I'll start out.

There is always a pencil available. I've told my students never to make the same mistake more than twice without marking it.

But most insist on not doing this, even in lessons, until I tell them:

"Pick up the pencil and MARK it!"

Always two sides to the coin.

My annoying 'teacher' habit is that my teacher keeps stealing my pencils. I've bought two sets of 24 pencils and only have one left (at this writing). By this time next week, it'll likely be down to zero. He'll pick up 'my' pencil to write on my score, then place the pencil to the side where I can't see it. Each week, I leave without the pencil I brought. Grrr... When I look around his studio the next week for the big collection of my pencils he supposedly has, mysteriously they're no where to be found.

P.S. The only time I use pencils are for lessons. In fact, I haven't even owned a pencil since high school (30 years ago), so I "know" its not elsewhere (he insisted I write in pencil and not pen).

[end student ranting].

I'm not saying that you shouldn't, but can I ask why you want your students to mark in all of their mistakes directly into the score?

Some, would argue that memory trace of failure and the resulting tension could be sown and re-lived each time a student runs through that section and sees the marks.

I could see it being a good cue for awareness as long as the markings are erased frequently.


For me, it's hearing about student's boyfriends/girlfriends and related dramas. I have some really really overly chatty teens....OK that's nice, now let's get back to that F# major formula pattern.

Awww, pianoexcellence ... sometimes we need a good spill at the end of the day. I know that's not what you're there for but the fact that they spill does show that they know you are are really thinking and not sure. Sometimes when a student arrives agitated I have known some teachers that just allow a student to spill. Its just that bumpy stage in life where everything seems to be complicated.

I know it can be annoying and I know I can be annoying sometimes asking for everyone's opinion. But I don't just have a teacher, I have a mentor at my lessons to guide me and that teach me not just about music ... but about life. I've very thankful for this. I know teens can be melodramatic sometimes but sometimes they just need someone to listen to them and at least act like they care.

I think something that annoys me with teachers is when they praise and commend and the students pick up those silly phrases. I record my lessons with one of the teacher I hear and I always end up with the phrase "awesome" ... soon I'd pick it up and say "awesome" all week! Talk about annoying!

Akira,

If you want to try passive-aggressive behavior on for a minute, you could look at the teacher with a grim, threatening, full of malice face in warning: and break the pencil in two before setting it down on the piano.

Not so hot of an idea was it?

Let's try another: "I'm sending my gorilla over to retrieve the 24 pencils that have grav-i-ta-ted, in-ad-ver-tent-ly, dis-ap-peared from sight here in your studio...(here is where you cross your arms over your chest and get this method actiing down right until you can feel him shivering)...(say) TO-NIGHT!

I know....I'm no help at all!
Would anyone like to borrow my gorilla?
I didn't think so.

Akira, you are such a nice person, I can see you on an errand to the store where you buy two packages of pencils - one for him and one for you.

Betty

In the context that you are mentioning, I usually don't mind it.

It's just the "then my friend asked him if he likes me and..." that kinda makes me wonder if I need to dress even more formally so as to not look like a "buddy".

I see where you are coming from. I get it all the time with peers ... the ones that I don't even consider to me my friends. I think dress won't have much to do with it. I just think if you got them to get back to playing and not ask them them things like: "really?" it shows you're not interested and gets you back on track.

On the flip side I would say: watch what you are saying. ... There was a teacher I once saw that would talk about his parents he lost, (the passed on) ... he told me about them almost every lesson. Then when I wanted to say something (even if it was music related) he would steer me back to playing piano. This confused me ... I never told him everything about my life ... if anything I found myself listening to his. If I would ever want to talk about something it was often about other teachers and what they had to say about music and me. He never liked the idea of me getting guidance from other teachers and so he would get me to play ... confusing no?

Wait. The idea is not to mark mistakes with the idea of punishing yourself. The idea is to identify future bad habits before they have a chance to begin.

The moment I find myself making mistakes, while still in the very early stage of learning something, I write in extra accidentals and mark anything for careful observation. It saves a ton of time.

