That time, toward the end of July, when I wish I could just fast-forward to August 18 when the Fall Semester starts.  The time until then is so stressful because it holds so many unknowns:  I am not sure how many students will enroll this fall; I don’t yet have the schedules of the ones who will enroll; many parents do not yet have a schedule because especially sports don’t get scheduled until school starts. 

Of course I want the best schedule for everyone – their favorite time, siblings together, conveniently together of course, and so on.  I’ve been bugging Mark to see if there’s some kind of software to help with the scheduling but there are so many variables (on my part) that it just wouldn’t work.  There is scheduling software available, commercially - I googled – but most of them put the scheduling into the parents’ hands.  As much as parents may think that it should be either first-come-first-serve or work by some sort of seniority – that’s not how I schedule.  I want to pick and choose and reconsider and change until I feel that the schedule fits everyone, me included, as perfectly as possible.

In addition to the stress of the unknown, it’s been hot.  Hot and humid and miserable.  Yesterday was the first day in I can’t remember how long that Mark and I were able to ride our bikes.  Well, enjoy to ride our bikes. 

Hot means that we run the a/c which means that in regular intervals there is the noise from the blower (fan?) which is particularly noticeable at night.  We don’t sleep well. 

On top of everything else, I am going back to Germany the first two weeks in August, for the fifth time this year, this time to finalize the closing of my mother’s apartment.  She lived in that apartment for 37 years, I grew up in it.  Several years ago, when my mother and I discussed end-of-life issues and how she would like me to deal with things after her death (we had no idea that she would die so soon), I had already asked her to make sure her landlord knew that I would want to hold on to the apartment for a while after.  The idea of her dying and my having to close the apartment right away was unbearable.  She understood and accepted.  I found among her many many handwritten notes one she had written to herself, to that effect.

I am so very fortunate to have had Mark’s understanding and support with this.  One week after I arrive in Germany in August, it will have been exactly six months since her death.  She herself hadn’t been home in her apartment since about October or November when she left for what was meant to be her over-winter vacation in Turkey. 

It’ll be trying, and I expect emotional upheaval. 

Strangely, and this may be some weird survival technique, I don’t expect the stress from the preparations for the Fall Semester and the stress from the closing of my mother’s apartment to compound each other. On the contrary.  (And this is where it gets weird.)  I am good at completely focusing on one thing, by pushing other things aside.

I am already organizing, long-distance from here in the States, the apartment closing; and I will be working, long-distance, on the Fall Semester scheduling while in Germany.   When the stress from the piano preparations gets too much, I can take a break and take care of my mother’s apartment.  And the other way around.  Use either as a distraction from the other. 

I’ll be glad when it’s August 18.

Hello,
 My children are coming for holiday at your location,and at the same
time i will be happy if you can help them with Piano Lesoon you pref
are.
 My children first language is English, best hobby is reading & study,
they are enthusiastic,very patient and very good children.As a
beginners,they are interested to learning the basics and i hope you
can accept them as your student?.
 I will like you to assure me that you are going to take proper care
of teaching them as I’m ready to pay all their necessary expenses for
the lessons. I will want the tutor to hold for 3 Month which consist
of two hours a day, two times in a week for both of them if possible.I
have someone that will always drive them to your teaching location for
the lessons. I will like to know your total cost of
tutoring for 3 Month.I want you to get back to me with above details.
 Please let me hear from you as soon as you receive this mail, so that
we’ll make an arrangement on when to begin lessons and payment is by
US cashier’s check.
 Regards and hope to hear from you soon.
Note:Please do reply to my private email address jonnymaxy013@yahoo.com
John

I just love that little personal touch at the end, with his “private email address” . . .

Teaching siblings is usually more work rather than less for the teacher because I have to be careful about possible sibling rivalry.  For instance:  should we or should we not use the same book/pieces for all siblings?  In many cases it is better to NOT use the same book so as to avoid unfair comparisons because I have never had siblings who progressed at the same pace exactly.  One is usually faster than the other, if only for some time, and the resulting comparison can be very frustrating and depressing for the slower student, in particular if it is a younger sibling who happens to be the faster student - which is often the case because they have had the advantage of hearing the older sibling practice and play the pieces they then get to learn!  (They don’t have to be in the same book at the same time for these comparisons to happen.) 

As far as scheduling lessons goes:  while parents may think it would be easier to schedule their children all in a row, for the teacher it is far easier to find time for one 30- or 45-min time slot in a day than for two or more 30-or 45-min time slots in a row, especially in an already fairly full schedule.  

