(Update: I just want to add that I am not pointing this post at anyone whose kids take piano from me. I have a great group of families and students. This really is a question I have to answer a lot when people call about piano lessons, and I thought it would be good to have my policy online so folks could access it easily.)
Often when folks ask me about teaching their kids piano, they want to know what expectations I have about practicing.
I try to work with my students' and their families' vision for music education. I understand that folks have things going on other than piano lessons, that perhaps music is not a central focus in their home, and that practicing can fall off the schedule pretty easily. I do not give guilt trips for not practicing 'enough', nor do I hand out prizes for students who practice.
But what is enough?
When a new family comes into my studio, I explain to them that the student gets out of piano lessons what he or she puts into it. If the student is only practicing a few minutes a couple of days per week, that student will not progress as quickly as a student who dedicates a half hour to practicing every day. I am fine with that to a certain extent (as long as the family understands that it is the lack of practicing that is slowing us down). However, I do not want the student getting discouraged. Discouraged students often quit piano, telling themselves that they failed at it.
That is not good.
I want my students to love music and be able to participate in it, so this means I need to help my students and their families figure out how to balance time constraints with the demands of practicing.
This is a sticky wicket.
I am a parent as well as a music teacher. We pay for two of our children to take private violin lessons. They have a great, detail-oriented teacher who is also one of the least expensive in our area, but still, tuition for their lessons takes the lion's share of our school budget every month. I realize that economics is not everything, but if I am paying that much for the kids to have private lessons, my frugal intuition says they had better be practicing at least thirty to sixty minutes every day so they can get as much mileage out of those lessons as possible.
It is easy to let other activities take over time that could be spent practicing an instrument. We have that issue at our house-- especially with three kids focusing on one to three instruments apiece (if you count the voice as an instrument, and I do) in a little house. We have to limit other things (and have to be willing to hear piano/violin/singing almost constantly) in order to meet practice requirements, and I am not always good at that myself, so I certainly understand how hard it is.
This doesn't change the fact that students get out of musical instrument lessons what they put into them. More practice equals more progress.
If the student's schedule is relaxed enough to have adequate time for practicing, but the student doesn't want to practice, that is another issue entirely. Perhaps a change in approach is necessary, or a little more composer study, or perhaps it is time to dwell at the same level for awhile, gaining additional fluency before moving on. But we cannot know for sure unless the student has time for practicing.
That is my take on practicing: it is good. Make time for it. I am not going to guilt-trip or manipulate my students into practicing, but music students need to understand that you get out of music lessons what you put into them.
Let's say it together: You get out of music lessons what you put into them.
Showing posts with label Piano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Piano. Show all posts
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Music, and 1000 Posts
I have written over a thousand posts on Blogger! The milestone passed last week, but I didn't note it.
I was looking over my category labels and thinking about how I would like to change some of them, and I realized that I have only three posts on piano, and not even a category for 'music'. That is kind of odd for a former music major and music teacher. I wondered why I didn't have more, and all I can figure out is that music is so very important to me that I want to get it exactly right. I don't think I am as good as I ought to be at something I have studied so long, so it is hard for me to write about. (That says something about the topics I *do* write about, but I am not sure what, lol.)
Anyway, I'm going to try to let go of my insecurity regarding my musical knowledge and skill, and write more about it.
Right now I am working on some accompaniments for the girls' violin teacher's music studio recital. I have a concerto by George Perlman, another by Telemann (which I love), the Ashokan Farewell (theme of Ken Burns' "Civil War" documentary) and various and sundry little Suzuki pieces that I have played several times over the last few years as accompanist for this studio.
I love accompanying singers and musicians; the synergy that occurs when both performers grasp the same interpretation and take the music where it ought to go is the most thrilling aspect of music to me. (This is also why I love singing in small groups, or even large groups.) Accompanying students in a music studio has an added dimension-- the teacher's expectations regarding tempo and dynamics. When I accompany someone, I feel that my job is to make them sound good; but in an educational studio, my job is to keep the tempo going and aid the student in meeting the teacher's expectations, as well as covering any mistakes.
