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All of us teachers encounter times when a student is resistant to trying something at the lesson. I generally ask the student if they'd like to try it at the lesson or practice it at home first. Then the student chooses what they are comfortable with, and I respect the decision.
Some people like to try new concepts/skills on their own first, rather than muddle through it at the lesson - even if they it is at their level.

I think students should have some choice over what they do in their lesson. I do not consider myself to be the Boss who should be obeyed without question.

This is a very interesting point for me and I would like if you or some other teacher could expand further.

I am an adult student and struggle when my teacher asks me to try something new at the lesson. I would rather being given the new exercise as homework and play it the next time.

Here are the reason why I do not like it:

1) Trying something new over and over, feels like I am wasting precious lesson time. Given enough time, I usually get the exercise right, I just do not think that that is the right time to practice. If I have practiced the exercise on my own and I still struggled, then it makes sense to try a different approach together, but not right from the start.

2) By now I know myself. I an not good at working under pressure, my mind gets blank. Trying to get an exercise right on the spot in front of my teacher, for my standards, it is "working under pressure".

Is there any pedagogical benefit in making a student trying to play something new on the spot?

Thanks,
Luca

Hi Luca,
In response to your question -
Some of my students wish to play the new piece at the lesson because they are more comfortable going home to practice something they have already done with some success.
Others are more independent, like you, and prefer to learn on their own.
For some students, I like to hear them start learning the notes of a piece, to make sure they are starting on the right notes and have the correct rhythm.

It can be true that learning notes at the lesson is a time waster, especially for students who are capable of learning the notes at home and comfortable with doing so.

Being able to play something new on the spot is a skill that pianists sometimes need - church musicians, or accompanists get music thrown at them all of the time.

I completely agree. I have done this. It is amazing how many times it works or at least you find out or not if the student is going to get their act together or not. And btw, I have used it with mom or dad sitting there. My parents know if I run into difficulties I will be talking to them if needed.

Exactly!

Luca, the answer to your fine question probably depends on the relationship between student and teacher. As a student I would like to have a relationship with my teacher where I would be willing to try something new in the lesson, to stretch my abilities a bit. I would need to feel supported by this teacher, more than judged by him or her.

Conversely, as a teacher, I would like to foster a relationship in which a student might sometimes be willing to try a few new things in my presence, without fear or blanking out. It's a tricky balance to acquire, but an important balance.

My guess is that it is useful for teacher's to hear a student play something new as a way to assess the students skills. When I stumble or mash my way through a piece (new or old) my teacher isn't just sitting there rolling his eyes at how poorly I play, he's thinking about what to work on immediately, and also in the short, medium, and long term. These will be things that improve my playing.

We're going a bit off-topic to my O.P., but I like it!

The way I see it, the teacher should be the first-line
audience. Someone who is non-judgmental, but critical
at the same time. We are there to improve the student's
piano playing, after all.

Students are often uncomfortable performing for others,
but this fear should be addressed during lessons. Don't
be afraid to test your student's sight reading skills by
placing something new in front of them, that is within
their skill level, of course.

Thanks everybody for your answers.

Musicdude, apologies for having drawn the thread off-topic, I appreciate that you are not taking it bad.

Sounds like there is consensus on the benefit of having the student trying something new on the spot.

Next time it happens during my lesson I will try to embrace it and not feel bad about it.

Truth to be told, the teacher is supportive and not judgmental at all. The struggle is all internal. I get upset at myself for not being able to cope with the novelty.

I seem to have a certain amount of inertia before being able to switch. I know that eventually I will get the new thing, what bothers me is that I take longer than I think I should.

During the process my teachers smiles at me and closes the session remarking any kind of positiveness she saw no matter how small. That is when I think she is being way too kind with me, because at that point I am 100% focused on what I did wrong and consider whatever went well irrelevant.

I guess I need a good psychologist as much as I need a good piano teacher ;-)

Thanks again,
Luca

I can't think of any reason why a student of anything below advanced standard would be just told by the teacher to "work on" a new piece without having the student sight-read through it in front of him first.

The teacher can judge so many things from that first sight-read: not just the student's overall sight-reading abilities and what he has difficulties with reading (whether chords, arpeggios, accidentals, rhythm etc), but also potential technical issues with specific passages. And give advice on how to surmount them so that the student won't be doing things the wrong way, only to need correction at the next lesson.

Certainly, all my four teachers got me to do this with almost every piece - from Mozart's K1 as a near-beginner to Rachmaninov's Op.23/5 as an advanced student.

Gosh, I very seldom do the first sight-read through a piece with my teacher. Occasionally yes, so he has a sense of what my reading is like. But in general, I really think the lesson time is better spent on other things. I tend to read through things on my own to see what I want to spend time learning (within my limited technical range, of course). I take them to my teacher early enough to check fingerings etc., so that I don't practice poor choices--but I feel it's good for learning when a student at least attempts to work some things out independently.

