Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Do you allow students to choose what to learn?

Never. We just arrange the song at the right level. Even the Twinkle-level beginners can learn the melody line to their favorite section of a pop song by ear.

The core curriculum (Suzuki for younger students and Fundamental Keys plus ear-learning pieces for adults) is the "meat and potatoes," let's say, and the other stuff is side dishes, dessert and maybe an occasional holiday feast
Mostly they all learn the same pieces, but when they choose (or are given) extra pieces those usually end up substituting for something in the book.
Some need me to give them easier pieces in between Suzuki pieces, and some need to move ahead faster.
When I have advanced students (beyond Suzuki book 4) we choose pieces together based on what they want to do and what I think they need to learn. At that point they usually know a lot about classical music and there is so much repertoire available to them that difficulty isn't as much of a concern.


Depends on when in the process. If they don't like it after listening to it for a week, we don't start learning it, we pick something else instead. If they don't like it after working on it for 3 weeks and hitting a challenge, they are not allowed to change pieces until they have mastered the piece. I never force anyone to keep up a review piece they hate or are tired of. They get to pick their own review pieces usually. Sometimes I have a teaching agenda about a certain review piece, but there are usually multiple review pieces that will serve the same agenda.

That's a take on things I wouldn't have thought of - and looking back, my teachers probably wouldn't have thought of whilst I was still developing my technical (as opposed to purely musical) skills.

I'd say that almost every piece that my teachers gave me to learn when I was doing ABRSM exams pushed my technical development onward in some way, whether it's finger work or voicing of chords/polyphonic lines or control of dense textures, or octave technique.

Unlike what I was learning for myself - which was any piece that took my fancy, whether it was below my level or (rather more likely ) far above my level - the pieces my teachers taught me were always manageable (and sight-readable) but always contained something that pushed me technically, that required some work to master over a period of time.

That is exactly what I was talking about, John. For instance, if a student is at level "J", he (or she) can learn a lot of pieces at level "F" or "G" quite quickly, which is great for learning to read better, and get things in the hands very fast. Then, if a student is willing to try polish things on this level, that also works better.

We can be talking about John Schaum lettered books, literally, but we can also weigh a Chopin Ballade against one of the easier Preludes. Which is greater music? The answer: it's a subjective opinion.

But which can be mastered technically by more people? Obviously something like one of the slow Preludes is the answer.

So is one hard thing more impressive than 10 much easier things, when the set of 10 is played extremely well?

My answer would be the set of 10, because it will take a greater level of musicality to "sell" them.

It is also true that any number of "easier" pieces, in many different styles, are suddenly accessible to someone who has reached a very high level on one style.

Do you agree?

Let me rephrase, I let them choose from selections which I think will improve their playing ability and that are in a style I believe they would like. I do allow Pop music but only if they are also learning something that challenges them. I have one girl playing and singing "brave" by sara bareilles but I also have her doing a duet which challenges her bass clef reading skills (which are definitely weak due to a lack of focus from a previous teacher). I won't let anyone play only Pop music, but I like them to have something fun as well as a challenge.

Yes; and you state the case quite elegantly, which is a skill I admire, BTW.

One very important aspect is that the student can focus on playing musically as well, rather than just mechanically correctly, which is regretfully how most students (and players) perform. We can look at a lot more interesting repertoire, we can become familiar with more styles, more composers.

Mastering pieces at the same level means the student is learning pieces which are not notationally the same. They each have some small compositional variation or twist, which actually constitutes learning a new skill. Mastering each of these "little" differences adds up to much greater overall technique.

Before I joined Guild I used the 3A Club as a motivational technique to help students improve the breadth and depth of their playing. That required students to learn and then memorize 10 pieces which they could play anytime, anywhere, for anyone. I had modest success, with somewhere between half and 2/3rds of my students achieved this goal reasonably well. Guild requires essentially the same thing, but is external to the studio and offers specific goals and rewards.

As AZNpiano has pointed out countless times, he, and all of us, are inundated by transfer students who can play a single piece with stunning brvado, but cannot sight read a far simpler work. I've noticed that my students are exceptional readers, and it's a skill I really do not work on, other than basic intervallic training, so I attribute it to their work on a large number of pieces every year.

