I remember last weeks lesson, and the week before that. I so, so, carefully went over exactly how to approach this particular tricky measure. Hands alone, hands together, slowly. Where does each finger go. I had them practice shifting their hands from point a to point b, several times. I wrote in assignment notebook how to practice, how many times to practice, what to focus on. And......then this week's lesson. Nothing. Zip, nada. The tricky part is the same disaster it was. This is NOT beyond them. I have this happen with so many students, so frequently, that it must be universal. Sometimes I sit in disbelief, listening to the same tangle of notes that we untangled last week. No we are NOT talking about music that is too difficult.
This is what makes me want to double my rates. This is not fun. Obviously, the practice is not happening. I hear myself saying, once again, "There is a slur over those notes, so those need to be connected, but those need to be separate". This is not a foreign concept. I'm guessing practice happened oh maybe 2 times this week. And those two times, they sat down and played through the music badly, stumbling and stopping only briefly to correct notes. Sometimes I think My whole life as a teacher is to keep kids from falling into this trap. I talk about how to practice more than just about anything else. I AM FRUSTRATED THIS WEEK!!!!

Have you tried using a checklist on their practice assignment? Some kids really respond that.

Other kids I'll just say, "You know, it sounds like you really haven't practiced this using all the steps we went over last week, so now you get to do them all at your lesson. I'll just sit back and listen to you practice." Then do just that. No teaching, just listening.

Can you be more specific about how you use a checklist?

Sometimes work is not fun. Can there be anybody who can honestly claim that his or her work is never frustrating or disagreeable? Sometimes you do everything right and still things go wrong. That's life.

I think it's very wrong to get frustrated - it's not in the job description.

Carol:

What kind of music are you talking about? If it's method book stuff, I don't know what to tell you. If it's sonatina and above level, that's quite normal. Some of my students take weeks to fix one passage. I swear, I have students who have childhood onset dotage.

There is a particular student of mine playing a Bertiny Etude in F#m. There is a moment where the chord changes in V (C#6/5) and the left hand plays E#, while the right plays G#,B,C#. Well, she keeps playing for some reason Eb7 chord (Eb on the left hand and G, Bb, C# on the right)... She keeps doing the same error over and over again for the last month. The rest of the etude is bloody perfect however. Very even, very rhythmical, even the dynamics are more than fine!

I don't know if I did the right thing, but after a couple of weeks of playing the piece 'perfectly', except for that one bar, I decided to leave the etude and move on to the next one. My thinking was that the etude accomplished everything that was set to do and that this is a random error that hopefully won't stick to her too long. It also shows that she'd studied quite a lot to be stuck with a rather weird chord progression...

I had a student yesterday, working on a piece for the Christmas recital, who sounded like she had not practiced a bit. (She may not have - Halloween seems to have detoured a number of my students this week.) I spent the majority of the lesson practicing with her. We did it over and over and over. I would have preferred she did this woodshedding at home, but since she didn't, we did it here. By the end of the lesson, she was playing much better. I then wrote in her assignment book to watch the rhythm and dynamics. Exactly the same thing I wrote the week before.

I don't go home with them, can't make them practice. If it doesn't happen at home, we do it at lesson. Slows progress, and isn't fun, but there it is.

Yeah, when a child is not particularly interested in what they are being asked to do, learning can seem rather slow. I guess this is especially true in the sort of kid who is not motivated to please other people.

It helps to have some learning tricks to impart, and it helps to be a wonderful teacher whose love of what they are doing is infectious. Aren't we all like that, all the time?

Bottom line: keep experimenting and keep trying to impart a love of playing. But in the end, not all students will pick it up and not all students can be persuaded to want to learn this stuff.

Although you may never choose simply to give up on a student, at some point there is no mileage in continuing to flagellate yourself. Lay out the issues to the parents. Explain what you are trying to accomplish, and fully describe the methods you are using to try to get there. Explain what you see happening during the lessons and what you believe is NOT happening at home. Ask them what their goals are and whether they think they can assist at home (if you are the sort of teacher who wants that home involvement). Ask them frankly what they think the child wants out of music and whether they consider that in their thinking. Then plan accordingly.