Marks could include writing in a finger number that is critical. It could include anything.

And the music I usually use is printed out by me, in lessons. Using Finale. So I can always replace any page or the whole thing.

You must work very differently from me. A blank score from the past means, to me, that I wasn't really thinking about what I was doing!

I'm sure we do work differently, but that's a good thing.

Awareness is key. We both agree on that. I invoke awareness differently, the score remains unmarked (except for a second score that contains harmonic analysis), but I think we both have our eye on the same ball.

Gary, I mark scores too, but I always approach them as goals to achieve. A "mistake" is a correct thing that has not been done, and I want to set my focus on that correct thing. It is something that I was taught. As soon as you think you want to overcome a bad habit, part of you visualizes that bad habit, and reinforces it to some degree.

I like to have a clean, unmarked score as well, but for a different reason than Jeremy. I want to internalize whatever it is that I want to acquire, and do not want to lean on the markings as crutches. This would be so especially for fingerings where 3 could easily start representing "3 for F#".

I would definitely accept marking a score in a lesson, but I would want it to be with the approach of what needs to be done correctly at this point, rather than what has been done incorrectly. That does seem to give an edge for me.

I read very fast and stay with the score for a long time. If a fingering is written in the score, by an editor, I am very likely to pick it up peripherally. The moment I realize I disagree with the fingering (for personal reasons), it becomes incorrect information picked up by the eye. Unless I decide to memorize before learning with score, something I never do (at least for the whole score), I need to at least get rid of the visual "clue" that is going to tempt me to being memorizing awkward fingering while I am still reading the score.

Even more important are any passages that require tricky fingering solutions when no fingering is suggested. I want those fingerings in the music immediately, because I will then read them along with the notes. I do write the fingering in lightly, since I may change my mind several times before settling on a solution. (I try to do this VERY early by chunking and accelerating chunks to test the fingering.)

For the most part, music that is rather easy for me to read remains almost clean, with just a few marks here and there. On the other hand, when dealing with composers like Rachmaninov who often write very long measures with a ton of accidentals, notating an extra sharp or flat or natural above a note immediately (after missing it more than once) also avoids a ton of mistakes.

If other people can read such music without making notations for themselves, learning to read it from the score very quickly before memorizing it, I'd like to know how they do it.

Even worse: Romantic music is incredibly confusing at times in places where ties look like phrase marks, or phrase marks look like ties. Usually I pick these up very quickly, since it is a matter of memorizing the sound itself and therefore not repeating notes that are not meant to be repeated, or not repeating notes that are repeated, but again making a light strikeout mark for confusing ties stops me from making repeated mistakes.

In general, most of my mistakes involve accidentals and ties, and those are the first things I mark if I miss them. If I am away from a score I've marked, for many years, if I get a "clean" copy, I will miss some of those same things unless I reached the point where the music was memorized and absolutely etched into my brain (and attached to my muscles, so to speak).

And for accompanying, where I had to get something nailed, with music, in almost zero time, markings were and are absolutely essential. I can't imagine how other people can learn and perform accompaniments in a very short time without markings. To me that is just insane.

Finally, notating fingering is much more than a matter of avoiding mistakes. At any time in the future I may re-examine fingering I chose earlier, feeling it was the best solution, only to totally change my mind. Without a record of what I did in the past, I am not as aware of the evolution in my own thinking.

Regardless, I'm not going to put up with students who make the same mistakes, over and over again, week after week because they think that doing what I do myself to avoid mistakes is beneath them when I continually show them how I learn new music very quickly. That's just stupid. And lazy.

That's what I was getting at. This is not about over-marking the score. It is about students training themselves to make the same mistakes countless times before they finally fix things, which is nothing but wasted time.

If they didn't make those mistakes, I wouldn't care, and indeed I don't care how they solve their problems, when they are not asking for my help!

Actual quotes (some are in translation):

1) "I have too much homework. Can I switch my lesson time?"

2) "I have a track meet this Saturday. Can I switch my lesson to Sunday?"