This is so much fun! I don't know why, but I just like it.
So when I practice the studio accompaniments, I use the metronome a *lot*. It doesn't matter that I played this or that piece at 92 for last year's student; this year's student needs the piece at 88 or 104. Switching gears like that can be a challenge, but it keeps the music fresh.
I am also assisting my own piano students in preparation for recital in a month. I love watching them grow and catch new concepts. I have always started with rank beginners, and three of my students are beyond that now. I never took pedagogy classes at the university, but I am applying CM method to what I know about playing piano, and I think we are going to some good places with the intermediate music. I have done some in-depth music theory study with one of my students this year, and he is on track to be able to play both classically and in a more 'jam session' improvisational style.
I am rather astounded at the ability my students have to improvise because I am not good at it-- I am a classical girl through and through! Give me the sheet music and I can sightread it, but hand me a fake book and inspiration goes out the window! But I teach from the Suzuki books as well as another set of method books (and whatever else I find that I think will help), and Suzuki is so intuitive, they end up simply absorbing natural laws of music. Amazing. Cornflower, my 9yodd, can actually sit down to the piano and play musically relevant two-handed arrangements of music she has only heard on CD-- including Broadway, folk and classical.
I wonder. I did not teach them this. I am not good at it myself. But the choosing of materials for study is apparently very important! I know enough about piano to teach them the skills they need to read and interpret those Suzuki pieces, and I knew enough after listening to the pieces to realize that they were infinitely preferable to the usual monotonous "this is up, this is down, let's go up and down" arrangements of method books. And the order of pieces in Suzuki builds their intuitive knowledge of music.
Very exciting stuff. I have a friend who works at the local music store and teaches piano, and she has been helpful in my decision-making processes regarding which books my students should use. I am going to see if she will let me take lessons from her either this summer or next fall, to work on some technical difficulties I have. I am watching my intermediate students approach my early advanced skill level, and I want to be ready.
I generally play a piece myself at the piano recitals, as a way to demonstrate where we are going, and encourage the students in their scales, arpeggios and fingering studies. This time, I am torn between two pieces-- an early sonata by Beethoven, and a polonaise by Chopin. The polonaise is lots more fun, but I just picked it up again a week or so ago after not having played it for years. I found a recording of Horowitz playing it, and I am sufficiently humbled and embarrassed to even be thinking about playing it "in public". So maybe I'll save that for the Christmas recital next school year. I have the technical aspects of the Beethoven sonata down and am working on artistry.
I am also working with Aravis on voice. This *was* my area of focus in college, and I am discovering some classical prejudices I learned in the music department! I am having to overcome some things in order to teach her Broadway style singing. She is currently working on music from the musical, "Wicked". Mariel, too, is branching into solo voice, and is working on a Dan Fogelberg song. I ought to be working more with the girls in the area of harmony and trio singing, but with all the other music practice they do, their drama schedules, and regular schoolwork, we just can't fit it in. I have a madrigal arrangement of "Three Blind Mice" that I have wanted them to learn for a couple years. Maybe this summer.
There are a couple of other musical activities in the idea stages, and if they pan out, we will have even more musical focus next year. I feel like we already have a lot, and I don't want to shortchange other things like history and English and science, but oh! I want my kids to have all the musical experiences they can.
So that is the exciting musical part of my life. I love it! I wish I had gotten my music degree in college, but maybe after the girls have graduated. I can see this turning into a main life focus for me after the kids are up and out.
I was looking over my category labels and thinking about how I would like to change some of them, and I realized that I have only three posts on piano, and not even a category for 'music'. That is kind of odd for a former music major and music teacher. I wondered why I didn't have more, and all I can figure out is that music is so very important to me that I want to get it exactly right. I don't think I am as good as I ought to be at something I have studied so long, so it is hard for me to write about. (That says something about the topics I *do* write about, but I am not sure what, lol.)
