On teaching the piano

A few thoughts based on my experience.

I taught my first piano lessons as a teenager, teaching a friend of my younger sister. I don’t think I was very good. I didn’t really have a clue what I was doing and the lessons didn’t last long. I didn’t teach again until after I’d graduated. I then got a few jobs as a visiting piano teacher at various schools, teaching up to 12 lessons a day.  I couldn’t do that now as it would simply be too tiring. (If you teach a class there is scope for giving everyone something to do at the same time which gives you time to get your head sorted but, in a one-to-one setting, there is nowhere to hide – you have to be focused the whole time). I only teach a few pupils now, as and when it suits me and, after over 30 years of teaching, I’ve learned a few things:

1.       You just can’t pick a winner!

You simply can’t predict who is going to be a successful student and who isn’t. I learned this many years ago when I was asked to teach a child who I’ll call Emily. I knew Emily already as I taught her in class music. She was a nice girl but had no obvious aptitude for music, struggled to pitch her voice correctly and did not have a great sense of rhythm. As a result, I was reluctant to take her on as a piano pupil. But her parents were very keen and insisted that she was too and so I agreed.

Emily turned up for her first lesson, we went through everything that I wanted to cover and off she went, with a few things to practise that week. The following week, she came back and had practised everything as I’d asked. We carried on. This became the pattern for every lesson – I would teach something, she would go away and practise it exactly as I’d said and would return the following week having made progress. I never had to go over anything from the previous lesson because she had always assimilated it during the week. She made fantastic progress and, at the end of the year, I was in no doubt that she fully deserved the school prize for the most progress made in music. In terms of effort and progress, I never had a better pupil. This leads on to my next realisation:

2.       Talent isn’t everything.

I have taught some very talented students in my time. Musical, intelligent, lively, creative. On each occasion, I relished the chance to work with them. But they could sometimes be frustrating to the point of being infuriating. Why? Because with musicality, intelligence, liveliness and creativity goes….free thinking. Yes, some of these children had a mind of their own. These could lead to some really interesting and thought-provoking lessons, but it didn’t always translate to fantastic progress. This was usually because the student wanted to do it their way. Now, don’t get me wrong – I’ve disagreed with my own teachers in the past and wanted to play things differently from the norm. But, and this was the point I sometimes struggled to make with my pupils: in order to play things your way, you first have to be able to play it.

(There was a story that the concert pianist, Murray Perahia, one told the legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz that he wanted to be “more than a virtuoso”. “Ah”, said Horowitz “But first you need to be a virtuoso!”).

One pupil of mine, who I’ll call Michael, once lamented the fact that he never got a really good mark in piano exams. He was bright, musical and had a good keyboard facility. “Okay” I said, “ Let’s go through your last exam report again.” He read it through. Of the first piece played, the examiner made a suggestion that would have made it better. “That’s what you said” observed Michael. The examiner made a comment on the second piece. “You told me that too” said Michael. It continued in this vein until, at the end, Michael turned to me and said “Okay, I’ll do it your way this time!”. He did, his exam came round and he got a good mark! The lesson here is that, before you can express yourself in music, you first have to be able to play the music. How can you execute your own interpretation if you can’t play the notes? Which brings me onto my next point:

3.       Practice makes progress.

Playing an instrument takes hard work and a lot of it. Think about it – to play the piano, you need to read two lines of music and then convert that into the physical action of playing notes with your fingers. One hand will do one thing and the other will do something else. Multitasking. If you were to pick up a book in a foreign language once a week for 30 minutes and then put it away until the next week, how quickly would you learn that language? If you spent your whole week in bed, just getting up to try to walk once a week for just thirty minutes, how quickly would your muscles develop, and your legs be able to do what your brain tells them? Practice is vital and needs to be regular if you are to have a chance of getting to grips with any instrument. Some people want an easy ride, though.

One lady contacted me and said that she wanted her child to have lessons but she didn’t want them to have to practise. I said that she needed to find another teacher.

One gentleman asked me to teach him so that he could play his favourite songs. He didn’t want to learn to read music, but he was willing to be guided by me as I was the expert. I explained that, short of teaching him songs by rote, he would need to at least read one line of music for his right hand. He trusted my judgement, he said. We had an introductory session where he showed me how he could play the beginnings of some tunes by following an app which pointed to the notes on the piano. I said, again, that the easiest course of action would be to learn to read at least a little bit. He told me that I knew best. I never heard from him again. Thank God.

I don’t always enjoy practising. I like to play. But practising is necessary in order to get a piece under your fingers. There is no way round it. As a result, countless hours of work are needed for someone to reach a good standard of playing.

Going off on a tangent for a moment: I used to feel guilty when getting paid for playing the organ at weddings. It felt wrong to charge people money for playing the bridal march, the wedding march and three hymns. I could literally do it blindfolded. Then, one day, I looked at the church and saw the photographer. If, God forbid, he had dropped dead, who would take photos? Answer: almost everyone. If they couldn’t operate his camera, they could still take some decent pictures on their phones. If I dropped dead, who would play the organ? Couples are happy to pay hundreds of pounds to the photographer for his work but look shocked at being asked to pay the organist! Similarly, people think £120 is a lot for an organist to play at a wedding but £90 is reasonable for a plumber just to take a look at your dripping tap! Now, I realise that plumbing is a more essential service than organ playing, but it only takes about 3 years to qualify whereas it would take a musician 8 or more years to reach a standard where they could play for a wedding! When people tell a musician how clever they are or how talented, they’re completely forgetting the fact that the musician has dedicated a substantial part of their life to reaching that standard. It doesn’t just happen. Rant over…

4.       Some people shouldn’t bother.

I do often wonder why people actually have piano lessons. I have taught adults who want lessons but don’t practise and sometimes don’t even turn up. I realise that life can be busy but, if you have a weekly lesson booked, how can you forget (sometimes until a week later)? It’s really annoying to be waiting for a pupil to turn up only for nothing to happen. In these cases, I have messaged to ask if all is okay only to get an “I’m so sorry!” but sometimes not until the next day. It’s even worse when you do the lesson at their house and make the journey only to find nobody is home.

