Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum How do you feel about High School Musical, Hannah Montana...

Several of my young students want to learn songs from High School Musical, Hannah Montana, etc. Personally, I completely LOATHE stuff like that and feel incredibly uncomfortable working with it.

First of all, let me explain why I hate it so much. In my opinion, movies and shows like that do nothing but promote the incredibly sad movement of "entertainers" and "stardom" pushing over the true musicians. I hate American Idol for this reason. I hate High School Musical for this reason. And I hate Hannah Montana for this reason. These kids practically worship these TV idols and look up to them. That saddens me because there is nothing honorable about these people as they do nothing but, in my opinion, exploit the music industry. Kids are growing up now being taught that those people prancing around on stage are MUSICIANS. Or that they are someone to look up to because they wear a lot of make up, use dramatic and exaggerated voice "maneuvers" that are 90% computer generated, and simply because they are famous and on TV. This is something that I am passionately against and is one reason why I wanted to teach so that I could show my students that a real musician is someone who works hard and is dedicated to their craft, not to their level of celebrity.

However, lately I've been wondering if I should loosen up a bit. Sometimes, if the student is diligent about doing their homework and practicing their lesson book songs, I will allow them to learn HSM stuff or whatever as a reward. Then I start to think, "Hey, they're reading music, they're learning, it's a song they actually like, what's the big deal?"

I'm terribly torn on this issue and am wondering how other teachers feel about it.

The rhythms and harmonizations in many of these are quite advanced, and beyond most elementary and intermediate level students. But I don't want to come across as an old fart, so I simply tell them to go to the music store, look at what's available and use their knowledge to learn it on their own. We'll continue to work on the basics so that they can play what they want as they grow up.

Students can go to the music store and purchase any music they want to learn on their own. I don't take up lesson time for pop pieces, with a few exceptions. However, I encourage students to learn pieces on their own in addition to their lesson assignments. Occasionally I'll assign more popular music "for fun", but it's from movie scores (such as Harry Potter).

I choose music based upon whether I think it furthers the goals for the student. Reading music - any music - can take the student toward their goals, or side-track them. For example, I have a level 1 PA student who brought a print-out of Fur Elise to lessons one day and asked to learn it. I said no, not yet. I could teach him to play it by rote - the "trained monkey" approach - but it would take a great deal of time and effort, and in the end, we will have lost quite a bit of lesson time, and he would be no further along in obtaining skills that allow him to transfer knowledge from one piece to another, such as note and rhythm identification.

The same student bought a Harry Potter piano book and brought it to lessons. It is close to his level - just a bit above. I agreed that we would spend the last portion of each lesson on it, but that if I ever sensed that all his practice time was being spent on it and not his regular lesson material, then we would have to set it aside. In this case, it is acting as a carrot for him.

Does that mean I like Harry Potter more than Beethoven - of course not!

And I don't think that letting a student play a particular piece of music automatically means you endorse pop culture any more than playing Harry Potter means I endorse witchcraft.

I love teaching pop music to students, but it requires almost an additional lesson alongside their regular lesson. In my opinion, students should be well-balanced and play classical music as well as pop or jazz. With pop music I teach students to follow the chords symbols and lead line, and also improvise. These skills are just as important as learning classical music.

While I personally don't care for HSM or Hannah Montana, if students want to play them, fine. Right now, the hot music with my junior high/high schoolers is Bella's Lullaby from 'Twilight'.

Haha yes dumdumdiddle, I've been working with at least three or four of my students on Bella's Lullaby! And you're right, I agree that learning how to read chord symbols and such is just as important, which is why I am usually more ok with them learning pop songs lately.

A big problem is, as mentioned in posts above, the discrepancy between the difficulty of the pop music in question (both in a performance and a reading sense) and the skill set of the student. And part of this problem is because transcriptions are often done in a slip-shod fashion - even worse when the student downloads some random arrangement from the internet.

Another part of the problem is that it takes a while to get a print music product to market. And then, to make it economical, it needs to have a reasonably long shelf life. These two factors make pop music difficult to integrate into lessons.

Final observation: pop music is usually not a great way to 'teach' chord symbols - the students want to hear their performance matching the aural image they have in their memories, and playing block or even broken chords instead of the exact notes in the original ends up sounding lame and try-hard, the complete opposite intention of the student when asking to learn the piece of music in the first place.

I'm not finding musical value in them, but obviously, teens like them. The rhythms don't fit in the measure making it dotted sixteenths tied over the bar to a quarter note, etc. I just experienced this with a young adult male with the pieces that he'd like to do next. I played through both and found the rhythms crazy making - after listening to the music (he came prepared for me to hear the recordings) it made more sense with the back up band - it did not translate to a full sounding keyboard and the piano parts were written as accompaniments to vocal - so these were not piano solos. It's going to be a lot of work to count - but I think kids taking on these kinds of pieces are relying on how it sounds on the recording.

"Corpse Bride" really did nothing for me, but was a young teen agers dream music so I bought it for her. I was sorry I did to be honest.

The latest music is awfully expensive, have you noticed?

If it fits the student's skill set, then I'll teach anything. I've played a fair bit of broadway and pop/jazz in my time, and the same things that make classical music good (articulation, dynamics, tone, line, focus) are the same things that top pop performers pay a lot of attention to.

