I was talking to a lady tonight who expressed interest in changing piano teachers. Her reason? “The teacher put so much pressure on me. I can’t go that fast.”
What on earth was that teacher thinking?
A student clearly expresses their confusion at the speed of the lessons, and the teacher ignores her.
What could possible be gained from such an attitude on the teacher’s part?
It sounds as if the teacher’s intention is to punish the student for not being easier to teach.
But that is, after all, a violation of the tacit contract of the piano teacher: I will teach you to play as well as you can, using any tool at our disposal. That includes by ear, by rote, by eye, by number, by color. Any way we can find to get happily started playing MUSIC, not exercises.
Incidentally, the primary tool of the piano teacher is patience.
Back to our story, the lady went on to describe the lessons with this tyrant in more detail.
“I tried to keep up, but it became such a chore. I try to practice every day, but every lesson had a new piece. I wanted to take more time with each piece but the teacher was in such a hurry to get to the next page.”
Folks, what happened here is that the teacher was in reality bored with teaching a person of such humble gifts, and was rude enough to ride roughshod over the clear signs of the student’s confusion.
Piano teachers seem to suffer from a delusional disease, unique to their profession, in which they can only teach in the same manner they were taught.
Let’s call it “The Hand Me Down Method.”
This “method” is probably the main reason for the failure of most piano teaching practices to turn out people who simply enjoy playing the instrument.
Instead, these inflexible teachers turn out saddened refugees of their method, who are always unable to keep up with the master’s wisdom, although the master is well able to take their money.
The “master” never seems to notice that they are teaching their METHOD to the student, not the spirit and literature of the PIANO, however humbly, on the student’s terms.
A piano method, ideally, should be “transparent,” so that it can be molded to fit the individual student. The less there is apparent routine the better.
A real pianist plays because of two things:
They can play
They want to play.
Think of a child. First show them that they can play the piano, using any means from numbers and colors to comedy and bitter irony if you have to.
Wake up and sense what that child understands. Find where they are comfortable, and then lift them up from there.
This means that a child might take a year to learn three simple pieces, with both hands, from memory, all the way through with relatively few stumbles. That is very hard to do for the average child who wants to attempt the piano, and there are millions each year.
You have to have a strategy with each child.
The first secret requirement I have of a child is that they walk away from the piano, early in their lessons if not the first, with a piano piece they can play for anyone, from memory and proudly. It has to be a song they love, and that everyone knows.
What this single song will do is act as their calling card at every piano they pass by. They can play it and people will say, “Oh, you can play the piano!” Those simple words will raise a child’s self-estimation in a way few other things can.
Until you give that emotional and social tool to a child at the piano, a song they can play for themselves, you have given them nothing.
So go find that song that makes their heart sing. It isn’t hard.
It might be Spider Man, it might be Handel’s Water Music, it might be Boogie Woogie, it might be a rap beat.
If you find it, and can simplify it to the point that their beginner hands can play even a portion of it recognizably, you will have a tool like the Rosetta Stone, that will open up further and further doors into their musical development.
Give a kid a song they know and they will play it on the piano for themselves.
Then they will want to play.
By John Aschenbrenner Copyright 2010 Walden Pond Press All Rights Reserved
See also A CHILD'S BILL OF RIGHTS FOR PIANO LESSONS
See also COMPARING CONCERT PIANISTS AND BEGINNING CHILD PIANISTS
See also WHY DELAY READING MUSIC
See also FUN PIANO GAME WITH A PAIR OF DICE
See also WHY CHILDREN NEED FREEDOM TO LEARN PIANO
