Flexibility

Teaching seems to demand flexibility in us.  Extreme flexibility; sometime it seems like super-human flexibility.  I’ve been teaching for some time now, and have survived… maybe even prevailed.  That extreme flexibility is still a challenge. 

Piano teachers are perhaps unique, in that we meet our “class” often on an individual basis.  It is we, the teachers, that have to meet our students… their personalities, their moods, their intellects… and lead them to something new.  Some days it seems as if the gears were almost stripped! 

I remember once being asked what ages I teach.  “My youngest is six, and my oldest eighty-two”, was the response.  What merely seems amusing to the questioner is actually the heart of my profession.  I don’t teach piano, I teach people.  And it’s not about how well I teach, but about how well my students learn.

Yesterday, the beginning week of my winter term, I taught a first lesson to a little girl, five years old.  She’s very bright, reads and speaks on the level of, perhaps, a second-grade student.  It was no trouble to engage this bright, young mind.  She was able to participate in, and lead her lesson, and I merely grabbed hold of my seat and enjoyed the ride. 

Part of the fun is in learning how to speak to each new student.  In pursuing this, I like to have each student read a few directions from their method book.  “Circle a character at the bottom of the page each time you play this song.”  CHARACTER!  A flawless reading from a five-year-old!  One doesn’t talk down to a child that is that impressive.  But good teachers always remember that, no matter how precocious, a kindergartener is a child, too.

I always like to watch for two things with a new student:  First, what are they like at the conclusion of the first lesson.  My little prodigy was calm, and engaged through the entire lesson; when she finished, she was “pumped”.  She could hardly focus on finding her shoes, and when she did, she was out the door, leaving her mom to wonder where she went.  The second thing I will watch for, next week, and in the ensuing weeks, will be how she approaches my studio.  I expect that she will run ahead of her mother, and bounce into my house.

Yesterday, I also taught a last lesson to another young lady.  I think she was more than ready to leave piano behind.  I think the two of us got along well, but piano brought her no joy.  She was an exacting girl, and could never handle the constant frustrations of learning to play the piano.  Piano practice can be brutal; it’s an almost endless succession of self-criticism, if done properly.  That is sometimes my “downfall”, because I teach my students how to practice, how to criticize their playing, and how to solve their practice problems.  For this girl, who almost always came well prepared for her lessons, the joy of conquering her mistakes was not enough to override her exasperation and frustration at constantly having to criticize herself.

I once told a parent that, for some students, I would be the worst teacher in the world.  He was taken aback at that; he had been one of my “cheerleaders”, referring me to countless other families.  A psychologist by profession, he was curious how I could be a “worst teacher” for anyone.  I explained to him that I was most interested in the PROCESS of practicing.  I work hardest in every lesson to help students analyze what is wrong when they are having difficulties.  We work to link a process of solution to every problem.  We work, tirelessly, on the process of practicing.

I told the psychologist that I believe that for most individuals the discovery that they have the power to overcome their problems is compelling.  Learning to practice is a discovery that we can control our destiny.  This, added to the ultimate thrill of making music, and expressing ones self, sums up the joy of playing the piano.  However, not everyone wants to invest the time in self-criticism, even if they know that they can overcome their problems.  I think that for certain students, realizing that they know how to practice, that they have been taught what to do, and how to approach their music, makes piano lessons a worse experience for them.  If they have decided that they don’t want to work that hard, they will begin to hate the thought of approaching the piano. 

I don’t always know exactly why a student finds no joy in playing the piano.  For me, it has always been a joy.  Maybe this is one of the lessons I have yet to learn.  I do know that it takes much energy, and much flexibility to teach both a FIRST lesson and a LAST lesson on the same day.

  

A Teaching Story

I had a church pastor that used to lace his sermons with stories.  They were wonderful because he told them to US, as personal revelations.  Not from notes prepared ahead of time, but from memory, from experience with other people.  Personal stories about real people are compelling.  I believe that’s because we worry that we might be alone in our experiences, and that no one could possibly understand.  Personal stories place us comfortably in society with other strugglers. 