That's true regarding what pop performers pay attention to, but most of the sheet music is inappropriately difficult OR simply badly arranged, and either way is not useful in making progress as a pianist. Making progress in enjoying kind-of playing the music you like probably scores a 100%, on the other hand. Once kids are teenagers you end up making a judgment call about whether they actually want to gain skill or simply have supervised musical fun.

My students love the music, and I remind them that summer lessons is when we do the "fun stuff." It gives them something to look forward to and keeps them playing through the summer!

I think it's corporate trash, designed solely for it's profit to Disney. It may as well be a WalMart or MacDonald's ad jingle.

I teach a lot of pop music. That is, I'm not prejudiced against non-classical music. It's just that this particular pop music has no value to me as a teacher. I actually have the "easy piano" HSM book in my library. Yes, I'm embarrassed to admit that; it was given to me by a student who decided she didn't want to play it, after all.

The piano arrangement is poor, which I often find with Hal Leonard. There is nothing in the arrangement to give useful knowledge or growth in pop playing-styles, or any style for that matter. I actually met a guy who transcribes and arranges pop music for books like that, and he was incredibly boorish and egotistical. It got me thinking that all these books are probably arranged by failed musicians who wish they didn't have a day job (Can you imagine the heck? 8 hours a day transcribing Hannah Montana?).

The melody isn't strong enough to be played on piano.

The harmony isn't strong enough, either.

I would take the book out of my library and put it in the recycling bin, but I'm afraid someone would see it

In my studio, I'm more interested in building a LOVE for music, not just an understanding. You can shove classical down a childs throat all you want and they'll just loathe it, and you, and their parents for making them do this, and they'll want to quit. If I have to slow the learning rate a little because they want to do fun songs, then so be it. Because then they learn to love music. Not to mention, like any subject, you'll try harder to learn something YOU want to learn. Another observation, like someone pointed out, is that all the Hannah Montana and HSM, even at the "easy piano" level, really isn't that easy! There is some merit to learning those songs, they are all a little advanced for the age group that generally wants to play them.

IF you can get a great arrangement this kind of music is sensational in terms of both motivation for 80% of students as well as being the basis for learning how to play these styles. But the bad arrangements end up discouraging students in the long run..... They are all pumped up for the first two (maybe three) weeks, but then when they've only managed to learn half of the song, and what they can play doesn't sound anywhere near as cool as the music sounds in their iPods then all that enthusiasm dissipates, and the cycle starts again with a new piece of recently popular and poorly arranged music.

It all comes down to having great arrangements that are appropriately graded and matched to the skill set of the student. Otherwise the 'love of music' theory gets trashed in practice (literally).

i remember as a kid (studying on my own,age 12 or so). I had books of classical compilations, and I would learn those pieces dutifully. What I really loved was learning pieces from Jesus Christ Superstar, Sound of Music, Mary Poppins and Hair. I saved all my money to buy these books.

I still save all my money for those books, apple! I do love musicals.

However, my first teacher loved pop music -- or else he thought all kids did. I played an endless array of "Brimhall Piano Series" -- Cracklin' Rosie, Never on Sunday, Baby Elephant Walk (how i hated that one), Yesterday, Windy, Born Free, Wichita Lineman, Spanish Eyes.... I wonder if he owned stock in the company.

And I rarely touched a classical piece. He taught out of Schaum, but I showed up with my John Thompson (my mother had taught me for several years), and at least got a tiny taste of other kinds of music.

I have a young student who thinks she only likes jazz. Her face fell when I handed her a PA classical book two weeks ago, and said we were going to be working in that as well. She came yesterday to lessons, effusing love for The Merry Widow Waltz. Whoda thunk?

I guess I don't really have a point in this post, other than to say, one-sided is probably never a good idea, regardless of the side.

Oh I was hoping someone would mention this book! I just love the arrangements in this! It combines classical with rock! Have a look at this book! Just beautiful!

I especially like:

1. Supermassive Black Hole
2. Tremble for My Beloved (classical edge on this one)

Get the music book with the CD. Hal Leonard Piano Play-along.
Worth it because the CD is most enjoyable!

Also just tumbled on to Christopher Norton's
"Rock Preludes"!
Oh, these are really good!

1. Forcing the Pace (this one is my favourite!)
2. Wildcat
3. Jingo
4. Blue Sneakers

EDIT: Should add that Christopher Norton has a "Jazz Preludes" too! I love both books!
And I use Christopher Norton Connections with the younger students Grades 1-8!

If you like this song you should definitely check out Muse's first album: Absolution (warning - iTunes link). The piano on that album is amazing. I especially like "Butterflies and Hurricanes."

Along the lines of Dianne's post....

Here in Australia there's a composer who does great jazz-style compositions, Kerin Bailey. His stuff is really popular, especially a piece called Melinda's Mini March which is an instant hit.

There's another Australian composer, Sonny Chua, whose work is also very funky, although not everything would be 'jazzy' it is all very appealing.

Matyas Seiber, who died too young back in 1960, wrote stunning little tangos and foxtrots and so forth - each piece is a gem.

And then there's Mike Cornick, Brian Chapple, Manfred Schmitz, Gerard Hengeveld, Terence Greaves, Gerhard Schwertberger and Luis Zett. All of these composers write in a popular idiom and kids who are not so keen on the classical sound really enjoy pieces by these composers.