Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Thoughts on "teaching composers"

At the risk of going slightly off-topic, I think another problem is with students whose lives are so sheltered, they don't have any life experiences to draw upon. They've never experienced grief, nostalgia, anxiety (maybe except for their piano lessons), fright, or envy. I've seriously worked with some kids who don't know what envy means, because they have been provided with everything, and then some, that the idea of "need vs. want" completely eludes them.

Much depends on the age of the student. A 6 yr old is not likely to have experienced great loss, but perhaps loss on a smaller scale -- say losing a favorite toy or a friend moving away. Their idea of joy may be having a really great birthday party or spending a day at Disneyland.

I try very hard to connect with students where they are. I get to know them, I get to know their families. I try to remember that they are people first, piano students second.

In choosing supplementary music for students, I look to educational composers fairly often, but I'm highly selective. There is only a small percentage of music written by these current mainstream composers that serves the educational purpose and is still quality music.

I think each piano teacher might answer this question differently, keystring. I hope it's a large part of my teaching.

That is why I am asking. It would be interesting to see some (different) answers or ideas here.

Going back to this:

What I had written was in response to MinnieMay


There are two different concepts here. The main idea MM is talking about is expressing feeling in music. That is why the discussion moves in to how much life experience a child has to draw on, as opposed to an adult. However, in this quote MM talks about major and minor (keys). I'm not sure that stating that major and minor keys or chords are happy and sad actually deals with emotion in the music. I think that this part deals with being able to hear the difference between major and minor - this is a concept.

So we have emotion, and we have concept.

Emotion: Music expresses emotion through a number of things. You have your major and minor chords, and then diminished chords, dissonances etc. There is also tempo - we say "fast and furious" for a reason. There is rhythm: a lilting skipping rhythm, sombre even rhythm etc. A piece can be in a minor key and yet come across as gay and happy.

Concept: A student has to know what a minor key and a minor chord is. When MM talks about people saying that a minor key is "sad" and a major one is "happy", I think this has less to do with deciding what emotion to put into the piece when interpreting it - that it has to do with how to convey the concept of major and minor.

I see a lot of explanations of major and minor being done through discussion of intervals, and intervals too are described by distance between keys, half steps etc. But they are also sound, and they also evoke something like feelings. A dim7 has a "feeling" or "character" that we can hear, which is different from a major chord.

So supposing that you want to teach someone about minor keys, or scales, or chords, what might you do besides using happy/sad?

If the composer has years of training on piano, and no other teacher can be found... then yes I think they could provide benefit to the student.

Composition training is a required part of our education as musicians (at least it was for me. Hopefully it is for everyone). So it's not like we would be teaching something outside of our experience. For me and most pianists composition was not the area where I specialized. So, yes, if I had a compositionally gifted student, for sure I would want to find a composition specialist for them to study with. The problem with that is there are very, very few.

Additionaly, the style that some composition experts favor might not be compatible with what a student wants to learn. Many composers - espicially educated ones - have hung onto the 1960s. There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't resonate with most of my students.

I disagree, Keystring. I think it has everything to do with emotion. I never use those terms when learning the concept. I try to engage the student in the expression of the music.

Wow. That sounds like a dreadful career. I love the adventure of life too much. Artists are "safe" creatures? Art should be daring.



Are there really teachers that do this? This doesn't match my experience. In my branch our recitals have a huge variety of music. Often I'll hear a new piece I've never heard before at our Branch recitals.


Let's not miss the fact that Kabalevsky was a wonderful, gifted composer. True, anything can be overdone. But he has a sizeable body of work. Right now one of my students is working on his opus 91. When was the last time we've heard that one performed?

So... are you saying tonal music is a bad thing?

False. I normally use pieces outside the limited listings in the CM syllabus. There are some requirements if you want the students to use them for examinations, but they don't have to be listed in the syllabus.

I often invoke pestilence, cancer, and income taxes.

Correct. Students are only required to select one piece from the syllabus.

So you are actually aiming toward something different than those who use the analogy of "happy / sad" for being able to hear the quality difference between a major and minor scale or chord.

When you are dealing with the emotion of the piece, you would then be looking at everything that creates this emotion: harmony, mode, rhythm, tempo, contrast?

I visit 4-8 different branches per year for CM. I'm not exaggerating teachers' fixation on Kabalevsky.

Hearing the difference is an ear training exercise, imo. I incorporate singing and work at the difference of the half-step.



I employ a more visceral approach, I suppose. I don't necessarily equate the theoretical aspects with the emotional aspects, particularly with younger students. We might talk about moods or images that are evoked by what they hear. If they are old enough, I might tie it into how a composer manages to do that, but not necessarily. I want them to connect with the music beyond the black dots on the page.

Wow. Ok.

Yin and yang?