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Hi Folks,

I am a 23-year piano teacher with a question for the other teachers out there. When one of your better students wants to quit (or, rather than discussing concerns with you, decides to "notify" you), how do you handle this?

She is an 8th grader (I know, statistically common time for this to happen). She is one of my better students. She performs at every recital, goes to music festivals and gets top ratings every time. She also goes to an expensive private school, which puts a lot of pressure on their students for academics and sports. In fact, the reason her mother relayed to me for wanting to quit is so that she can do more sports at school. I am so very frustrated that this has now happened a few times with my bright middle-schoolers, and every family feels that they are the "busy" exception, and that surely no one else is pulling this with the teacher. I am in the process of getting a website up for my studio, which, hopefully, will be a way for "help, my child wants to quit" to be a topic to read about before they make a decision without my help or input.

Anyway, I am mostly venting, because I have been losing sleep over this one. But it happened with another student a year ago as well, so I'm here asking advice/suggestions other teachers have for keeping students going in this delicate time in their lesson process.

Thank you!
Scarlett88

I don't have any good advice, but I think one of the things that can make piano a difficult "sell" for teenagers is that it's such a solitary pursuit. Teenagers want and need to be socialized especially with people their own age. Traditional piano lessons are the opposite of that, while group sports give you a heavy dose of it. That was my problem when I was taking lessons as a teen. I bridged the gap by hanging out with the musicians in the school band. But gave up on piano lessons after awhile, because sports offered more of what I needed at that time.

Now as an adult I socialize through social dancing, and piano is the little secret I have for myself. Though I do admit, when I get to join some local bands as a guest keyboardist, it's such a breath of fresh air.

Hi scarlett, what kind of music is she playing? If she's participating in music festivals, is it safe to assume that she is playing mostly classical repertoire? As my older students approach pre-teen and teen years, I've found that I am able to keep them interested by working with them on music that they listen to and love, while occasionally slipping in some classical pieces (and of course, always working on theory and scales, etc.)

Dear Groove On,

Thanks for your response!

Yes, I totally get that (I did band and piano at the same time).

It's good to have socialization opportunities for teens, and you're right--that's more challenging with piano.

I have annual pizza parties for my students, but it's mostly the younger ones that participate, and I think the older ones may need "teen-only" music activities.

Maybe more piano duets/trios would help--you're giving me ideas.

It is difficult to compete with the sports environment where peers and other adults are telling them how great they are without any effort required away from the group. Everyone wants to be told how great they are.

Well, thank you for your help! I will try to think about other socialization ideas for my students!

Scarlett

Dear Chasing,

Thanks for your response!

Yes, she did ask for some more pop tunes (musicals, television music) which we worked on along with her classical pieces in the fall, and she performed a Mary Poppins song. I tend to do a lot of the popular music with students in the summer, but her family goes out of town for the whole summer every year. Maybe I can tempt her with more.

Sometimes I think the parents make bargaining arrangements with their children without my knowledge, involving a "reward" of doing less piano. Then I find out about it when it's almost too late. Sigh.

I will try your suggestion with her and my other students.

Thank you!
Scarlett

One argument for a student to continue with piano lessons is that music (piano) will be with you for the rest of your life. You can take it with you wherever you go, play for pleasure or as a serious avocation, make music for others, etc. Sports--how many more years of soccer or basketball or cheerleading do you have in you? Do you think you'll be doing this when you're fifty? Sixty? (Parents might click with that argument better than teens--teens are never going to be that old. )

You've answered your own question!

Don't get too emotionally attached. Students come and go all the time. Avoid investing too much attention or energy, for the sake of your own emotional well-being and sanity. Think of your other students who need your equal attention and energy.

By the end of this school year, several students in my studio will have ended their long tenures in my studio. I've been emotionally preparing myself for their gradual departure, and, so far, I've kept my sanity. Three of these kids are high school seniors. It's amazing how they've held onto piano for so long, and I cherish every single lesson with them before their eventual departure.

My youngest sister was a talented student, but she gave up the piano after three years (by which time she'd got her ABRSM Grade 5 - Practical & Theory-, whereas it took me over five years to reach the same grade). She was a teenager, other activities took over, and there was no musical stimulation at home to keep her interested in it (as I was studying abroad).