I once heard of a teacher who suggested that we should actually charge more for siblings …

Answer: Your teacher, while possibly a little over-sensitive, is not wrong. America is the most method-ridden country in the world. Most of the methods in vogue contain some good points – about a grain of truth to a ton of mere ballast. Your teacher’s utterance makes me think that you were lucky in finding her, and that you have excellent reason to trust in her guidance.

Source: Josef Hofmann, “Piano Playing With Piano Questions Answered” (first published in 1908)

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.

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!”

Jessica placed 2nd in the 1st-3rd grade division, with Nicole and Blaise receiving Honorable Mention. Kristee placed 1st in the 7th-9th grade division, and Linda placed 1st in the 10th-12th grade division.

Congratulation to Taylor for receiving the highest rating (a I rating) at the state level of the High School Piano Festival in Wichita on February 20!

The Piano Concerto Competition is a very important event in my studio calendar, probably the most important.  For months, my students and I prepare for the competition.  At the moment, one of my students is already preparing for next year’s competition.  I often thought that in order for me to miss the concerto competition, someone would have to die.

This year’s competition took place yesterday, February 13, 2010.

One week ago yesterday, my mother died.  Although her health had been deteriorating, her death was unexpected.  Mark and I flew from the States to Germany, arriving Tuesday morning.  Yesterday, we had her Memorial Service. 

I am blessed with wonderful students and colleagues.  For instance, I was able to send a brief email to a student, requesting to reschedule a lesson because my mind was with my mother but not piano, and all I heard back was, “No problem.  Have a safe trip.”  

My colleagues pulled together and were able to take over the organization of the event, as well as find accompanists for my nine students, organize their rehearsal, and get them through the competition.

I will remain in Germany for another week, getting started on the closing of my mother’s apartment as well as continuing to take care of the many other obligations which arise after the death of one’s mother. 

http://sibylleandmark.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/a-beautiful-fitting-memorial/

Taking piano lessons is good for you / your child / your IQ / etc. 

You’ve heard it, perhaps tried to heed that advice.  Maybe it worked, maybe it didn’t.

While there is some research on the topic, the problem is that ”Piano lessons are good for you” is as accurate as “Eating food will make you fat”.   Everyone knows that, yes indeed, some food will make you fat, but it also depends on how much of which food we are talking about.   People don’t seem to be that descerning when it comes to piano lessons.   Piano lessons are good for you, right?

Wrong.

Remember the adage, “Practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent”? I’d like to add, “Perfect practice makes perfect.”

Good piano lessons are good for you.

Some 35 years ago, after my first piano teacher with whom I had studied for only a year or two got married and moved away, we were faced with the challenge of finding a new teacher.  Our piano tuner, a gentle and quiet man, recommended his mother.  I don’t know what her qualifications were, and it doesn’t really matter.  What matters is that this woman taught piano lessons on a tall and dark upright piano in a dark corner of her dark living room; piano lessons that for a while destroyed my love for the piano. 

While my first teacher, a young and enthusiastic woman, was good (which I didn’t realize until much much later when I read through some of the assignments she had written), I didn’t really learn how to practice.  I was kind of lucky – or perhaps not, depending on how you look at it -, because I had some talent, and excellent ears, and faked my way through the note-reading exercises.  My new teacher would get upset about my lack of sight-reading skills, urging me during our dreaded four-hand sight-reading sessions sternly, “Keep going!!!” – which is exactly what someone with no sight-reading skills can not do. 

Sight-reading was not the only thing I wasn’t good at.  I had no clue what it meant to practice. If I did sit down at the piano between lessons, I’d play through a couple of songs, usually not the ones I was assigned because those were “hard” and I didn’t know them, I didn’t know what they were supposed to sound like, and I didn’t know how to practice and I didn’t like them anyway.  I had no sense of rhythm, I couldn’t count.  My teacher managed to identify my weaknesses but that’s where she stopped; she was unable to help me overcome them.  All in a tense, rigid, dark atmosphere. What I learned from her was that I wasn’t good enough.  I hated lessons, and I still hadn’t learned how to practice, nor how to read, nor count.

After a while, I don’t remember how long I took lessons, my mother who by nature and nurture does not quit (“You started it, now you stick with it!”) said, “You know, if you want to stop lessons with her, that would be ok.”  She also made sure that, after a break (one year?), I auditioned with a new teacher who then became not only my new piano teacher, but also mentor, guide, coach, and solid rock in my tumultuous teenage years.  I was lucky.

~:~.~:~.~:~.~:~.~:~.~:~.~:~

Perhaps because I love music and the piano in particular, and I love learning and studying and teaching, I think that we do not need any outside reason to study music.  If studying the piano does help with math, languages, etc., then all the better, but that shouldn’t be the main reason to take piano lessons.  

Another aspect:

Neurologist Oliver Sacks (author of case-history collections such as Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), during an interview about his new book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, had the following answer to one of the interviewer’s questions:

From the perspective of neurological development, is it important to give music lessons to your kids?