  

I find the telling of stories to be indispensable to my teaching.  If I can make a point by way of a story, I find I have the complete attention of my student, immediately, when I say the words, “I have a story to tell you…” Of course, the stories have to have a point, and they can’t be overly long.  Even my pastor would, at the conclusion of his stories, say, “Now, what am I trying to say?”  He made his point, with the story as his vehicle.  So, let me tell you a story…

I just had a lesson with one of my middle school girls; she performed Midnight Escapade by Melody Bober for me at the end of her lesson.  I listened with great interest as she came to the final cadence; such mastery!  She released the keys and placed her hands in her lap, the way I have showed her; I sat there silently, with my head down just a little.  She was unprepared for that.  “What’s wrong, Rory?”  “I’m just a little sad”, I said.  “You know this is a Contest piece, don’t you.  Even though you said you didn’t want to do any competitive events this year, I assigned a Contest piece, just to see how you’d do.  Now, when I know that you would have done so well, I’m just sad.”  

She looked very surprised, but immediately began to explain that performing just made her too nervous to enter the MMTA Contest, or the NFMC Festival.  I suspected that her real concern was that she wouldn’t be ready, considering the amount of preparation she intended to invest, and that a lack of preparation would, indeed make her nervous.  When I told her that she would actually be ready two months before the event, she didn’t know how to react.  I sensed that she was thinking hard about this idea, so I told her a story.

 “Vladimir Horowitz was, until he died, the absolute KING of pianists.  I once went to a concert of his; he was 10 minutes late coming onto stage.  When the lights dimmed, at 4:10 on a Sunday afternoon, it still took a full minute for Horowitz to come on stage.  Before that moment, I had never, and have never since heard that kind of silence.  A packed auditorium, the “hero” of the day that late, and there was no sound!  The audience held him in that kind of reverence.”

At that moment, I had 100% of my student’s attention.  A middle school girl, ready to go to school to see her friends, and get on with her day; and yet, she moved not a muscle.  “You may be interested to know,” I said, “that Vladimir Horowitz was world famous, and quite rich from playing piano concerts.  Then he abruptly ‘retired’ from performing.  He said he had paralyzing stage fright.” 

She was stunned.  We discussed his long absence, his return to the stage, and the coping mechanisms that he invented for himself.  She was interested, but I hadn’t ‘zinged’ her yet.  I knew that often stories have a greater impact if we tell the stories on ourselves.  Our students don’t always think of us a “normal” people, who were once students, and wrestled ourselves with practicing and performing.

“I also have had to combat stage fright”, I told her.  I’m sure you've seen the computer emoticon that represents astonishment… with the wide open mouth and big eyes.  That is exactly what her mouth and eyes looked like.  At first I thought maybe she was astonished that I, her teacher, ever had stage fright.  On second thought, I decided that she was simply astonished that I had ever had to perform in recitals, contests and festivals.  So, I told her another story.

“I had the good fortune, for several summers, to attend a special Piano Institute at Amherst College in Massachusetts.  The Institute met there every summer, with a master teacher named Dorothy Taubman.  Mrs. Taubman had taught many concert pianists, and was known for her abilities to help a pianist’s technique.  The second summer I attended, along with about 300 professional pianists from all over the world, I was selected to play in a public “master class” with Mrs. Taubman.  I would have to play for her, in front of all those people.  That was possibly the SCARIEST audience I could have imagined; everyone in the concert hall would be an accomplished performer, and I was worried if I would be good enough.  After the performance, I would have a mini-lesson, right in front of those pianists.” 

My girl was intrigued.  What did I do?  HOW did I do?  I told her that I decided to do my job.  I practiced with focus.  I told her the thing that helped the most was what one of my teachers told me:  “Practice like you’re performing, and perform like you’re practicing”.  At that moment, I knew I had her; nothing was decided right then about what she would do with her Contest piece; but I know we’ll have a chance to discuss this properly over the next weeks.  Once again, a story made real communication possible.