I have this happen all the time. It has gotten better with a couple of things. One of them is that I have them write down their practice times. I have a box on their assignment sheet with the names of each day beside them (something I borrowed from another PW teacher :D), and since then I have been reasonably assured that they have practiced. There is one boy who never ever writes down his times, but I know he practices every day, so that's not an issue.

I have another girl who never writes down her times, and I know she doens't practice. That *is* an issue. Last night I simply went through the songs knowing that she did not practice, and one that we have been working on for weeks (she is in PA book 1 and very capable of progressing faster than this), I assigned yet again. The other one we let go. The one in her performance book was not even touched, this going on a few weeks now of not practicing it at all, so I decided to get her singing it first. She loves to sing, so we got off the bench and put the book on a music stand and started patsching our legs (tapping with big circles in between) to keep the beat, then we sang the song. She is very good a reading words and picked that up quickly with me leading her in the tune. Then we sat down at the piano and played.

It really was not hard for her then, so I told her to go home and play this song right away when she gets home. I doubt she will. She is very sweet and I honestly think she is trying to please, but the concept of hard work just hasn't sunk in yet. She's been with me two years now and is in 4th grade I believe.

Sometimes the only thing you can do is keep showing them the way, but doing it in different approaches. Even with students that do practice I sometimes find they can't get beyond the same issue. That means I need a different approach. So first, get your student practicing. Then take it from there.

Carol, teaching how to practice as well as what to practice is about the best you and I can do. Practicing at home falls under the umbrella of parent and student responsibility, not teacher. Assuming you've discussed this with mom and dad, there is little else to be done, except the weekly pep talks with students.

To make you feel a bit better, here's an interesting read:

Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. Subtitled, What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else.

Out of what the OP posted, what came out to me was: "This is what makes me want to double my rates."

Doubling your rates does not make you a better or a more patient teacher.

We give the same lesson over and over many times on any one concept the student is learning until he gets it and can use it.

My take on your complaints is that the previous concept and the previous concept before that one, ad infinitum, are not firmly in the students retrieval system. You may have covered the concept and it is not there in his knowledge bank or skill set yet.

Practice can not be done if there is no thinking, planning, observation, tasks, goals understood by the student.

He is just a warm body on a bench at this point if everything you said about him/her/them is true.

It's your job as the teacher to teach in a way the student learns. Each student is different. You must reach them. Saying the same old same old you said before is not going to do the trick.

I don't think it's them as much as it is you. Despite teaching them practice steps is very, very important - it's the place that teaching happens - so don't drop that as worthless - it's 100% essential. Change the way you say things - have many options with how and what you will say to come at the concept from different learning styles and perspectives.

Think on my comments and go back with several students to the simplist thing they are avoiding doing - one thing only - and put it in their lesson plans to work on but supplying other materials to support the concept in addition to the place in the music that you are dealing with today. Find the first and most simple thing missing - don't try to fix everything all at once.

A basis plan is for the student to achieve:
Correct notes
Accurate counting
Good fingering
Dynamic Touch
Phrasing

Each area needs to have a decision and an impulse from the student as to how to respond. To play even one note well is a huge task when you consider that each one note played has a backup requirement of the first 4 items on my list - multitasking - adds to the difficulty factor of what the student wades through in playing just one note well.

Let's back up here and get appropriate to each and every one of your students reality levels.

When a student is having problems it simply indicates to me that "WE" are having problems and I work doubletime to find out how I can and should be making a difference to supply what are the missing links in their education.

I fear this would tick a teacher off to read this post. But, I wouldn't have 38 years of successful teaching in my track record if I had not held my teaching accountable for being appropriate to teaching each and every different person who has ever set on a piano bench in my presence. The music could be the same, but the student is going to have different requirements to get through that music and it's all based on how he is wired when he came to you and how you can get all this information about music making through to him and help him at the same time to rewire to having a musical brain that returns information to him when he needs it on demand.

