okay. They're doing the difficult work of building fluency. Our responsibility isn't to rush them beyond that stage. Our responsibility is to design technical experiences that eventually allow them to leave it. Because technical fluency is not the destination. It is what makes the destination possible.

In the next essay, I'll explore what happens when students stop simply playing music and begin making it their own.

References

Paas, F., Renkl, A., & Sweller, J. (2003). Cognitive load theory and instructional design: Recent developments.Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 1–4.https://doi.org/10.1207/S15326985EP3801_1

Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257–285.