Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum How many people hate piano?

In other threads I've seen lately, there seems to be a lot of popularity with the idea that you want to make piano "fun" for kids, or they will end up hating piano. I'll comment on that in a bit. But first, my question is, actually how many people *do* end up hating piano? I've had parents come to me and say they had a nun who rapped their knuckles with a ruler when they played a wrong note, and they want me to teach their child piano. They love piano even under those circumstances!

I do not, for the record, advocate this way of teaching. However, if being taught in that way didn't make haters of piano out of them, then why would having expectations, rules/consequences, and demanding practice -- all of which are positive things that will help children in the long run -- cause someone to grow up hating piano? This notion is out there, and I really don't know if I've ever encountered anyone who hated piano. Perhaps as a child they did, but after the years went by, they realize that they didn't hate piano (or don't anymore). I'm sure there are people who hate piano, of course. But I'm just thinking how can we assume that something will cause a child to hate piano? Everyone is different and you have to know your child/student well enough to know when to push and when to back off. It's hard to say that pushing a child that needs to be pushed will have negative results.

Now for the whole "making piano fun" part, isn't piano fun to begin with? And when is it fun? When you can play it. And how can you get to the point where you can play it? You practice. When I have students who are having trouble getting good practice habits and we work on scheduling practice times, encouraging them and requiring that they at least sit at the piano each day, you would be amazed at the results (or maybe not ;)). They come in the next week and they have fun! They are excited and they know they played well, you can see it in their beaming faces. It doesn't matter what piece they're working on, either. We all know that some pieces grow on you, and sometimes it's just the difficulty of a piece that the student dislikes (and the work it means), not the piece itself. And conquering such a piece is a real victory. *That's* fun!

I never hated it, but ultimately I did end up not feeling emotionally connected to it in any real way. (Unless I played Joel or Joplin.) I liked the music I did play well enough, but it was a technical exercise that I had to get right, and I suppose I took satisfaction in pleasing the adults around me and getting something right. I was (and still am, really) a rather overdriven overachiever. If I was told to do something, I had to to it better and faster than expected, and I was mostly able to do so.

But it was still a technical exercise, and piano mostly just a mechanical achievement where the actual music itself was just a by-product that told me if I'd done it "right."

I do understand that technical expertise is incredibly important and that a piano is a big, complex instrument that does take years to master. But it was never communicated to me that one could or should aspire to be anything but a paint-by-numbers artist at it.

So while I mildly regretted drifting away from it, I never really angsted over it that much. It was only when I started thinking about the music that I liked and that really affected me emotionally in technical terms that it occurred to me that I should have been thinking of the technical music in terms of emotional transport as well. Or that one could do both. Music that I participated in was never an experience of joy for me, only stress to "get it right." The only music I ever loved was the stuff I didn't create.

"Conquering" it meant nothing to me. I can't see vieweing music as an adversary that I have to beat up to win. :-/ Mastering a skill is nice, but why piano in that case? What makes it any different from boxing or poker at that point?

If you have the trust of student and parent it will be intrinsically, as you say, fun and exciting. There's always plenty of slippage though, especially where I teach.

I don't know you personally, so I could be way off, but I know in my own personal development, I always had an emotional attachment to the piano. However, I never was a serious practicer. That was a maturing on my part that had to happen, and didn't happen until my mid-20s. Perhaps for you it was a maturing process as well to discover your musical tastes. Many of the young students I have do not yet have their own musical tastes, and it is a part of my job to help them discover that, and try and find music to accommodate that. Sometimes there are pieces they have to learn that they don't necessarily like at first, but as they work on it they find out that it really is a nice piece. So I do have to balance with giving them some of what they like with giving them some of what they need.

I don't see musical study any different from many other hobbies that some may pursue. While I personally don't care for boxing, I do know that for some it is a great challenge and hobby, but that is beside the point.