3) "My art class is having an exhibition this Sunday. Can we cancel lessons this week?"

4) "My son is testing this week for his state tests. Can we reschedule the lesson?"

5) "We're going to China for two months. See you in September."

6) "My daughter has a dance recital next month, and we have a lot of rehearsals. Can we stop piano for a month?"

7) "Can we move the lesson to Sunday? My son hasn't practiced all week long."

8) "Can we cancel the lesson this week? My son hasn't practiced all week long."

9) "My son just found out he has a game tonight for Marching Band. Can we cancel the lesson?"

10) "Can we cancel their lessons today?" [no reason given]

Oh, this is the topper:

"I'm tired. Can I not drive my kids to lesson today?"

I know!

And here is a topper, I think, which actually happened last month, the beginning of it:

"Well, I don't really have to make up the lesson from last month because we haven't paid for this month yet."

(My answer: you do if you want to continue lessons with me!)

KS, markings are always for YOU. When I started this thread, I was not talking about students like you, who are incredibly self-motivated and success oriented. You will do whatever you think will lead to success the fastest and what you believe will cause you to improve the fastest, in the long run.

You and others like you are rather rare. If only we dealt with such students all the time, our lives would be easy.

(And remember, you have an excellent ear. Until you've taught for decades, as I have, you have *no* idea the bizarre things that can happen in lessons when people who know next to nothing about music begin to argue with you.)

The most common thing, and the only one that is likely to finally make me explode, when it happens over and over again with an arrogant student:

I say: "Oops, you missed that."

Answer: "No I didn't."

I say, "Maybe I made a mistake myself. Play it again." (Knowing absolutely that I did NOT.)

Then, while the student makes the same mistake, I actually hold the finger on the wrong note, the same one that was wrong last time.

And I TRY to smile without being mean about it!

Gary have you ever done student imitations? That normally shuts them up! Seriously ... I don't teach but I know what you mean, I work vocally with several insolent non eared sensitive musicians (I don't even know if they deserve to have the title 'musician')anyhow, I'm often annoyed ... my empathy goes to you.

One thing I do that gets the point across is an exaggerated imitation of them. It normally gets the point across.

AZN piano, I don't get

6) "My daughter has a dance recital next month, and we have a lot of rehearsals. Can we stop piano for a month?" ...

... What's wrong with that?

Gotcha, Gary. Btw, I went through my foolish period. Sort of middle-age adolescence brought on by music lessons.

Akira, just dont bring any more pencils to class. Just borrow them from your teacher. He surely wont have the nerve to say he doesnt have any.

I think one of the most annoying habits is guessing which notes come next. Despite the fact that they can read the music perfectly well it always seems to be a last resort for some students.

Also those who try to engage in conversation just to cover up the fact that they have not practiced enough. I don't mind a bit of chat in lessons but some students try to use it as a way to waste time. "Oh no, we never got round to those scales today!". Know what I mean?

There are some nasty habits which annoy me. Kids who eat sweets before the lesson and have sticky hands. Even worse, the ones who pick their noses and then play my piano. Uggh!

Gary, sometimes in self defense mode, I remind students of the Studio's Rules.

Rule #1 - The teacher is always right.

Rule #2 - When you think the teacher has made a mistake, refer to Rule #1.

Seriously, now days I just say, "Really? Just replay the DVD at home and check it out. I'll accept your apology next lesson." Strangely, not once has a student come back the following week and said, "Mr V, I checked it out and you were wrong!"

I once saw a placard on a teacher's desk. It said "When you have tried everything, nothing works, and you're completely out of ideas .... follow the instructions you were first given."

Well, I know what I do that annoys my teacher...without realizing it, while she is talking about a particular passage, I will slowly, softly play through it to 'feel' what she is suggesting I do.

I know this annoys her because she told me she has another student (a young man) who drives her to distraction with it to the point where she makes him sit on his hands while she talks!

When I realize I am doing this I sit on my hands too, because it's a hard, hard habit to break. I really am concentrating on what she is saying, I'm just anxious to put it into practice and make sure I've understood and can do it.