Yes, I find that a student who can play a large number of less challenging works well comes off far more impressive than a student who has one flashy piece.

Yes and no...

For one of my transfer wrecks who absolutely cannot read, I tried the "assign 15 pieces a year" method, and she still can't read. There's no retention of musical information unless a piece is kept for more than 4 months. I gave her countless note spellers and even made her do online note-reading exercises. She can read individual notes very quickly, but when you set things in motion in the form of sight reading, everything breaks down. She can't read 4ths and 5ths (or anything larger) fast enough.

Her first teacher let her get away with copying her playing, and even called her "talented" and "musical." So it's impossible to retrain her method of learning music.

On the other hand, my most recent Suzuki transfer wreck sight read his way through his lessons and, with some additional online note-reading exercises, he's completely caught up in note reading.

So, it's still a mystery to me why I can fix some kids' reading problems and others are, well, hopeless.

I'm puzzled as to why you believe that 10 memorized pieces is useful for any student who isn't intending to go on to a conservatoire and make performing his ultimate goal. And how that squares up to your assertion that you want students to learn a large number of pieces, and develop good sight-reading ability.

I've mentioned elsewhere that it takes me four to six times as long to learn a piece and memorize it, as to learn the same piece without memorizing and play it to the same standard. If I had to memorize ten pieces, say of the length of the first movement of Mozart's K545 (when I was at ABRSM Grade 5 standard, which is the approximate grade of that piece), it would take me around ten months. In that time period, I could have learnt forty pieces of the same length, without memorizing any of them. And make much more progress technically & musically.

That was the way all music students were taught when I was at school - we learnt a lot of (classical) repertoire without memorizing any piece, obviously spending more time on the three exam pieces for the ABRSM (but again, without attempting to memorize any of them). I'd say I learnt on average 30 pieces of varying length a year from my teacher during that time (up to Grade 7, after which I was learning full-length piano sonatas), as well as some ten pieces on my own. As well as sight-reading through lots of other stuff for the fun of it.....

I like this way of thinking. I'd rather play sonatinas musically than spend my time butchering the Moonlight Sonata.

I had a number of "transfer wrecks" as you call them and each one was different in how I had to handle their note reading skills. Almost all had to be set back a level and I had to re-teach basics. However 2 of them are natural musicians and it took no time at all for them to be on track. Others are significantly behind and I have had to use multiple techniques to get any progress. One that seems to work well with my more difficult students is pattern and shape recognition. I will do small sight reading examples which repeat certain patterns in different ways and then spend time getting them to recognize what is the same and what is different about the examples and how to apply that. I also try to engage them by having them identify what I do differently or where the mistake is in their piece when I play it with an intentional mistake. This seems to force them to look at the music in a new way, helping them to see the patterns and recognize by ear and sight when there is a mistake.

I have tried these ideas in various forms.

I think the one single biggest problem, short of the students' undiagnosed learning disability, is their lack of procedural memory. Those who refuse to practice during the week are usually the ones who lack the repetition for any information or skill to sink in.

There is no cure for laziness.

I know for a fact that there are people in this world who don't have an undiagnosed learning disability, are reasonably well-informed about most "tricks of the trade", practice regularly, and yet still have heaps of trouble learning to sight-read well.

Even if you do have some students who are "just lazy" (which I'm sure you do), I don't think you're doing them any favors by thinking of them that way. Low expectations beget poor results.

No, it's about matching expectations to reality: the reality of the student's aptitude and actual ability. For some students, high expectations beget psychological torture and self-hatred.

Try "reasonable" expectations.

That is certainly be true. However, I don't think having high expectations for every student necessarily needs to mean you have the *same* expectations for every student.



Honest question: do you believe that people's abilities are a fixed quantity? If you do, then I guess we'll just agree to disagree. But if you believe that a teacher can help anyone grow, no matter where they start, then I am puzzled. Why would you consider it helpful in any way to attribute a student's difficulties to "laziness, for which there is no cure."?

I don't follow your logic. I never said I have the same expectations for every student.


