Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum My Piano Student Plays like a Robot

I thought this same thing. To say the student is "playing like a robot" is almost like saying the teacher has given up already after "only a few lessons".

Stealing Jazzy's *like*

tjd, thanks for answering my question about "how long" and a bit more background, and elucidating more. A number of different things.

There are indeed some teachers who use the "adult" method books, though there are quite a few who recommend the "non-adult" books which are more thorough. The idea behind the books, as I understand, is that they think adults want instant gratification (quick results), not spend much time, be rewarded by familiar music, and are intellectual by nature rather then concrete like children. It bypasses the fact that anyone learning to play an instrument, of any age, first has to develop coordination, develop the senses, and this cannot be rushed. The student won't know why she can't do the things well, and may become ever more careful. (Anyway, I have a problem with that philosophy).

We can only concentrate on one new thing at a time when acquiring skills for the first time. I do think it is way too early to try to play music with emotion. Would you expect a 7 year old child to play with feeling in his 7th or 8th week?

In regards to loud and soft, playing angrily or sadly --- Dynamics are created through physical motions we do with our bodies. Sometimes the concept can bring us there: sometimes an emotion can bring us there .... or not. During my self-taught days many years ago, an angry loud sound came with a stiff, tense body. That is not something to foster. There is also experimenting how we move, and what kinds of sounds result from that way of moving. With an emphasis, perhaps, of always aiming for the greatest comfort and the most satisfying sound. Very little kids experiment with everything. The bang on pots and pillows and so the discover. The adult often tends to lose that kind of playfulness, the "young inner scientist" we are all born with.

Topic: "Pleasing the teacher"

We are pushed in life to do everything perfectly, and in school we were to hand in perfect homework. That will be the default concept unless the student knows otherwise. In fact, as a teacher you may ask your student to go home, try banging out louds and softs if that is what you decide to stress, and then get to hear some imperfect louds and softs. You see the results of what the student has done, and that tells you what you need to show next to your student. You don't actually want perfection - you want growth - and you want to see weak spots so that you can work on those. Am I right? You may even be "pleased" by mistakes, because that tells you what to do next. If this is so, somehow your student needs to know that.

Your description sounds like you were trying to teach "color theory" (in painting) to someone who was color-blind.

"Angrily" may have _no musical meaning_ for her; you might try non-emotional, purely physical language -- "loud", "softly" etc.

. . . That would line up with Nahum's thought about Asperger's, or some other condition that
. . . breaks "normal" links between perception and emotion -- links that associate "loud" with "angry",
. . . and "soft" with "sad" or "pensive".

I like the idea of using Audacity (or just a smartphone-based "sound pressure level" meter, or a recorder with a VU meter) to give her _visual_ feedback about "loud" vs "soft". She needs to learn to _hear_ the difference.

Morodiene is usually right; "leave it alone, work on other things" might be a good course of action.

Worst case, she could switch to playing organ, or harpsichord . . . <g> [I am not dis-respecting those instruments, but they don't care how hard you hit the keys.]

Something off-the-wall just occurred to me:

. . . Is she afraid that, if she hits the keys too hard, she'll damage the piano ?

I have known people that when they are angriest, would speak very quietly. So there's no need for armchair diagnoses to nevertheless dial back the emotional language in favor of more neutral terms.

When you play loud vs. soft notes, can your student identify which is which? Can your student play a single note loudly or softly on request? What have you told your student about how to physically produce the different dynamics? What have you suggested she experiment with?

A child at the age of 18 after can be 9 lessons ? The student almost mature emotionally and teacher could easily demand from him. In OP isn't a case about unemotional performance of a particular piece, and the other are ok. Topicstarter is talking about performance in general, but it is  already not a technical problem. And generally, you can not detach emotions from even a single sound; and and from that the music starts, not from the notes and fingerings. Old rake on which teachers comes again and again ...

Or perhaps trying to get kids in the beginning of grade 1 to write a nuanced Shakespearean sonnet. While they are learning the alphabet and trying to get the stick of the d to attach to the ball of the d. It's this student's 7th week!

I totally disagree. I myself am fairly expressive artistically, and am driven to express things in music, and perceive things in music. But it is an absolute fact that we produce sounds in music through physical motions and coordination, and in the beginning that is not there. If you do feel strong emotion then the lack of coordination can lead to a kind of paralysis as the body doesn't know what to do.

This is exactly where I got hung up the first time round, with the first instrument! I came close to dystonia because of it. It is when the goal went toward the skills, which allow for the expressive playing, because there is control, that everything began to fall into place.

+1. Playing with "emotion" has nothing to do with what is being felt. IN Baroque music, they would use the word "affect" which means an allusion to an emotion.

So the student must first identify what qualities makes a piece sound happy or sad or angry or afraid when there are no words. This involves hearing dynamics and the timbre changes that go with that, as well as articulations and range.

Then they must learn how to physically execute those sounds on their instruments. I think this can be done early on in lessons, but perhaps only in improvisation where the focus is not on the notes and the concentration needed for a beginner to get the coordination down.