But I realize it is incredibly annoying!

This is a big deal for me sometimes because I have some 10-11 hour private lesson days. It is easy to lose my voice if I do not conserve it. I speak in a relaxed, measured tone, and when students "feel out" what I am saying as I speak, I have to raise my voice to talk over it.

I do like that they are eager to try it out though.

I got one..

"When I sit down to demonstrate hand movement and my student is not even watching my hands but reading along instead."

I don't do this anymore but I'm sure it drove him crazy for a while... I don't know why I did it but my teacher used to demonstrate something and then say "Now...if you'll WATCH my hands..." and then demonstrate again. Not sure how he knew I wasn't looking.

Whenever I talk about things that annoy me, I'm actually talking about a very small minority of students.

For instance, the young ones often are convinced that they are doing one thing when they are doing something else, and of course I'm going to find a gentle way to correct them. For one thing, it can take weeks to get shy people to trust me (or even longer), and it only takes one angry moment to destroy that.

However, if I run into arrogance and rudeness, that's where I draw the line!

At another time I'll tell you about how I dealt with a surgeon who asked me questions and then tried to play music while I was attempting to answer his questions! (evil smile)

Okay, let me draw a parallel...

Let's say we have a piano competition coming up in a month. I need your daughter to temporarily quit her ballet lessons and tennis lessons so she can turn in 5 extra hours of practice per week. Would that be too much to ask???

Ohh, ok I understand ... you see ... Here in Australia when students sit their exams at the end of schooling many stop piano lessons, its not just that ,... they stop working part-time, they stop sports, they stop any extra after school activities to focus on their exams. This goes on for a few months ... but I can see where you are coming from now.

Gary, you're correct, we're talking about the 1 student in 10 who, due to a superabundance of self esteem, couldn't possibly be doing any thing wrong.

I think this may be a carry over from the public schools where students, according to my wife, behave rather flippantly.

Frankly, I see about the same percentage of young students and adults who are ready to argue as I did decades ago.

This does not make it one bit less annoying!

Of course, although it is necessary to play the piano as instructed by the teacher, ettiquette dictates that you don't play at certain times. As a student I'm always wondering when to stop and start. Also when the teacher leaves the room to answer a phone, etc. shouldn't I stop and wait? Or could I play The Simpsons theme to occupy the time? The answer to the pencil conundrum is to tie it on a piece of string round your neck. Small talk with the teacher is often polite and social. But, as a student I also often find it used up a good 10 minutes or more of my lesson.

I'm annoyed by a student who makes a big deal out of looking at the clock. If I see this more than once during a lesson, I will reach for the clock (very small digital that is also a timer sitting on the top of the piano)and put it right before his or her eyes without saying a word.

Over time (pun not intended) I will get clues from the student about what he is thinking that clock watching has become important to him.

Since I have the timer handy, I might at a future lesson say play Hanon 1-6 from memory once through each, strung together, then tell me how long this took for you to play.
Not only is this "cruel and inhumane punishment" it has a lesson to it, I think.

Time that is being used goes quickly, time that is inactive is painful.

Also, a point of learning could be: "Stop when you have played for 60 seconds or, 30 seconds, or 10 seconds. There is value to being able to measure time accurately - and it can come from within, not from the clock.

Apply these short amounts of time to your lesson assignment, and you will be amazed at what can be accomplished.

While 30 minutes of practice might be the whole enchilada on the clock, the 10 seconds and 60 seconds or 3 minute practice gains are incredibly joyful if you realize you used then enjoyably and make progress.

Make a friend of the clock, not an enemy.

I tell students where to start, and I tell them when they need to stop. This is important because sometimes I ask them to stop something that is so smooth, it is no problem—to get to something else that is a problem.
The teacher should tell you. If the teacher doesn't tell you what to do, there should be no reason to fault your for filling the time. I use a cell phone, and I keep it turned off in lessons except in an emergency situation, but I work in a store. There are people to take messages for me. I only stop to use the bathroom, and I'm usually very fast. Before I leave the room, I tell students exactly what to practice.