If teachers are not familiar with the word "pedagogy" they need to pursue it as though it was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Teachers are not well enough prepared if it is only a method book they are teaching from. You must have the knowledge of how/what/when to teach and you will find that in "pedagogy".
Google the word. Follow thru. Fill your being with what you learn by studying pedagogy. There are many resources to gain these skills. We could bat that around in a topic and it would be very worthwhile!

Betty Patnude

You can say that again. What follows would probably raise the hackles of just about anyone hearing these suggestions.




Betty, do you have any idea how the OP might interpret this? You have focused on one sentence of frustration to make a rather strong series of personal criticisms. You pat yourself on the back (in a somewhat off-putting manner to CarolR, I suspect) for your wisdom, your devotion and your deep sense of accountability, while suggesting that with her lack of similar experience, CarolR is quite deficient in those same areas. Ouch.

Teachers not familiar with the word pedagogy? Double ouch.

Google the word follow thru. Triple ouch.

After this I think somebody might have their hands on their hips with a wee bit of steam issuing from their ears.

+1

Cathy

Good! Reactions to things really help us identify what are problems to us or assaults to us and make us think of how we will respond to the stimulus.

We all, as teachers face things Carol is mentioning and it' very easy to blame the student's motivation and their practice habits and whatever we deem as their problem.

But, we fail to remember or notice that they don't come to us having the skills of a musician or pianist already - they may have some attributes toward becoming, but they are not. In fact, they are pretty much a blank slate most of the time when they first sit on the bench.

We are responsible for feeding them what they need to know and we do this constantly. However, when it's not working, it still remains our responsibility to give the information in the way that the student can make use of it based on his wiring - not ours.

Whenever there is a problem, we should enter the problem as a helper to the student, not bashing him for not knowing, or being unconfident, and not bashing because he is unprepared either.

We can affect good habits in students by giving examples of how to's and honing the thinking and behaving during lessons - "lessoning the knowledge". When we get into the dither and frustration of they are not doing what I am telling them to do - it is more possibly that the student is not understanding and the understanding goes back to a far previous time not just to today's lesson.

Students who are getting it (demonstrating to us) get excited, show interest, motivate themselves from within, they get busy in their musical life. They beam forth, project, pursue. Because they have a "track" to follow - information, knowledge, experience in doing things right - confidence.

My terse comments are to get teachers off the dime of it being their students at fault - teachers need to see themselves clearly as their students see them. When we are the teacher we should be and want to be we get results - when there is representative problems of "them" not doing things - the onus is back on the teacher to examine themselves.

It bothers me that teachers would fall into this habit and think that they have done all that they can to date. It's always time for growth and development on your own as a teacher and as a pianist when we hit walls in our studios with our students.

You don't want to have 38 years of dreary, same experiences, and be frustrated day in and day out. You want that great studio and you want to be in charge of what goes on in your studio and that's the permission we have to build it from the students and parents who are trusting us to do that.

"Great Students Deserve Great Teachers!" and vice versa "Great Teachers Deserve Great Students!" How do we get that way? What makes that great student? Or, great teacher? How do they find each other? My answer is that they grow to the place of "great" together by responding to each other every step of the way.

We can focus on positive - or we can focus on negative.

That is what my post is all about - about meeting the challenges and being our own best teacher - it is not about me as an example. We face trials and tribulations in piano teaching just as we do in any other work efforts we might choose - we would have evaluations as workers in whatever job we would hold. Piano teaching is a career that we have to evaluate our own selves to determine that we are effectively and purposefully and successfully doing the job. It's a desirable self-accountability.

I've stated my purpose and philosophy about piano teaching.

The students are like empty musical vessels when they start. It we do our work to organize their musical knowledge they do not have to be empty or confused when they leave us. It is well known, isn't it, that teachers who teach transfer students have a lot of complaints about the "new" students previous piano study and what wasn't covered? The frustrated teacher who can not turn that around is going to be the subject of the next teacher's remarks. And, the new teacher is more than going to have their work cut out for them. There are no guarantees as to what will happen with the students who are brave enough to try again with a new teacher.

Pompous, no. Opinionated, yes!