The idea of conquering has to do with overcoming obstacles. Piano has many obstacles and part of the process of learning it also teaches us how to overcome obstacles, or conquering them. This takes perseverance, self-discipline, and problem-solving skills. These are not bad things, and piano itself is not something to be "conquered", and that is not what I said. It is the conquering of a particular problem or obstacle that I speak of. Music is not the adversary here, but it presents us with challenges.

"Fun" and "Exciting" are words for children. Adults have a broader, richer vocabulary.

As a 4th grade boy, singing in an all boys choir, fun and excitement wasn't the goal. The music reached out and grabbed you. You wanted to be there because of the music.

As I was reading the posts on this topic, the duet from Bizet's Pearl Fishers was playing on the radio (performed by two violinists and piano) and that reminded me of something.

What events in your life did music, on first hearing, pierce your soul and leave you emotionally drained?

For me, singing the opening chorus in the St Matthew Passion by JS Bach (the boys are "angels" about 2:45 into the clip) or the closing chorus of same.

Playing the Kol Nidrei by Max Bruch as a young violinist (not the soloist, obviously).

Way back in our youth, my sister and I were touring Paris, and decided to take in an opera. The only one playing was Pearl Fishers at the Comique. The poignancy of that duet, live, was something that rendered us speechless and emotionally drained for hours.

I don't know about fun and exciting, but a musical moments such as these was motivation sufficient for years of grueling study.

John

How true! As a child, I remember being moved by listening to the Moonlight sonata (all 3 movements), Shostakovich Symphony No. 5, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (my sister and I would make up our own 'ballet' choreography) on our new CD player: someday I would write something like that.

I remember Debussy's Pour le Piano inspiring me when I went to France my senior year in high school with the jazz band and choir, and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition dangling that carrot in front of me: someday I would play stuff like that.

There were hours I would spend in my room listening to music (vocal) of the Renaissance and Early Baroque, especially choral works that just intrigued me with their ethereal quality and unique harmonies that were arrived at not by thinking harmonically, but melodically for each line, and just loving those sounds. Listening to Mozart Requiem, Brahms Deutsche Requiem, Carmina Burana, Berlioz Requiem (OK, I have a thing for requiems!), and other large works, and thinking :someday I'd sing those solos.

For me, it was all in the listening (both live performances and recordings) that would inspire me and catch hold of my heart. I can remember when I would listen to each of these, reminding me of a certain part of my life or a certain memory. Music has always been a part of me, and I have the honor and pleasure of sharing that with others through my teaching and performing. What could be more fun than that, I wonder?

It should present us with a great deal more. And that "great deal more" should be the whole point, not "challenge" for the mere sake of doing something hard. We should not be trying to do something hard, we should be trying to do something beautiful, and if that means hard work, fine -- but the hard work is a means to an end, not the end in itself. Otherwise there is no difference between practicing piano and moving a rockpile.

[quote=Morodiene]

then why would having expectations, rules/consequences, and demanding practice -- all of which are positive things that will help children in the long run -- cause someone to grow up hating piano?

practice quote]
And the flip side: How many people who were allowed to quit complain that their parents didn't make them stick to it!

where's gyro?

can't stand Mozart....

A lot of other classical music just doesn't do it for me, either.

http://www.youtube.com/user/thumphrey05
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=scott+lavender+iron+maiden&search_type=&aq=f

There's my inspiration for piano. (Aside from that, I love Dvorak, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, some Beethoven...)

Why I stick with the piano over other instruments is it can make all the voices at once.

Interesting topic! And I think about this frequently. I have a friend (a recent house guest of ours) who was "forced" to take lessons for many years. She confessed to me how much she hated it, etc. etc. I felt very smug (because I make piano "fun" and feel like one should never be "forced" to take lessons...)and confidant in my approach. A little later in the day I heard her working through Valse d'Amelie by Yann Tierson. She loves the music and was working through it quite well. For the first time I wondered if these "forced" lessons were worth it. I don't think she would have gotten to the joy of figuring this piece out without the discipline pushed upon her. It rattled me and ultimately is making me look at my approach. I have been very soft on my students for years. (But I am also quite hard on myself as a teacher and musician so "soft" might not be as soft as I think...)