Assuming the piece isn't a whole sonata (in which case you're already of advanced standard and can learn everything on your own without problems), you're only using up a few minutes of your lesson time to do this - which can save a lot of problems later, if you learn & practise something for a whole week and turn up at your lesson to find that you've been misreading something, or using poor fingering choices, etc. - and then have to spend the next few days unlearning it....

You are working things out independently - in front of your teacher, in real time, while reading through the new piece. He's just making sure you aren't making some big errors which will end up causing wasted time in the next few weeks to un-learn.

Certainly, my last teacher (with whom I was working towards my performance diploma) only asked me to sight-read a few new pieces that he wanted me to learn - and mostly only a few sections from them, to see what I did.

For instance, I never used to play octave scales with anything other than 1-5, but on my sight-read through Rach's Op.23/5, he suggested - as an alternative - 1-4 for the black octaves. Back in my practice room later that day, I experimented with both fingerings, and came down on his suggestion; whereas if I'd practised for the whole week by myself, 1-5 would have been ingrained into my muscle memory, and changing it (even for a trial period) would have felt very awkward, and therefore I'd never have used what turned out to be a useful alternative in some situations.....

Agreed. The teacher's job is to nip problems
in the bud before they can take root and grow into
bad habits.

Recently, one of my students played a piece in front
of me, where he totally ignored an 8va section completely,
and so was practicing the part an octave too low. Simple
things like that are why the student should try things
out in front of the teacher.

This is especially true if the student has any inclination
to become a professional musician, where new music is
placed in front of you, and you are required to play it
with little or even no rehearsal. So again, it's good
sight-reading training to surprise your student with
totally new music that they are unfamiliar with, and see
how they do. This is also good for the teacher too!

A diamond is only formed under pressure.

Hi Luca,
As I have moved toward having students learn dynamics, articulations and other expressive elements at the same time as learning the notes, I have started to do more "walk-throughs" of new material in the lessons, often RH alone. That way I can introduce and coach each measure, helping the student observe the dynamics etc. and notice how all the little details build up into ideas and phrases. And the students don't get in the habit of leaving out dynamic contrasts, staccatos, rests, all so easily forgotten if it isn't part of how we first begin to practice the piece.
I also walk-through tricky fingerings, hard-to-read moments, or other things that might cause the students to stall when working on their own.
Accompanying parts (often LH patterns) I still often leave to students to learn on their own, if they have got to the point of reading independently pretty well. Once they know the melody and its characteristics, it's pretty clear what the accompaniment should sound like.
Adults are usually very self-conscious about going through new material in the lessons, so I really try to keep the interaction about constant coaching and guiding, and not about me sitting there while the student reads, waiting to pounce on every mistake.

There are also students who teach themselves a lot of new material just because they felt like it that week, sometimes from the pieces I had anticipated and sometimes not there, I am often fixing problems, giving background information, and gauging how to help the student focus their work and enjoy all that music without getting too overwhelmed.

Hi Heather, thanks for your reply.

Actually your post made my think about what is that I do not like so much about playing new things at the lesson. I think that what really puts me off is how the lesson is structured, which is not necessarily how other teachers do.

This is how it works in a Yamaha school in Japan.

In the room there are two pianos placed side by side. An upright acoustic piano where I sit and a digital piano that my teacher uses. All the exercises or pieces that we play are played as a "trio". There is me playing whatever is on the score, a MIDI file with a background accompaniment played by the teacher's digital piano and the teacher playing some improvisation on top of all of it. If I know the exercise/piece well enough and I can keep up, the whole effect is pretty pleasant, but if I cannot keep up, I find myself gasping for air pretty quickly. I guess it is for the same reason metronomes can be good or bad depending on the situation.

When we look at something that I have not played before, we do a couple of slow runs, but the transition from slow practice to "trio" mode is too abrupt for me. The fact that I can play a couple of times at 50% of the speed does not mean that I can play it, not even at 75% of the speed, following the MIDI track that has no mercy.

I probably would be all right to sightread for my teacher if I could set the pace and did not have to keep up with the music track.

Gasping for air is what makes me feel the pressure and causes my mind to go blank.

I usually workaround my problem by trying to anticipate what new exercises we will be playing at the lesson and practice them upfront (probably not the ideal solution). Sometimes my teacher shuffles things around, sometimes if I can play the exercise right away, she might change things a bit. Then is when I struggle.

At least, after all your answers, I can see that there is some benefit in this and do not have to feel too bad about it.

Musicdude - "A diamond is only formed under pressure.", I like that!

Thanks again,
Luca