Anyway, I'm going to try to let go of my insecurity regarding my musical knowledge and skill, and write more about it.
Right now I am working on some accompaniments for the girls' violin teacher's music studio recital. I have a concerto by George Perlman, another by Telemann (which I love), the Ashokan Farewell (theme of Ken Burns' "Civil War" documentary) and various and sundry little Suzuki pieces that I have played several times over the last few years as accompanist for this studio.
I love accompanying singers and musicians; the synergy that occurs when both performers grasp the same interpretation and take the music where it ought to go is the most thrilling aspect of music to me. (This is also why I love singing in small groups, or even large groups.) Accompanying students in a music studio has an added dimension-- the teacher's expectations regarding tempo and dynamics. When I accompany someone, I feel that my job is to make them sound good; but in an educational studio, my job is to keep the tempo going and aid the student in meeting the teacher's expectations, as well as covering any mistakes.
This is so much fun! I don't know why, but I just like it.
So when I practice the studio accompaniments, I use the metronome a *lot*. It doesn't matter that I played this or that piece at 92 for last year's student; this year's student needs the piece at 88 or 104. Switching gears like that can be a challenge, but it keeps the music fresh.
I am also assisting my own piano students in preparation for recital in a month. I love watching them grow and catch new concepts. I have always started with rank beginners, and three of my students are beyond that now. I never took pedagogy classes at the university, but I am applying CM method to what I know about playing piano, and I think we are going to some good places with the intermediate music. I have done some in-depth music theory study with one of my students this year, and he is on track to be able to play both classically and in a more 'jam session' improvisational style.
I am rather astounded at the ability my students have to improvise because I am not good at it-- I am a classical girl through and through! Give me the sheet music and I can sightread it, but hand me a fake book and inspiration goes out the window! But I teach from the Suzuki books as well as another set of method books (and whatever else I find that I think will help), and Suzuki is so intuitive, they end up simply absorbing natural laws of music. Amazing. Cornflower, my 9yodd, can actually sit down to the piano and play musically relevant two-handed arrangements of music she has only heard on CD-- including Broadway, folk and classical.
I wonder. I did not teach them this. I am not good at it myself. But the choosing of materials for study is apparently very important! I know enough about piano to teach them the skills they need to read and interpret those Suzuki pieces, and I knew enough after listening to the pieces to realize that they were infinitely preferable to the usual monotonous "this is up, this is down, let's go up and down" arrangements of method books. And the order of pieces in Suzuki builds their intuitive knowledge of music.
Very exciting stuff. I have a friend who works at the local music store and teaches piano, and she has been helpful in my decision-making processes regarding which books my students should use. I am going to see if she will let me take lessons from her either this summer or next fall, to work on some technical difficulties I have. I am watching my intermediate students approach my early advanced skill level, and I want to be ready.
I generally play a piece myself at the piano recitals, as a way to demonstrate where we are going, and encourage the students in their scales, arpeggios and fingering studies. This time, I am torn between two pieces-- an early sonata by Beethoven, and a polonaise by Chopin. The polonaise is lots more fun, but I just picked it up again a week or so ago after not having played it for years. I found a recording of Horowitz playing it, and I am sufficiently humbled and embarrassed to even be thinking about playing it "in public". So maybe I'll save that for the Christmas recital next school year. I have the technical aspects of the Beethoven sonata down and am working on artistry.
I am also working with Aravis on voice. This *was* my area of focus in college, and I am discovering some classical prejudices I learned in the music department! I am having to overcome some things in order to teach her Broadway style singing. She is currently working on music from the musical, "Wicked". Mariel, too, is branching into solo voice, and is working on a Dan Fogelberg song. I ought to be working more with the girls in the area of harmony and trio singing, but with all the other music practice they do, their drama schedules, and regular schoolwork, we just can't fit it in. I have a madrigal arrangement of "Three Blind Mice" that I have wanted them to learn for a couple years. Maybe this summer.
