I want to recommend the Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle to all of you teachers, parents, and pianists. It is a fascinating, captivating book about how skill is learned, with a great chapter or two on what it takes to be an excellent teacher/coach. Let me know if you've read it, I'd love to know other's reactions!

Carol, I just read some of the writeups on Amazon.com and have ordered a copy. Thanks for the recommendation.

John, please let us know if it is significantly different from "Talent is Overrated".

Ann, we've always known that hard work, motivation, guidance, and talent combine to produce excellence. It appears that current studies are showing us why. And knowing why helps us deal constructively with parents.

What I'm beginning to see is that for the "average" piano student, there is about a four year window, grades 2 - 5, where parents, teachers and students can work together to lay the foundation. After that, the parent increasingly falls out of the equation and student's internal motivation must be overwhelmingly strong to produce excellence.

I went ahead and read the review from Amazon. It's described as a good read, and captivating...but no breakthrough information. Still, I'll consider buying this one.

John, your description of the 4 year window is helpful. I'm in agreement that after that the student must have "overwhelmingly strong" motivation to achieve excellence. It goes along with my thinking that I'll not accept students age 12 and up who have little motivation...it would take exceptional motivation--only then will I consider it.

This came up for me because the teen who I was not successful with stopped lessons last month. At last I have no unmotivated teens in my studio. Then I had a call from a grandparent who wants her 12 year old unmotivated granddaughter to take lessons. The girl's interest is in voice not piano and she was described as not focusing well. Anyway the situation motivated me to get clearer about what my guidelines are for accepting students. I want to learn from my mistakes--not repeat them!

CarolR,
Thanks for telling us about this book. I'm not ready to buy it, so I'll check with my local library for a copy.

There is information in the book that is we all know, as teachers - so some of that was simply validating. What I found helpful was information about what exactly is happening that makes certain kinds of practice more valuable than others. The author studied various coaches and teachers around the world, trying to glean what coaching styles produce talented kids. You'll recognize some of the ways you already teach - and hopefully get some new ideas as well. I did.

Oops. I re-read the reviews. Ignore what I said about the reviews. They did not say there was no breakthrough information. Taking information we all know and looking at the HOW of it is new.

I checked online. Library doesn't have it. Will plan to order it.

I just ordered it too. Thanks for the recommendation!

CarolR,

I got word from Amazon that my copy has shipped. It would be nice to have a discussion in a couple of weeks...time for us to receive and read our copies.

Your suggestion also got me to order a book by Larry Fine "Acoustic and Digital Piano Buyer". It's been in my "cart", and I went ahead and ordered it too (to qualify for free shipping).

Then thinking along the lines of books, I went to ebay and bid on a couple of books. One is a biography of P.J. Wodehouse (i.e. Jeeves stories). So I thought I'd let you know some of the ripple effect that your thread has had on me.

Ann - I'm so glad! It's a good time of year to read.

My copy just arrived - now to dig in!

I began reading last night, after teaching. Now I know why teaching scales is important, and why practicing scales is even more important!

Congrats on getting your book so quickly! I'm still waiting for mine. Due to snow and residential areas not being plowed, we have had no postal service for a few days.

I look forward to finding out what you read about scales.

"...there is about a four year window, grades 2 - 5... After that, the...student's internal motivation must be overwhelmingly strong... Now I know why teaching scales is important, and why practicing scales is even more important!"

I would much rather read than practice scales--- but that is what I was just doing (with quite a bit more ahead of me). Since I've missed out on that four-year window by some fifty-odd years...

Jeff, from what I've read so far, get back to practicing!

If you're in your 60s, you've still got the brain matter - it'll just take you a bit longer.

Could someone give me the age range of grades 2 - 5 in USA as they may be different in my country. I want to know when to expect the worst from my growing students

thank you

7 to 11, generally.

Ditto for me. Mine arrived today!

Amazing what you find as you read. There is a brief mention of the Meadowmount School, it's musical program (developed by Galamian, which is the method my son's teacher used) and it's president, Owen Carman. Now, how many Owen Carman's do you think there are in the USA? Two? Well, Owen played 'cello and performed in my sister's wedding. They were classmates at Interlochen, as I recall. Owen's older sister, Skye, played violin and we played together in orchestra. I believe we were stand mates for a while. This was just before I dropped violin to concentrate on piano.

By the way, why Meadowmount is germane is that the author is exploring different schools, worldwide, where deep practice techniques are used.

I just got a good start on the book last night....so far so good! I find myself wanting to skip ahead to the "coaching" part , but I'm resisting!

I'm now at the first page of the coaching part. Decided to take a break from reading to allow what I've learned so far to digest. This book is really helpful. I can understand "deep practice" better and have a clearer picture of better ways to motivate kids.

In using flashcards for note recognition with a student (8 year old at primer level), after 3 times through the cards her time had not improved. On repetitions I'd say let's see if you can get your time under 2 minutes (thinking that she would easily do this). After the 2 unsuccessful repetitions I asked her whether she wanted to try one more time. She said "Let me see those cards." Then she carefully looked over each one, pondering each one, taking about 5 minutes. Then she was ready for one more try and reduced her time by 45 seconds (a little over 30% reduction).