I also have another friend who was forced for many years to take lessons and also became quite advanced. She confessed to me that she never plays and never enjoyed playing the piano. And yet they own a piano and she still has her old sheet music.

It's all so strange!

Are your best students good at what they do? If so, then your approach is probably just fine.

If your friend is good despite what she was subjected to, that's not an argument in favor of subjecting others to it. I know people who grew into kind and loving adults despite being abused or worse as children as well; that's not an argument in favor of abuse.

If forcing kids to do something and making them hate it turns off 90% of them -- and some bare few grow up to love it despite that -- that's not an argument in favor of forcing. It means that some people are so turned on to something that they will love it despite having every excuse not to.

Forcing for the sake of forcing is worthless, and we shouldn't be using the fact that some people manage to bloom in a desert as an excuse to plant every student in a desert. Not unless your desired goal is to wind up with as few adult pianists as possible.

Pushing is sometimes necessary, but never for its own sake. I wish terribly that it had been made clearer to me that there WAS a higher purpose to learning how to push those buttons and levers, or else I might not have wasted the past fifteen pianoless years being in complete love with music and feeling no desire to make any of it myself, because making it meant nothing but feeling massively stressed out to get it "right," and performing it meant nothing more than sitting in front of several hundred people who were all waiting for me to make a mistake.

I'm springboarding here off of your comment a bit, I know. But I'm just feeling this rather acutely at the moment. Yes, students must be pushed to work sometimes instead of expecting things to come easily. Pianos are tough things to drive and take years to get good at -- but it shouldn't be simply moving a rockpile. A teacher has the responsibility to get many things across to their students, one of which is that it takes work to get good at anything worth doing, and one of which is that the ultimate aim is to make something beautiful and enjoy having created it. That may take hard work, but it's not just forcing for the sake of forcing. Neither teacher nor student should ever lose sight of the ultimate goal -- the music.

I mean yes, it takes years to truly master a piano technically. But Billy Joel and Gregg Rolie (both classically trained) were off and running, writing things and performing as teenagers. Clearly, it doesn't take quite the absolute level of angelic perfection to kick ass as a pianist that we might think. Rolie has flat-out said that his brother was a much better technical pianist than he was. Kids can be and should be encouraged to remember to enjoy the music itself.

Again, sorry for springboarding off your comment ...

Othello posted a fabulous link in the "learning intervals" thread in the non-classical board:

http://www.laco.org/blog/344/

It's a fantastic read -- and it's scary to think of how a brilliant, brilliant classical pianist and improv specialist came to "hate" piano herself thanks to a teacher who probably also likes to think of herself as a demanding taskmaster.

She got back to it ... but suppose she had had several kids in her first unhappy marriage and not been able to get back to it? She may also have been the sort of person who is extremely ambivalent about piano and can't bear to throw out her old sheet music, too -- instead of the magnificently gifted hall-filler she is.

And if she'd left for good, that teacher would simply have pointed to her next best student as proof that her approach was the best, too.

I remember my old teacher with fondness, but I still wish that she had made it clearer to me that the music was the point, and not just overcoming obstacles. Screw "overcoming obstacles" as the end goal. Life itself has taught me how to do that better than piano ever could.

Rhetorical-we need to teach students to bust their backsides, but for a reason.

I hated the very sound of a piano for years after my childhood piano lessons. I believe my teacher was trying to teach strict sight reading and counting, but what my child-mind learned was that playing piano was an exercise in precision typing whilst counting aloud, and any deviation from this into expression of enjoyment of the music somehow ruined it and made you a bad person too.

I have always loved piano. Lessons for me were a necessary evil to pursue my love. It is hard to teach something that comes naturally, that I've never had to learn. So "teaching" someone to love piano who doesn't naturally is a challenge. But what I was able to take away from my own experience was that it was the teacher-student relationship that made lessons a chore for me. Therefore, I try to be "likeable" - treat my students as real people and not duties or paychecks or 30-minute slots.

It that means I'm trying to be "fun", so be it.

