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Learning vs Acquisition by Franz Vitulli
In this first article of mine I would like to express some ideas I developed through the years, having been a student, having attended classes with more than one teacher, being actually a teacher myself since I graduated at the academy where I’ve studied the electric bass and being a senior student for an MA in General and Applied Linguistics.
It is really amazing to realize how similar could be the human approach when you learn/teach music and when you learn/teach a second language. Maybe scientists would say that music and language activate the same areas of our brains, I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
So, here’s the thing… I borrowed this idea from the Second Language Acquisitional Theory and tried to apply it within my music lessons. It’s all about the crucial distinction between learning and acquisition. Acquisition is a painless process: like a child, who unconsciously works on grammar just hearing the language all around him, it is possible – with some obvious limitations – that a grown man acquires a language e.g. working on a building site when he just left his country and moved to a richer land. Could this situation be compared with a self-taught musician who tries to master his instrument by hearing what his heroes do on his favourite records/Spotify songs/Youtube videos? My answer is “Yes!”
Learning, on the other hand, is basically what a man gets in a formal environment, e.g. in a classroom. It involves a specific work on rules and results in a conscious knowledge “about” the language (or music).
Some linguists who have been working on this field have stated that the grown man on the building site will be able to communicate much sooner than a man who attends a traditional language class, but in the long run the student will reach a higher level of proficiency. I strongly believe that this statement can be applied in music: a punk self-taught bass player will learn how to play his favourite songs roughly but very quickly, sitting down with his bass and jam along the song until he finds the right notes or reading a tab found on the web, while a student usually needs some time to get confident with chords and scales before he’s ready to play music with others. And while most of the self-taughts keep playing with this routine (I want to play this song, then I somehow look for the right notes and play the song), the traditionally educated musicians have more chances to reach a higher level. Please don’t misunderstand this point, music history is full of talented musicians who dominate their years without having attended a single lesson, but they surely have spent time studying and practicing consciously.
In my humble opinion the key is to merge the two approaches and get the best results from each one, and it shouldn’t be so hard for a modern musician. Spending time and money with a teacher is necessary, but you have to know when it’s time to change teacher or to keep practicing on your own. The “acquisitional teacher” has the duty to allow his student to enjoy the benefits of the self-taught players, where “teaching” and “guiding the unconscious process of acquisition” are synonyms. He has to let him discover things without overwhelming him with notions and theoretical constructs that he’s still not able to understand, notice when it’s time to introduce new topics (acquisition is a sequential process!), avoid persevering with an error correction/detection approach but using the recast (playing an arpeggio, or a scale, or a melodic phrase the student didn’t play properly, until he realizes his mistake) and turn the lesson environment from formal into informal, spending the last 15 minutes of the lesson jamming with the student in order to check if he’s able to apply autonomously, spontaneously and unexpectedly (= he has acquired) the stuff he’s studying.
If you are a teacher and spend the class time just explaining concepts, welcome to the internet era: your students might find way more than you can teach him on Youtube videos, websites, ebooks, not to mention the regular books, etc., but this approach doesn’t work at all, and if it worked, there would be no reasons to keep teaching music at any level. If you are a student and your teacher talks, and talks, and talks, just don’t say “Yes, yes, I got it” but stop him anytime you need a clarification and let him know that you need time to process the information he’s giving to you. If he keeps talking about rules and at the end of the lesson your mind is about to blow – in my opinion – just do yourself a favor, go to another teacher.
So the responsibiity of a successful lesson is both of the teacher and of the student. The goal of the lessons must be the acquisition of the necessary skills to be able to play music, not just the knowledge of music. And make sure that you are always investing your time in the best way possible.
I would really like to hear your thoughts about this, so please comment, tweet this article, share it on your Facebook wall and tell your friends about it!
Franz
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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