There are a couple of other musical activities in the idea stages, and if they pan out, we will have even more musical focus next year. I feel like we already have a lot, and I don't want to shortchange other things like history and English and science, but oh! I want my kids to have all the musical experiences they can.
So that is the exciting musical part of my life. I love it! I wish I had gotten my music degree in college, but maybe after the girls have graduated. I can see this turning into a main life focus for me after the kids are up and out.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Horowitz-- Polonaise in A Major "Military" by Chopin
"During the September 1939 German invasion of Poland at the outset of World War II, Polskie Radio broadcast this piece daily as nationalistic protest, and to rally the Polish people. The Nazis later banned public performances of Chopin..." --Wikipedia
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Piano Teaching Links
Here are some websites I have found useful as I teach piano.
Piano Pedagogy: In my initial months of research before I began teaching piano as a home business, this website was the single most helpful. Her philosophy of teaching jibes very well with my own thoughts, and as a person who had never studied pedagogy, I greatly appreciated the hand-holding.
How to Teach Beginners (Suzuki): Demystification of the Suzuki books for those of us who do not have time to study the method in depth, but would like an overview in order to make our own decisions regarding the use of those excellent books.
The Practice Spot: A fun website with interactive games, practice suggestions and even tips on how to make your own music studio website. There is a lot here, and I have not explored all of it.
I have found several websites that provide free sheet music downloads, but I haven't yet found one I can recommend wholeheartedly. Very often I disagree with fingering, or feel that the simplification of classical pieces has not been done intuitively enough. I tend to rewrite a measure or two in almost every free sheet music download I print out (or my students bring to me). I expect I will eventually get frustrated with this process and use my new Finale software to write my own simplifications.
It has taken me years to figure out where I stand in terms of piano education philosophy, and while I am still working some bugs out, I feel like I have finally developed a method of sorts. For the record, the two series of books I use with consistency are the Faber books and the Suzuki books. As I become more knowledgeable in teaching piano, I find myself moving away from method books and spending more time poring over sheet music and books at the local music store, and asking lots of questions of the patient piano lady there (she is a friend I made a decade ago, while I still had time to participate in Bach choir).
I plan to expand my business a little more this year and am in the process of putting out advertisements. Last year I had eight students in my studio, including my own three kids. This year I will have slots for twelve students.
Piano Pedagogy: In my initial months of research before I began teaching piano as a home business, this website was the single most helpful. Her philosophy of teaching jibes very well with my own thoughts, and as a person who had never studied pedagogy, I greatly appreciated the hand-holding.
How to Teach Beginners (Suzuki): Demystification of the Suzuki books for those of us who do not have time to study the method in depth, but would like an overview in order to make our own decisions regarding the use of those excellent books.
The Practice Spot: A fun website with interactive games, practice suggestions and even tips on how to make your own music studio website. There is a lot here, and I have not explored all of it.
I have found several websites that provide free sheet music downloads, but I haven't yet found one I can recommend wholeheartedly. Very often I disagree with fingering, or feel that the simplification of classical pieces has not been done intuitively enough. I tend to rewrite a measure or two in almost every free sheet music download I print out (or my students bring to me). I expect I will eventually get frustrated with this process and use my new Finale software to write my own simplifications.
It has taken me years to figure out where I stand in terms of piano education philosophy, and while I am still working some bugs out, I feel like I have finally developed a method of sorts. For the record, the two series of books I use with consistency are the Faber books and the Suzuki books. As I become more knowledgeable in teaching piano, I find myself moving away from method books and spending more time poring over sheet music and books at the local music store, and asking lots of questions of the patient piano lady there (she is a friend I made a decade ago, while I still had time to participate in Bach choir).
I plan to expand my business a little more this year and am in the process of putting out advertisements. Last year I had eight students in my studio, including my own three kids. This year I will have slots for twelve students.
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