Sacks: One can become a creative and good human being without music lessons. But it does look as if fairly intensive musical training can promote the development of various parts of the brain, which may facilitate other non-musical cognitive powers.

Please note the first part of his answer.  Also note the fact that he says, “musical training can promote” and “may facilitate”.   A much more realistic answer, and therefore more honest, than the blanket “piano lessons are good for you.”

~:~.~:~.~:~.~:~.~:~.~:~.~:~

By playing the video game Rock Band for an hour, K-State students were able to help a pair of psychology professors with their research to understand how people can achieve flow while at work or while performing skilled tasks.

Clive Fullagar, a professor, and Patrick Knight, an associate professor, found that — like Goldilocks — most people achieve flow with work that is neither too easy nor too hard but just right.

“For those students who have a moderate level of skill at Rock Band, the song has to be moderately challenging and match his or her skill level for optimal enjoyment to occur,” Fullagar said. “That has broad implications for teaching. It means that if we want students to enjoy or get a lot of satisfaction out of classes, we need to assign them challenging tasks but make sure that they have the skills necessary to meet the challenges of those tasks.”  [Emphasis added]

The researchers wanted to see how people achieve flow — a state of mind that occurs when people become totally immersed in what they are doing and lose all sense of time. It’s an intrinsically motivating state, which means that people are engaged in the task for the pure enjoyment of performing the task and not for some extrinsic reward.

Posted in Research

This is “RESEARCH”??   News-worthy research??  Please show me one teacher for whom the above is news. 

The difficult part for every teacher is of course to find “challenging tasks” while making sure that the student has “the skills necessary to meet the challenges” - and that’s where even the most experienced teachers once in a while fail.  Perhaps not because they weren’t paying attention but because students have a habit of learning not in a straight line but in phases:  it is perfectly possible for a student to struggle with a concept for quite a while, and then suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, they get it.  Sudden change of skill level.

Or, your beginning piano student suddenly doesn’t even remember where Middle C is because “we got a new puppy!!” …  Sudden, if temporary, change of skill level.  

But, please, do we really need “research” to prove what every teacher already knows and aims to incorporate in his/her teaching??

Picture taken after my concert at McCain Auditorium in Manhattan, in March of 1996.  Radio Kansas later broadcast the concert.  Thanks to my good friend Linda who picked up the boys after school and kept them until the concert, I was able to focus all of my energy on getting ready, mentally and otherwise, for what was and to this day still is one of the most important and beautiful days of my life. 

No one will ever know what it meant to me to win the competition and consequently be invited to perform at McCain Auditiorium.  Preparing for the competition and then for the concert was my getting-back-on-my-feet accomplishment after a devastating divorce. 

Thank you to my good friend Virginia, who employed me the summer prior to the competition to catalog materials for her music and piano library.  It was during the commute to her house that I discovered and fell in love with the Piano Concerto with which I eventually chose to compete.  I will never forget the liberation I felt, listening to the concerto (it is still very special but also private to me, that’s why I don’t refer to it by its name), on a whim buying the score, initially just so I could read along, then, slowly, thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could learn to play it.  Then the discovery that, yes!, it was manageable.  And thank you to Dr. Edwards who worked with me, getting the concerto and me ready for the competition. 

Beautiful, beautiful memories.

If you mess up your painting, you’ve got a messed up painting. If you mess up on your instrument, you messed up a piece of music. If you don’t do a good job tuning that piano, then you’ve got a messed up piano which is annoying and can be expensive to fix.

When you mess up in your teaching, you are messing with a human being.

So, why is it that people who know how to play their instrument but have NO training in regard to teaching are let loose on pupils?

Recently, I had the opportunity to observe some poor and inexperienced teaching. One of the two teachers had a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching, in addition to a frenetic and somewhat chaotic personality (and teaching style). While this teacher was without a doubt very experienced, the lesson itself was not a very promising sign of things to come: it was crammed full with irrelevant information (way too much theory that would not be applicable/useful for several weeks), redundant information (without checking with the student what he already knew, this teacher “taught” concepts with which the student was thoroughly familiar already), and way too little actual instruction on the instrument. The student was not given sufficient time to try out the new concept and then make sure that it was sufficiently understood to be taken home and practiced for a week.

The other teacher had a much more pleasant personality and some day will probably be a good teacher. At the moment, however, this one has neither the experience nor the training to teach a beginning student. After grousing about how inexperienced this teacher was, I came to the realization that it was not inexperience but the obvious lack of pedagogical training which made the lesson unsuccessful.

We all start out “inexperienced”. None of us are born with experience. There’s a first time for everything. There’s a first time a physician performs an exam or a surgery. There’s the race car driver’s first race.

