Time to re-post this entry from two and a half years ago:

I take my work as a piano teacher very seriously, and part of my job is to teach how to perform. Most students and parents underestimate what it takes to perform successfully in public. I have very high standards for myself and for my students, and dismissive comments about a proposed performance, such as, “oh, it doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s just for church …” are unacceptable.

I enjoy teaching all ages and levels, and my goal is always to teach towards mastery. Mastery is different from perfection. A piece may be “perfect” but the skills necessary to perform the piece may not have been mastered.

People tend to think that the first year or so of piano study is not as important because the student is “only” a beginner, but they couldn’t be more wrong! Having to re-teach and re-learn after the student was allowed to acquire bad habits is not only frustrating for both teacher and student, it is highly unfair to the student.

The following is from an article by Bruce Berr, first published in the Autumn 1999 issue of Keyboard Companion (which has since changed its name to Clavier Companion), a professional journal published by The Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy, a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to the support of keyboard pedagogy in all its varied aspects:

Newer teachers sometimes assume that because students are at an elementary level, they cannot play their pieces with mastery and artistry – this is not true! This is a matter of confusing standard with level. Instruction on any musical instrument is based on mastery learning. This hinges on the highly-successful completion of each unit of study along the way, especially and particularly the first few. Since students have varying levels of aptitude, and learn at different paces and in different ways, the main variant should be how much time and reinforcement is needed for that mastery, not the degree to which that mastery occurs.

To be more specific, when a well-taught student at any level successfully learns a piece, the student’s performance is virtually as good as the teacher’s:

• The physical approach is reliable and natural.
• Fingering is consistent and secure.
• Tone quality and rhythm are solid.
• Legato and staccato are clearly played and differentiated.
• Dynamics and dynamic differences are boldly projected.
• The performance authentically communicates the title and mood to a large degree, to any music listener (not just the trained ear of the teacher).
• There is flexibility in all of the above (except fingering!); one slight change in something, intended or unintended, does not cause a cascading failure and meltdown.
• Playing the piece is enjoyable.

This is true even for the beginner’s first few lessons! Yes, perhaps there are subtle nuances of shaping and timing and other aspects that a more advanced player might bring to an early-level piece. And an older player may understand the music on a deeper intellectual and emotional level, but these are not absolutely essential for each piece to shine and express. If we focus too much on these exceptions, they can become a smoke screen that hides from us an essential fact: if students’ final playing of most of their pieces is not excellent or very close to it, we are in effect building a structure whose foundation is of questionable strength to support what will be added on later.

Setting a goal of complete mastery right from the start, communicating that goal repeatedly to the student, and giving the student the means for meeting that goal – all of this acts as a springboard for many good habits: efficient practice, careful listening, etc. Conversely, if our initial goals for each piece are not set to the highest standards, we sell students short before giving them a chance to fully blossom into what they can become.

My biggest gripe with piano teaching is not what you’d expect – students who don’t practice. 

It is the parents.  For the most part, I have wonderful parents: they are involved, interested, supportive, good communicators.  But there are a few bad apples and they really sap my energy.  I have been saying for a long time that I can handle pretty much any student, supposedly difficult or untalented or otherwise not ideal, as long as I get along with the parents, as long as we’re on the same page and they support what I do.

I have a few students who move very slow because they don’t practice as much as they could and should, but they do progress, and the parents and I are on the same page, content with how things work.   

In our lessons, my goal is always to give honest and supportive feedback to the student and make sure none of my students leave the lesson until they have understood what it is they are to practice, and how.  I even make the younger ones read my hand-written assignment out loud to make sure they can read my handwriting and understand all abbreviations – much of the assignment often reads like some secret code, “LH 3 mf then cresc.” for instance.   (And there are students of whom I ask not only “what does LH stand for?” but also to show me their left hand …) 

I praise them pretty much every chance I get, but I also let them know when they are not doing well.  I don’t think I have any students who do not want to do well.  So, when they don’t do well it’s usually because they don’t understand a concept or because they are tired or distracted.  To the surprise of many parents, I don’t chide them for being tired or distracted, but I draw their attention to it, put it in words, and then say that we have a choice:  either say, yes I am tired and need to take a break, or, yes I am tired but I’ll try again anyway. 

And I make sure they understand that one is not better than the other.  I wish more people developed some sense and understanding of their state of mind, and their limits.  Somehow, perhaps because of the liberty of being able (allowed?) to say “I am tired/distracted” most students choose to try again and often play better than before.  To students who would benefit from it, I offer strategies for coping with the challenge of playing / listening / thinking while being tired.

While I try to be honest and supportive and praise my students for doing a good job thinking or listening or having patience (when they do), I do NOT comment on their being “talented” or “future pianists” or any such thing.  And parents who gush at their children (in front of me), telling them how talented they are because they understood a difficult concept  immediately lose points with me.   I similarly cringe when I hear parents say things like, “Ms. Kuder wouldn’t be teaching you if you weren’t so talented!”   So very much NOT true.  “Talent” is a promise, nothing more.  I have had “talented” students who were not interested in learning – how’s that good for anything?

Then there are parents who answer the questions I directed at the child, for the child.  When I ask a question, I get so much more out of the answer than just the answer.  Many of my questions are leading questions and I am interested in the student’s chain of thoughts to get to the answer, convoluted as some of those chains of thoughts can be at times.   Some parents interrupt the child if they think that the answer will be incorrect, but even an incorrect answer tells me what I need to know, namely that there is something that hasn’t been understood 100% = something I need to teach.  Or sometimes, students realize as they speak that they are headed in the wrong direction and correct themselves.  So much more valuable than having mom or dad present the right answer!  To me, piano lessons are about learning, and learning doesn’t do straight lines. 

Most of my students learn quickly that there is no wrong answer to my question, “What do you think needs more work in this piece/section?” except “I don’t know.”  (Most of them have also learned that “dynamics” is a pretty sure-fire answer as it is such an elusive concept and one that always seems to benefit from more attention.)   

Once I observe the student-parent interaction, I find that most students who prefer the “I don’t know” answer do so because their parents don’t encourage them to think, or, worse, jump in every chance they get and correct their child.  No wonder “I don’t know” seems like the safest thing to say …

Addendum:  There are two different ways students tell me “I don’t know” – the one I referred to, above, is not the one where a student honestly doesn’t know and sometimes even has trouble admitting so.  This kind of “I don’t know” actually is more of an “I don’t know and I don’t like that I don’t know!”  The one I was referrring to, above, is the one that sounds like “I don’t know and I don’t care and will you get off my back already!”