A lot of pieces that an adult beginner can play at this stage are not necessarily going to have really deep emotional content in general, and I think that is good. As their technique and coordination and reading improves, so does their understanding and awareness of affect and how to execute that on a deeper level as well.

I've had students who play loud all the time. They are generally more eye-oriented players and need to develop their ears.

Perhaps you can try recording her playing a short example where you ask her to first play the phrase loud, then soft. Then play it back for her and have her hear that there was no difference at all. Then help her find a good p by listening as she plays and working on how to technically execute that.

For the last suggestion, which I like, I'd add a couple of things. Have the student record herself (assuming her piano is touch-sensitive) and listen for differences (making sure that the recording device doesn't "equalize" dynamics). But also, encourage exploring different ways of physically playing the notes - demonstrate. An arm falling loosely with gravity and not being held back will create a loud noise. A little peck with mostly the fingers will make a quiet sound. Flipping the hand rotation-wise will create a sound. Quick movement makes loudness, slow movement makes quietness. If you simply try to play loud and soft, and then hear on a recording that it made no difference, that can lead to despair and helplessness. So the means is also a good thing to explore.

Little kids experiment with objects. They shake, rattle, bang, bounce, all the time experiencing and listening. Can an adult not also induce herself to do likewise, if she shakes the need to perform music perfectly - perhaps in her own home when nobody else is there?

Single-note melodies.

For us more experienced musicians, we feel the musical instrument to be so closely connected to our emotional life that we forget how it is to be a beginner. Beginners at the piano don't feel that they have their hands on a sensitive skin closely connected to their emotional apparatus. Beginners feel that they have their hands on a big weird machine that makes a variety of sounds and they never know quite what sound is going to result from what action. In the beginning, you're going to need to have them play a lot of single-note melodies, and you're going to have to lead them by the hand through how to shape a phrase, how to show that a certain note is special, why that note is special, etc. Plus plenty of exercises to cut down on the feeling that they don't know what sound results from what motion.

Once they have been playing for a couple of years you will start to see them be more spontaneous with how they translate emotion into their playing. But there will still be unintentional accents, weird timing etc. here and there that will require your attention. Even well into the advanced stages, we often think we are communicating something emotionally when in fact we are not.

You can have the student listen to piano in film/movies and teach them a little about film music. You can then turn off the audio and have them watch the movie without sound. Then you can explain how music brings emotion and how you need to empathize emotionally when you play music.

Not even a melody, just a single note: Press the key gently, then press it hard. Can she do that?

No, you are absolutely right.

The whole concept of playing with emotion is magical thinking.

In the beginning people play everything with the same default velocity. It is about their comfort level.

You have bangers, people who are somewhat tense, or people with very powerful fingers who are playing relaxed. I have a beginner right now who naturally plays around f all the time, every note. He will be easy to teach because I only have to tone it down.

I have others who barely depress the keys. Different personality.

Most are in the middle.

Dynamic level is absolutely a non-issue until a player is able to play one hand big and the other softer, and that is not a matter of emotion but of coordination.

Melody is normally always quite a bit bigger than chords, and the bass note should be bigger than the inner notes. It takes a very long time to give people the skills to make that happen.

Working on dynamic levels with a beginner is insane and very frustrating to the beginner.

If you give drums то normal child, instead of piano   , and ask him to talk through them, I'm willing betting on the money - he will not do as a robot. Therefore much of that is written in this stream, shoots in the wrong direction.

A piano is not drums, and this is beside the point. Yes much does indeed shoot in the wrong direction, including the above. I got damaged as a student because of just such a attitudes.

I think that you do not take into account the fact that in order to "play like a robot" (ie, all sounds in a monotonous rhythm and dynamics) already requires that some technique; and if a child generally does not know how play the piano, will retrieve the loud and quiet sounds haphazard exactly because of lack of "technique". However, I do not like to talk about performing by theses and slogans, but by recorded examples.
These are two different tools that have many similarities in   playing hand movements , and even for fingers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbDofgD04dc
A wide view of the different instruments and genres highly helped me for 44 years in the professional pedagogical activity .

But it may be that play of student from OP will produce on us a different impression than a robot?

This.

Seriously, I have encountered so many teachers who are quick to point out a lack of playing with emotion in someone, but can't possibly explain how this is done. Oh, they try and they use fluffy imagery and flowing gestures, but it never gets to actually making the sound.

You can feel all you want, it doesn't mean you are going to strike a key that will elicit that emotional response in the listener. But there is a physical technique to do this. So let's demystify the whole "emoting" stuff and get down to nuts and bolts of what an emotion sounds like - in general, and on the piano specifically.

Like an actor who puts on, evokes, remembers - whatever method you choose - a certain character by imitating body language, gestures, tone of voice and facial expression that matches the emotional content of the scene, pianists and musicians in general need to do the same with sound.

I'm not talking about a pianist's choreography or extraneous gestures, since those things can be present and not have an iota of effect on the sound. But simply what does an emotion sound like and how to make that come from pressing a key.

This can be done a number of ways, but for a beginner, I think it must be through improvisation, lots of listening to great pianists, and perhaps singing (if you can get them to do that).

If you cannot distinctly teach it, then do not criticize them for not being able to execute it.