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Most of us give nothing less than our best effort in this department, even when we disagree with each other. Thank you, in turn, for not getting defensive by the responses. From our end, at least for me, it was an equally wonderful result.



I've never seen this question posed quite this way, but I think you may have answered it already. When you look at music, what is the purpose? Typically, when you look at music, you're trying to read it. So, in the case of learning, perhaps that old 50's and 60's method that teaches excellent reading is best.

What facilitates excellent playing is simply being able to read what's written on the page, and then to interpret it through your fingers. You must identify each note, translate it into a spatial position on the keyboard, and then determine how to strike the key in order to return the kind of sound you wish to produce. To do this, there are certain motions involved. Some are good; some are bad. Learning which, and then identifying which you are actually using, usually requires the intervention of another person who is capable of such a task. Once you know the basics, it becomes less important.

Let's use reading as a good example. No child was ever left behind (see what I did there? ) to pick up a book on their own and try to learn to read. They are taught. If their parents are worth their weight, then the child is taught to read before they get to school. If not, then the teachers have to pick up the parents' slack. But regardless, the child is led through the maze of letters, word combinations, and punctuation. Once the child learns those basics, they can more or less read on their own. We continue to teach interpretation of works through graduation, but the child is basically capable of reading the words.

The same goes for piano teachers -- you learn the basics of motion, music theory, etc, and then once you can read the music, the teachers usually will switch and focus more on interpretation unless you have a specific technical difficulty that needs addressing. Actually, I think you'll find that, in a good piano teacher, the methodology is very similar to the core teaching curriculum for English (combine with Reading if your district separates the two).

I actually quite like using total physical response and the Krashen theory of comprehensible input. Lessons on body parts and directions for ESOL are incredibly easy. As are prepositions.

But I do make lessons topical purely because it is useful for them students and therefore they pay attention in class because they find what I teach them useful in the real world.

What do you mean by the above italicized statement as it applies to music teaching?

That method was referred to as the "dead language approach" by my professors.

This sounds like the second-language learning I had as a student in the early 1970's.


You have a wrong picture. There is no uniform way in which music is taught. For one thing, it's not a classroom or group activity, which has to be organized by a central organization (school board etc.). There are individual teachers working with individual students, with freedom in how they will work.

Btw, in teaching language in a classroom environment, the best model I ran into was immersion. My internship was in a grade 1 classroom, where the children had begun immersion in junior and senior kindergarten.

I was once hired privately by an individual who wanted to learn to speak a new language fluently, without an accent, expressing his own ideas. Here you get into pronunciation which is linked to hearing without filtering, a feel for grammar as a child does. At this point we can draw on what is taught in music, but not in the stereotypical education that you have in mind.

You can get a very full and multi-sided picture of piano teaching here.
http://www.marthabeth.com/pedagogy_QA.html

I was merely highlighting two dominant perspectives in language instruction. Nothing special...just wanted them to stand out a bit...Yes there are differences in teaching between fields... and one cant not do justice in comparing language instruction to music learning Thank you

Certainly, and I was expanding on it for both. I think that work on spoken language and fluency, is probably the more closely related to the teaching of music when it is done well. There is a back and forth between the two. In fact language and music are related in a lot of ways. Since you are getting interested in the different ways that music is taught, you will probably find the link that I provided gives a lot of information in that direction.

Clearly you are among the many fans of the song. What strikes me about the whole discussion is that you are announcing boldly to prospective teachers that playing Bohemian Rhapsody is your piano goal. I'm not sure if this means that you want to play the piano part out of the song, or that you want to play an arrangement of the whole thing for piano. Freddie Mercury's piano playing is nice enough and maybe the piano part would stand alone. A piano arrangement of the whole song seems to me rather far fetched and probably particularly unsatisfying to a fan of the original.

Anyway, I wonder how you would respond to a prospective student of ESL who approached you (through an interpreter, of course) saying that she wanted to learn English for the exclusive purpose of reciting Howl by Allen Ginsberg?

Sorry. If I come across as grumpy tonight, it is possibly because I am grumpy tonight.

Thanks...
Listen to this and tell me you are not inspired!...Why play through gingle bells when with a bit of practice I can play this? Of course, At least going through Alfred book 1 should be a prerequisite.

P.S. i do not mean that I expect a teacher to get me to the level of fluency depicted in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rptV6K7nqu0

Thanks everyone for our lively discussion...I have certainly learned a lot.

1. Why would you play Jingle Bells at any time? You are still holding on to an image of lessons which are not necessarily how lessons are.
2. The person playing the piece has been playing piano for 22 years. She started as a little girl with formal lessons and got the skills she needed (probably not playing Jingle Bells or using method books). Observe her head - she is reading the music as she is playing - sometimes looks down for difficult fast passages - and then her eyes are right back on the music knowing exactly where to look.

The point is that you want to get on a path that will give you the skills you need, to play the type of music that you want to play. I don't know if it will be with "a bit of practice". A lot of us have been doing more than "a bit", and the reason that we're here is for similar reasons as your own.

I agree with keystring that the young woman in the video has done really, quite a lot of practice. I particularly like the clothesline with the pages of music clipped to it. It isn't my goal for piano, but whatever floats your boat...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVGoY9gom50

I actually mentioned that that video is only a source of inspiration for me and I never (may be a little strong!) envision myself play at that level...But thank you everyone. It has been a great talk and I have certainly learned a lot from your unique perspectives. Has anyone used Piano For All before?

I obtained it the other day and it seems to be pretty cool...it teaches chords and music theory and rhythm in the context of pop and rock songs. I think it is an interesting refresher to be used in conjunction with a usual course. What are your thoughts on it?

Regards,