The biggest problem with generalities is that when you start delving into the details, you discover the truth isn't exactly as it's posited.

Yes, all the named composers were great improvisers, but they all had rigorous lessons as children. Mozart was studying piano and violin - 6 hrs a day as a four year old.

So you might ask the question, were they great improvisers because they were well trained pianists with highly creative imaginations?

We build on a foundation of knowledge. If you know the chords, scales, arpeggios, etc., it's easier to improvise than if you don't.

I would suggest an alternative hypothesis for consideration: improvising lost out when rigorous training from childhood was no longer possible.

In re that teacher - it frightens me how many students end up with mediocrities. But it happens in our classrooms, it happens in music studios, it happens in life.

When did I say that is *all* music has to offer? You are making assumptions that aren't there, nor are they fair. Did you read my next post about what inspired me in music? I seek to find these moments for my students all the time. Encouraging them to find their own voice in expression is paramount. However, there are the challenges to overcome. No one studies music because it's hard and a challenge. They do it for the love of music. In fact, if they don't love it, then they won't get very far with it. You have to want it badly enough.

So to summarize, the love of music is what drives, but perseverance is what succeeds and obtains that ultimate goal of being able to play something you love.

Bingo!

I fall into J. Cortese's group with tangleweeds. Piano lessons were an exercise in moving rocks. Took 'em for 8 years and learned to play, but it was because I feared telling my mother I hated it more than practicing. Plus I knew that they were making a sacrifice to pay for lessons (guilt). Am I glad now? Yes, because 26 years later, I'm learning how to make MUSIC as opposed to play notes in a particular rhythm. But my shame at hating piano ran so deep was that I was married 10 years before I played for my husband, who didn't know I could play. And for the first few months, I only practiced when he wasn't home.

Now, I learned to type when I was 11, but I loved it because I could write stories. By the time I was 13, I had written my first "book." My parents were AVID readers and always found money to buy me books and time to take me to the library. My father loved WORDS. He used to lug home reams of outdated forms to supply me with paper to write my books. No surprise that I went on to publish five romance novels. HOWEVER, my parents never took me to see a concert, never played classical music on the radio, never bought me records, except a single album of Aldo Ciccolini playing Debussy that I wore out the grooves listening to it. Funny, I hate piano, but I loved Debussy and the only reason I started piano again was to play Debussy, not to play music. Now, I'm hearing music all over this forum. I'm addicted to YouTube. Maybe if there had been YouTube, I would have loved music back then.

Susan

Hmm, this is interesting. Neither of my parents played instruments, though both wished they did -- thus a piano arrived, and I was signed up for lessons at a music studio. Music teachers were the only people I ever saw up close, making music in person. Music was done by famous people like Elton John who lived inside the TV or stayed far away away from people like me, up there on stage. I didn't have an idea of what it might be like to play music, since I never really got to see someone doing it in person.

I liked music and willing to learn piano, but what I was taught either disembodied theory (which I liked, being a math geek) or these complicated counting and pushing buttons tricks that were somehow supposed to make music come out. I concluded that I wasn't very good at the counting & pushing buttons thing, since it never really sounded like music when I did it. And then I was fired from lessons ("for lack of aptitude or application").

I think now, looking back, that I must have been confusing student for my teacher. I grasped the theory very quickly, but needed pretty a remedial introduction to what making music is all about (an encouraging environment to dance around and bang things rhythmically???). The strict precision-counting approach really missed the boat with me -- I needed something more basic, and, well, fun. I had no idea that making music should be fun! Literally every time I tried having fun with my music in lessons, I was sharply scolded for not counting and reading properly. So I concluded that somehow the magic of making real music come out must somehow depend on being as dead and automaton-like as possible when doing it. Really, I thought that!!!

What saved me musically, I think, is that in college I got very into dancing, and became good enough that experimental art music-y bands would put me on the guest list at clubs because I would get out on the floor and wing it until other people finally dared to venture the polyrhytmms. When I connect with the music I play on the piano, I feel like I'm doing something akin to dancing with my hands.