What sets these people apart is the fact that before their first “real” thing they did spend time, usually a very long time, observing their masters, and then learning to practice their craft, usually under the guidance of their masters.

For some reason, people think that as long as you can play an instrument, you can teach. I actually once overheard the wife of the head of a music department at a university tell one of the professors something to the effect of “I don’t understand what there is to learn about teaching: you gotta love kids and you gotta love what you do.” There. She said it. What more could there possibly be to it?

There are, of course, “natural” teachers, just like there are “natural” psychologists, people who have an instinctive, intuitive, “feel” for people. But think of the training a psychologist has to undergo before she is allowed to practice her craft!

My wish list for pedagogical training of any future teacher of musical instruments includes:

•mandatory lesson observations of different masters in their field, more than just once or twice please;

•study the art of teaching their particular instrument: while there is some flexibility, there is usually a certain order in which things need to be learned (master addition before you attempt multiplication) or else you end up with an unreliable foundation;

•study the teaching literature for their instrument: just because you grew up with a certain method doesn’t mean it’s the best;

•teach many, many lessons under the supervision of your teacher/master. In the beginning, this should take the form of observing your teacher’s lesson (of another student) and taking over for 5 minutes to teach a certain concept. Over time, you grow into teaching an entire lesson, more time and you’ll be creating your own lesson plans.

In short, some form of apprenticeship.  Think about a physician’s first surgery. Regardless of how simple the surgery, the physician has most likely observed this surgery many, many times, then, with more training (reading about it, studying all aspects of it, passing tests to prove she understands all aspects of it), assisted in this surgery before she ever gets to touch a patient without supervision.

Of course, you say, well, with surgery – you have to be that careful.

But why should a student’s learning process be different from surgery? As a teacher who gets transfer students, I see all the time the damage a teacher with insufficient training can do to a student who doesn’t know any better. (Of course if they knew better, they wouldn’t need a teacher …)

I dream of a world in which we hold (the training of) teachers of musical instruments to the same standards as physicians, psychologists, and other professionals in charge of human development and health.

Last Saturday, however, the KMTA State Honors Auditions took place in Lawrence, and while none of my students had participated in the Fall Auditions this year I still wanted to go and listen to as many students in as many different age groups as possible. I learn so much from listening and watching. This year, again, as usual, I saw a few, very few, outstanding performances, and other than that a whole lot of wonderful intentions that due to a lack of technique never were realized.

In order to be there for the little ones who play first thing in the morning (the drive takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes), Mark and I had planned to get up at 6:30 a.m. One of our cats decided, however, to be awake, very awake, and very vocal, at 6 a.m. already, so that’s when we woke up and shortly thereafter got up. Not that that got us to Lawrence any sooner though – my intestines had other plans and kept me in the bathroom longer and more frequently than planned.

Anyway. Once in Lawrence, we listened here and there, Mark took a break from the piano performances and listened to some strings before joining me for piano performances again, and later went to a nearby Panera to get lunch while I listened to yet another group of students. In the early afternoon, we felt we needed a bit of a break (also to get online and check email etc), so we went to Panera for something sweet and something to drink but soon returned to Murphy Hall to listen some more.

We had plans to go straight from Lawrence to Emporia, for dinner with Jonathan whose birthday had been the previous Saturday. Until shortly after 4 p.m., we stayed in Lawrence and then, after a short stop at a Starbucks for a coffee for me, made our way to Emporia. It was getting dark, I was tired, and thanks to Mark’s willingness to do all the driving I was able to doze off for a bit.

In Emporia, we met with Jonathan who showed us his new apartment, and then went out to eat. The Chinese was excellent. We had arranged with Jonathan to rent his cello from him, so after dinner he double-checked quickly to make sure everything was in the case, and then we left, Mark and I and the cello and left-over Chinese.

It was another hour and a half, in the dark, to get back to Manhattan.

The next day, Sunday, we felt old. We didn’t have much energy to do anything. We did manage to go to the Holiday Open House at Wildflower (Yarns and Knitwear) where we bought some yarn for a new scarf for Mark, and later in the afternoon I taught a make-up lesson for two students who had been unable to come to their regular lesson during the week.

In the evening, we were very aware that the weekend was over and that there was not another Sunday the next day, to really recuperate.

Like I said, we are getting old.

Or maybe we are just not used to doing stuff anymore.

The three legs of the trip – Manhattan to Lawrence, Lawrence to Emporia, Emporia to Manhattan – was a total of 260 miles. For the 18 months we lived in Olathe, we used to drive 250 miles every Saturday, from Olathe to Manhattan and then in the evening back again, so I could teach.

How on earth did we do that??