But at least, she did much better than my brother and other sister, who both gave up within a year......

Still, her musical skills didn't go to waste - she landed a job with a well-known music publishing company, and is still working there now. Her ability to read music played a big part in it, even though she never again played the piano.

The main factor in students quitting is that they do not get far enough in music to get truly impressed with what they can do by the end of elementary school.

Usually if my students do well by 5th grade and I develop a good relationship with the students and parents, there is a very good chance they will stay with me through grade 12.

But the have to get at the whole process of learning music so that they can do it FAST.

The big problem in my area is that homework starts getting insane in middle school, and the testing is not-stop. All of a sudden these kids are have two hours of homework each night, and that does not leave much time for life.

If I had had the kind of testing and homework that my students have, I could never have become a musician without dropping out of school.

Totally agree with all this.

Also: Before middle school kids try a lot of different activities. Middle school is the time when the activities all start demanding more time. Everyone has to make choices at that point and focus more on the things they truly want to do. I think it really is wonderful for every kid to sort through the available activities and choose what they have the most passion for. It doesn't have to be piano for everyone. There are other things in the world. The ones who will stick with piano are the ones who identify as musicians, derive joy from making music and find a way to express themselves in music, and don't feel that they can get that from sports or whatever.

Piano students who stick with it as kids tend, I find, to be loners. And Gary is correct that they need to get over the hump of sounding decent to themselves fairly early on, preferably in grade school.

Quitting piano as a kid is also an issue of parenting. A parent can simply say "no" to the quitting idea.

Yes. But should they? Do *you* want the student who comes to lessons simply because his mom won't let him quit?

That's a judgment call on the parent's part. Some kids are born quitters. They will quit anything if given a choice. They will gladly quit school, except that the law forces them to go. Can you imagine teaching a class full of kids who are forced to go to school against their will?

We should remember too that while it's disappointing for a teacher to lose a good student, the student will always have that background in piano. She may well return to piano develop it years later. Even if she doesn't, that musical knowledge is bound to enrich her life. I had only a year or two of lessons as a kid (not by my own choice)--but it sure made a difference coming back to it later.

So in having to say goodbye to a student, you could try considering it a seed well planted. What you've already given her is not going away.

I can, and I have done exactly that. It's not my idea of fun, nor that of the students involved, I would imagine.

Of course as parents, as teachers, and as a *society*, we have an obligation to make them go through it anyway. Eighteen-year-olds who can't read, write, express themselves intelligibly, judge all kinds of information through some semblance of common sense, do basic math, and who have no other marketable skills, are going to get left behind.

Eighteen-year-olds who took piano lessons as children for a few years, and then quit because "if given the chance, they'll quit anything" ... well. They may regret it later, and come back to it (or just bitch about it) as adults. But their life's trajectory won't have been seriously altered, unless there was no other way for them to learn perseverance. And if they did indeed not learn perseverance, is that because they quit piano lessons? I think not.

I wish my parents had at least discussed my desire to quit piano. I'd taken lessons for 2 years, and was playing advanced repertoire in a very short time. I practiced 3 to 4 hours a day. We had to switch teachers and I absolutely hated lessons with the new teacher, so I quit. As I look back, if I'd started with the second teacher, I would most likely be a performer. I'm not sure why my folks didn't recognize my ability and try to find another teacher. Still, I am now teaching and although I love it and am very dedicated to the profession, i feel my performance skills suffered as a result of quitting so young.

I had a student whose parents insisted he continue piano lessons because they didn't want him to be playing video games all day long, and because he was a "quitter." He would tear up in lessons. I finally told them it was time to give him a break. I didn't want to be the teacher whose lessons he looked back on with regret.

Totally agree!

I suppose a more nuanced answer is, "It depends." But if I have basically a good rapport with a kid, and he or she has a good rapport with his or her parents, and the kid is simply in a piano slump, then sometimes just carrying on with lessons is the best answer. Slumps are just part of learning, but quitting is harder to undo.

Those kids who quit often do come back to music, but not for a few decades.

Just let her go and don't think about it anymore. What can you do about it?