Carol's frustration, all of ours, is that students leave the studio knowing what to do, how to do it, and fully intend to do it. When they cross the threshold of their home, there seems to be an instant brain drain and all good intentions fly by the way.

What techniques have you developed over the years to mitigate this?

And what are they when they leave? Little vessels who can play the classical repertoire well? Wow. Now that's what I call teaching. Betty, you write as if every teacher here studies and teaches the way you do.

Whoa! Hold your horses, everybody!! Let's not descend into a flame war over teaching styles and "pedagogy."

There are different teaching styles and different teaching approaches (i.e., pedagogy), so that all students can be taught, one way or another. I believe all teachers should be flexible enough to teach in several modes and explain the same concepts in different ways, while appealing to the different "intelligences" in the student's mind. It is the teacher's job to reach the student, absolutely.

What the thread has touched on, however, might be those students who--no matter how hard the teacher tries--just won't get it. I've seen these students firsthand. I'm the type of teacher who gets a lot more "intermediate" transfers than beginners. When I see that I get to work with these train wrecks, I at first would blame the previous teacher(s) for his/her/their poor teaching. But I'm beginning to realize that not all students can be reached. For several reasons:

1) They hate piano, period. Their parents force them to take lessons.

2) They are not coordinated enough to play piano. Their brains and fingers are not wired in a way that allows for multi-tasking (note, fingering, rhythm, phrasing, etc.). This is sad, but true!

3) They don't like the style of music being taught. Most of the time, it's the "classical only" approach that turns off students.

4) They don't live in a supportive environment that is conducive to practicing piano. Seriously, I have one parent who tells his son to "STOP PRACTICING!" Obviously, when the family support is not there, not much can be accomplished at lessons.

I think it's good to talk about our problems and discuss them to find solutions. It's just not productive to start pointing fingers.

My teacher would embarrass me with a huge red pencil mark at that point - it worked!!

"they (students) don't live in an environment that is conducive to practicing piano"

This quote by AZN really hits home with me. Some parents do say "stop practicing" to their kids, whether it be just a bad time of day, or someone is on the phone or trying to listen to TV, or the parent is just tired of listening to a trouble spot being ironed out during practice.
CarolR:does your student you discuss have a supportive environment for practicing?

One thing that came to my mind as I read these posts:
some students of mine refer to their lessons as "piano practice" (like football practice, etc.) Parents say this, too.

I don't mind that. Why not call the time at home at the piano "lessons"?

I spoke to a student who averages about 4 days of piano practice each week. She is a high school student who took lessons with my as a child up to 6th grade and reached late elementary. She stopped (didn't practice much as a child, I might add) and now is back. She regrets not sticking with it, but I do not see a change in behavior to back that up.

So I gave her some things to do by ear (Happy Birthday and to figure out the harmony) and discussed the fact that in dance, she only practices when she's at dance class. If she does a sport, she only practices on the field. However, she goes to those things 5-6 times a week. I only see her once, and so I have to rely upon her to do the work on her own.

I told her some tips on efficient practice: that when she remembers to practice and doesn't feel like it, just to sit down and work on that one tough measure in that one piece. If she accomplishes just that in her session, then it is successful because she will be better at that difficult area, and maybe even have it solved for good. If after doing that she feels better about playing, then she should continue.

This is a student who is very sweet and fun to be with. She's got a good ear and does surprisingly well when she wants to. I would not call her lazy, I just don't think she knows what self-discipline is. So that's what I'm trying to teach her.

We'll see how it goes, but I agree with Betty that we must always try something. With that one sight-impaired boy I was teaching I had almost given up on him, but we finally had a successful lesson. I think I reached him, and that made it all worthwhile. Keep trying until you run out. And then try a little more.

I always tell the parents, when first starting out, that piano is unlike math or theory. It's not only understanding, comprehending and grasping knowledge, but also about DAILY practice and I make absolutely sure that I stress the importance of DAILY practice! Thus far there's been no misunderstanding, and since I have the quality of time in my hands (I'm primarily a composer, and not a teacher, so I don't have a studio, just a few students) and I dedicate a lot of time in each student, by preparing stuff in Finale, working a bit longer with a student, etc... This ensures to the parents that I'm doing my absolutely best and that if there IS indeed something wrong, then it's not my fault!