The next day I read about "deep practice" and I knew then, that it wasn't 4 times through the cards that improved her time. It was that she became determined to get her time under 2 minutes and she focused for 5 minutes on learning the cards. Anyway, this is important for me to understand...and more of a reason to have timed drills...because it is motivating her (at last) to focus.

Carol, thanks again for recommending this book!

Perhaps what was happening wasn't that she wasn't motivated to focus, but that, until she grabbed the cards, she hadn't had *time* to focus, and the insistence on the timing was what made her finally just take control of the situation and do what *she* needed to do to focus, rather than being expected to focus at flash card speed.

I'm one of the people who could learn flash cards fast, and picked up lots of things very quickly. But as I grew older and branched out to learning things besides academics I found that there were other things that I needed to learn in different ways, and that I had to find ways to learn them that suited me. I do the sound system for dances, and that didn't turn out to be something that comes easily for me. So for almost a year all I did was schlep equipment and rearrange furniture. Once I was comfortable with knowing what a mic was, and how a mic stand worked, and how to tell which cable was connected to which mic, and how to put the mixer back into the foam supports in the box, I took the manual for the sound system home and read it and related it to what the physical aspects of what I'd been doing for a year were - and also learned conceptually what was happening. The next week I went early and set up the system completely by myself - and it was quite a triumph when there was actually sound So, learning in a "flash card", or fast learning, environment would not have worked at all for me for that task, and not being motivated wasn't part of it. I was highly motivated. I just needed a different way to learn it.

I learned to ski the same way - I went out and did it, and after I'd done it awhile I read some books, started racing, learned intellectually about edges and what they do for you and related that to what I was doing, went to camps and weekend sessions. But I was focused the whole time. I just learn some things in a different sequence and a different way than those folks who take ski lessons first.

That's the experience I have, any way, and from it, it just seems to me that a lack of motivation to focus might not have been what was happening - what was happening might have been that she was expected to focus in a way and a time frame that didn't work for her.

Cathy

Thanks Cathy, for your thoughts. The additional information that I didn't explain is that I had gone slowly over the cards, giving cues and reminders before we started the drill. But still yours is a good point. Timed drills are not the way to teach something but just a tool (for getting kids motivated to focus, and making repetition into a game). This is one child that I should have used flashcards with sooner. I'm getting better at seeing where a problem is and focusing on work where it's needed.

Also if you could have seen the difference. She cooperates but it was like all the sudden she decided that she was determined to get her time under 2 minutes. And she took charge and STUDIED the notes. There was a dramatic difference. Really for her the motivation was the challenge of getting a better time in the drill.

This is my slowest student...a sweet child who seems to forget everything between lessons. There is no practice at home and parents get reminders about helping the kids at home, but don't get to it. Now a 6 year old sibling is catching up quickly. For the next few lessons I'll probably focus on note recognition...and hopefully see more progress.

So it could be numerous things. A need to learn slowly, practice needed at home, the right stimulation to encourage focusing. And perhaps I'll play some pieces for her from Level 1 so she could hear pieces that she could be playing (if she'd do the work and get to level 1).

Thanks for the extra info, Ann. Sometimes timed drills *are* motivating - I did ski race for about 10 years - motivation indeed!

Cathy

The chapter on coaching describes a teacher with this routine: teacher and student bow to each other at the end of the lesson, the student says "Thank you for teaching" and the teacher responds "Thank you for learning".

I'm considering starting this with the young beginners. Do any of you do this?

I took the leap. This evening I saw two siblings (ages 4 and 5). I mentioned to the parents how I'd like to end the lessons with bowing and what the boys say (Thank you for teaching) and what I say (Thank you for learning). The parents were delighted. We took our bows and said our lines. It was a wonderful way to end the lesson...an improvement over the parents telling the boys to "Tell your teacher thank you". Now I can remind them "Time for our bows" and remind them of their line if they forget. I just love getting this ritual started, and so pleased to see the parents enthusiasm for it.

Cathy,
I am a ski racer too - only cross country, not downhill. I can relate so many of the aspects of learning the piano and piano technique to learning a sport. Lots and lots of repetition, for one thing, and a hyper focusing on learning the skill. The best lessons I had, early on, learning to skate-ski were from the coach who would follow behind me saying 'Now, tuck, now pick up your cadence, lean forward, follow through' type of thing. I think the approach that worked well was for someone to watch me ski (silently), then make some general and specific comments, then do a more active coaching as I skied. This is pretty much how I teach piano. It now makes sense to me that the reason I can still ski, at the beginning of a season, without much training, is all that muscle memory that I built up 25 years ago. And that's why I can remember a piece I learned when I was 15. Its all about Myelin!
I have been talking to my students about Myelin, and how we learn things, and several of the 7th graders have just watched Lorenzo's oil in school - it's lead to some interesting conversations!