Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum What do you think about hitting young students?

I said I was of course not advocating it...But, I'm not sure a genius like a Beethoven would lay down. So while of course I'm sure abusive parents only harm their kids, I think a real genius like Beethoven overcomes even the harshest of odds.

That's what I thought too.

You have no experience of frustrated geniuses because they aren't productive! How WOULD you have heard of them?

Genius can be very hard to distinguish from craft and application.

Not a subject where fixed opinions are very useful, I think.

It's my own opinion. As I said, I don't believe in "hidden geniuses". IMO a true genius rises above all. The burden of proof lies on you, not me

PS Most geniuses can be frustrated. This has nothing to do with it.

I don't think Beethoven created his great works because of the abuse, but in spite of. I think he would have composed regardless, it was in him to compose. However, he may have been a much happier human being without the abuse. Who knows? Maybe he would have married and had children of his own to pass on his genes?

OK, so your definition of "Genius" is "Fufilled Genius".

"Proof"? Hardly a useful concept here I think.

It does seem that successful writers/artists have had a huge childhood trauma such as the death of a parent. But we're not in charge of what childhood traumas we have to endure.

You're correct, but we would not have the stormy, angry, agitated, passionate music that he created! We don't know what we would have, but most probably not that.

"All geniuses are broken". An interesting theory.

I'd say that enduring trauma at a young age causes a child/young adult to have a deeper experience of certain feelings...deeper than someone lacking the experience.

Something to think about:
It can also cause someone to shut down, unable to feel or express emotion, and stifle any creative urge. There are also people who were taught abusively, being hit and yelled at, who may have a fair bit of piano skills but can't get themselves to go near a piano. To even play with these ideas - no words.

You really can't say that with any measure of assurance. Why is it that people feel you must have an awful life to be a creative "genius"? What about those great artists who had relatively normal lives? One does not have to be a tortured individual to be artistic?

I did too. That's why I asked why the OP was observing this students lesson. It sounded like a made-up situation. He's said the lesson was not in a school. Yet there he is observing this behavior. Yeah right.

So the OP happens to walk by the piano teacher's house, peer into the studio and see all this.

The teacher was my vocal teacher(first lesson) and I was there early so I was able to witness the event. I didn't mentioned it because it was something I did not wish to mention. And what reason have I have to make up the situation anyway?

It takes time for adults to realize they are safe in the studio. What happens to these students while they are finding out just how safe, is that they are guarded and afraid. When they're afraid they quit breathing normally, they leave their bodies and go into their heads; and to control their feelings, they start thinking frantically. They try too hard.

When I get like this, I start making stupid mistakes that only make things worse. Instructions become incomprehensible. I don't know my left hand from my right. I don't like myself and I want to run away. It's no different with other students.

What I realized, and what we then talked about, was that my feeling was the same as hers when she was playing for her teacher as a child. She'd be intently involved in her music making when the teacher would yell and scare her. In the present case, I was the teacher so I could get annoyed and tell her to quit. But when it happened to her, she was the child and the student. If she'd reacted to her teacher as I reacted to her, she would have been called rude and impudent and this particular teacher would have hit her. I've seen this woman make a mistake and cover her head to ward off the impending blow.

How can people be totally involved in their learning if they are waiting for someone to yell at them or hit them? A part of them must always be watching and waiting for the interruption or attack. I don't yell at my students, young or old.

The final irony of this sad tale is that the woman was her teacher's best student. She was working on Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata at the age of 12. Her teacher had never had such a gifted student. Why did she feel the need to treat her student this way? People do not understand that there are problems being a teacher's best student.

Thanks for the additional information. Now it makes sense. Sorry to have posted my doubts about this. (Although I do think non-teachers at times out of boredom, make up things and post controversial ideas to get people riled up.)

If you have observed the teacher teaching in the fashion, don't you expect similar methods to be employed on yourself? I see no good reason to treat a student in this way, and I advise you look for another teacher ASAP.