I was taught in teacher training college to use a pencil when marking. It gives the student a greater sense of ownership of their work (they can erase it once they've overcome the problem).

Oh yes, only pencil here as well! Something that can be errased afterwards! Red markings create the opposite problem for me (and my students): They mark the territory which they tremble the most, thus ending in some kind of phychological knot right there at that point! You know the idea of "THIS is the place where you ALWAYS go wrong!", "Don't mess it up AGAIN" and so on...

This is a problem I can identify with. There are some note combinations that I just can't play reliably, and I've never known why. It's certainly not lack of practice, and I doubt it is with your student either -- if you can play a piece competently all except one measure, you've probably done your homework. But I've spend hours and hours and hours practising a change from one chord shape to another and still not been able to get it right more than half the time. I assume it's some sort of defect

I would stop teaching that song to your student and learn something else. Their mind needs a break from it. Classical training where you play 2-4 songs only at a time quickly leads to boredom and repetitiveness. If they are making mistakes in that song, figure out the technical part and pinpoint what is going on.

If you want a passage of notes slurred, work on that exclusively. Show them rubato and proper fingering. But play SOMETHING ELSE. Take some simple melodies and work on the sound.

Same with if you want fast runs with staccato. Isolate the technique first.

I would play scales in triplets, to emphasize slurring. Or break them up, so a C major would be:

C D E, D E F, E F G, F G A .... Accent the first note. You can use both legato or staccato.

I agree with piano*dad that such sentiments are likely to be irritating and insulting to a teacher who is trying very hard to reach a student and feeling frustrated when the student does not fulfill his/her end of the bargain by practicing.

In fact, when I read the O.P.'s post, my initial reaction was, "Isn't this situation highly similar to Betty's thread the day before about a student who was resistant to piano and practicing and not making much progress?" I guess I don't understand why Betty feels it's CarolR's fault when her student doesn't practice, but doesn't take the same responsibility when her own student doesn't make progress.

My own view, for what it's worth, is that I disagree very strongly with Betty's statement in a later post that students are "empty vessels" to be filled with knowledge by some teacher, as such a statement overstates greatly the passivity of the student and overestimates greatly the role and responsibility of the teacher. As my colleague in cognitive development likes to say, children are "learning machines," and there is a tremendous amount of pedagogical, educational psychology, and cognitive developmental research to show that children and adults are active participants in, and bring a host of motivational, intellectual, and developmental resources to, any teaching situation.

Many times these factors are aligned with the teacher's goals, and a successful teaching relationship occurs. But sometimes students simply are not motivated or willing to engage in the necessary work, and learning does not occur--despite the excellence and best efforts of the teacher.

I have students in my classes who are there (even at the age of 20) only because their parents insist that they attend college. They don't want to study, and so they don't. Often they don't even attend class. As a result they don't learn the material. That is their choice, but it is not my fault--just as it is not CarolR's fault if her student won't practice, nor is it Betty's fault that her 6-year old student is not ready for piano.

Betty,
I posted that comment on a particularly frustrating day. I think we all feel a little unhappy at times with the progress of some of our students. I am not sure why you made so many assumptions about me as a teacher, that were really quite insulting. So many of the comments I got back from others were so understanding and helpful. I have to say it was quite off-putting to be told to look up the word pedagogy, and to say the fault must be completely with me, not the student. Or, that I am not realizing that each student is an individual and has different learning styles (I have been an educator for 30 years, this is not a new concept), and am mindlessly plodding through the same method book. These accusations are really too ludicrous to bother defending. I care deeply about teaching piano, and about my relationship with each student. I keep on top of pedagogical trends, and use a vast array of materials to try to reach each child. I know that you have a lot of experience and a lot of very valuable things to share, but If you want to truly be helpful on this forum, I suggest you try a different approach.

Carol

Amen!

I picked up a lot of good points from Betty. It's true, many inexperienced teachers put the blame on others to defend their shortcomings. No finger pointed at a specific person. Take it constructively rather than destructive.