It depends on what you define as "ability." If you define "ability" as "innate ability" or "musical talent," then of course it's a fixed quantity. If you define "ability" as "the ability to play piano," i.e., a "learned" ability, then of course it's a variable quantity.


Again, I don't follow your logic. There are a lot of assumptions here. For example, what do you mean by "anyone"? Do you include people who don't want to learn anything or "grow"? And what does "grow" even mean? Does the ability to press down middle C count as "grow"?

You start to sound like some professors I've had in grad school. You even use some of the same terminologies that are so general, they do absolutely no good in specific educational scenarios.

Indeed, you didn't. You just said that "there is no cure" for some students' problems. That, to me, is a sign that you have extremely low expectations (namely: none) for some of your students. IMO, you shouldn't expect everyone to win competitions, but you should expect every single one of your students, bar none, to make progress. And yes, at some point, we all had to figure out how to find and press down middle C. For some, that is progress.

Not everyone may come to you actually *wanting* to make progress. But again: I do not think lowering your expectations, to the point where there aren't any left, is helpful. Progress is important to *you*. If your students feel that it is important to you, and they see that you believe that it can happen, and they gradually come to trust and respect you, then at some point, they may start acting accordingly (i.e., doing what you tell them to do). In the interim, I think you should not give up on at least the possibility of future progress.



Yes, everyone is born with a "fixed quantity" of x or y ability. That's not what I meant. I apologize for my lack of clarity. Let me try again: do you believe that an innate ability (such as intelligence, musicality, ... anything, really) remains a fixed quantity throughout a person's lifetime?

Metaphorically speaking: are we boxes or sponges? You can't put anything extra into a box that came pre-filled at birth. A sponge, on the other hand, expands once it is full. Some sponges are smaller than others, but even small sponges expand. So yes, personally, I believe that a person can become *more* musical through, for instance, piano lessons. Not everyone can become a Horowitz (just pulling a famous name out of my hat, here), but we can all become "new and improved" versions of our more or less musical selves.

To put this in practical terms: I have a friend who, when we first met, could not hear whether two pitches (played on a piano one after the other) were the same or different. Three years later, through regular practice (first with only two pitches, then three, then four, etc.), she can do basic single-voice music dictation. She will probably never be able to listen to a Chopin Nocturne, or a Händel Suite, and write it out. But she has made demonstrable progress in the area of distinguishing pitches. I think there is no reason to assume she won't keep getting better at it for as long as she keeps working on that skill. Do you agree?



Yes. For a five-year-old (or a seventy-year-old) who comes to you never having seen a piano before in his life, it definitely does.

And yes, I do include people who "don't want to grow", but that's because I don't *really* believe they exist. Some students have bad motivational problems. Sometimes, motivational problems can be fixed. Sometimes they can't (or not by you, anyway). If the teacher doesn't *believe* they can be fixed, odds are they won't be. So keep the faith is what I'm saying, I guess.



Maybe not for you. They do for me.

I am not sure that the term lazy is useful.

The observation of behavior (that they did not practice) is a valid one.

Assuming the motivation for it is rather uncertain and does not usually contribute to fixing the problem.

I see several different versions of "lazy."

The most common is that of the highly motivated person who puts in great effort, but not at what you want. Sometimes this is directed towards one activity, like the video game addict, and sometimes to many activities, like the over programmed child. Either way, they aren't really lazy; they do work hard at something, but that something isn't piano practice.

Sometimes, particularly with those of us somewhere on the autism spectrum, it is just a failure of "executive function." In these cases they are generally aware of their failure and feel tremendous guilt, but trying harder never helps them succeed for more than short spurts.

Very rarely I've run into the low energy person who simply doesn't do much of anything, just isn't very active at all, doesn't have many interests. I've seen them because of my background in mental health, but I have to question how many of these end up in piano lessons.

I think it's important for the students to play music they engage with as they will be able to play with more expression, get more pleasure from it, and also be more motivated to practice.

However, sometimes I'll really limit the choice to maybe two pieces of an appropriate level. At least if they choose they feel that they have some say in the whole learning process. Ultimately you want the students to be creative, motivated and to be able to develop their own musical tastes.

I'm interested in other replies as there seems to be quite a range of approaches out there!