I ask pupils to sign an agreement that they will pay for lessons which do not take place with less than 24 hours’ notice (or no notice at all). Some will apologise and pay immediately. In these cases, I’ll often put the fee against the next lesson because I accept that life sometimes gets in the way and it’s not always the pupil’s fault. But some don’t bother and seem to feel there’s nothing to pay for. To my mind, that’s a little insulting.

Children can be disorganised but then the parent needs to take responsibility for ensuring the child turns up for the lesson and practises during the week. As a child, my mother would threaten to stop my lessons if I didn’t practise and that was enough to make me go to the piano. I obviously wanted to play badly enough to do the practice. This doesn’t work with some children though. A child, who had some potential, used to regularly turn up for lessons having done no work since the last one. His mother rang for advice. I asked if she had told him that she would stop paying for his lessons if he didn’t practise.

“Oh yes, but he really like the lessons.” She said.

“But he still doesn’t practise?” I asked.

“No. I wondered about saying I would buy him a video game if he practised.”

“Why did he start piano lessons in the first place? Whose idea was it?”

“Oh his! He really wants them.”

“So…you’re going to bribe him to do something that he wants to do?!!!”

I didn’t see the logic then and still don’t now. Incidentally, he stopped having lessons shortly after, if my memory serves.

Whether you or your child wants lessons, you have to accept that you will need to make an effort. Turning up for the lesson isn’t enough. And although I (and any other teacher) could take your money knowing that you or your child isn’t going to make any progress, I don’t want to! It’s really boring to have to keep going over the same thing over and over because it hasn’t been practised. Life’s too short. Which raises the question…

5.       Does a teacher have a duty to persevere with a pupil?

No. They don’t. If someone is trying their best but struggling, accept that they are doing all they can and put in as much effort as you can in return. But if they’re not practising or not turning up or spending most of the lesson chatting to avoid actually playing, it’s time to part company. I’m fortunate in that I teach because I can and because I choose to. I teach part-time and it’s not my main source of income. I might feel differently if this was all I did but it isn’t and I don’t. Please don’t waste my time!

6.       Sometimes the wrong person is having lessons

This is not repeating point 4. But sometimes a parent will contact me and ask for lessons for their child. Further discussion sometimes reveals that the parent “always wanted to learn but never had the chance”. Fine. Have lessons yourself then. Don’t inflict them on your child just because you didn’t get to do it. If you’re not careful, you’ll just put them off music.

7.       Exams aren’t the be-all and end-all.

My first teacher was an ageing spinster. She taught from her living room. The piano stool was a box-type affair, fixed in height. If you were 4’ 6’’ or 6’4’’ made no difference – you used that stool. There was a block of wood under the pedals so you couldn’t use them, and I don’t think I used pedals for 5 years (someone visited our house and played the piano in such a way they disabled the pedal. It wasn’t until I eventually took off the bottom panel that I was able to see the problem and fix it. This also makes me think that we didn’t get the piano tuned very often!). Every September/October, we began work on the pieces for the next grade examination, which we took in London in December. In January we started playing non-exam music. I think we were able to choose pieces or books ourselves. I don’t remember my teacher ever suggesting a book or piece.

That was a fairly rigid regime but it worked for me. We did an exam each year (I did two in one year to catch up with my brother who had started lessons before me) and I still got to play ragtime, Star Wars and various classical pieces. 2-3 months didn’t seem too long to spend on exam repertoire.

But some teachers will start on exam repertoire 5-6 months before the exam. I can’t help but feel this is too long. If the student has to play them for the whole time, they will surely get bored (and, as a class teacher, I have worked with children in that position who have complained that they could no longer stand their exam pieces, having practised them for so long). Even if they learn a piece and put it away for a while, they will still need to come back to it and start practising it again to bring it up to exam standard.

Why do teachers to this? There are probably a number of reasons. It’s possible that the student is a very slow learner. But, sometimes, the teacher places so much importance on their own reputation (Mrs Keys’ pupils always do so well in exams) that it becomes a priority. Of course, no-one wants their pupil to do badly in an exam but learning to play an instrument should always prioritise enjoyment. If you aren’t enjoying it, why are you doing it at all?

I always ask students of any age if they want to do exams. Some do and some don’t. I don’t mind either way. There are a couple of things to be said in favour of taking them. For one thing, it provides something to work towards. Pupils who have instrumental lessons at school might be able to play in a concert. This gives them a goal. Those who study privately might not have that opportunity. Many private teachers will organise concerts for their students to perform but it’s not always practical or possible. An exam can give a sense of structure.

An exam can also be a marker for progress. Teachers can look at their students, think back to where they were a year ago and see how far things have come in the meantime. But that can be harder for students. Their progress is so gradual that they don’t see any improvement. An exam result can be a motivating notch on the bedpost, marking progress and proving to the pupil (and maybe their peers) that they have really achieved something.

This is true for adults as well as children. I left college playing at higher diploma level but, for long and boring reasons, didn’t take a diploma. I knew I could play but people often looked disappointed, unimpressed or even sorry for me when they found I hadn’t got one. When I finally made myself practise (not enough) to get one, it made absolutely no difference to my life. The certificate sits in a frame somewhere upstairs in the spare room. It’s not even on the wall! It serves no useful purpose unless to give me some sort of credibility when I use the letters after my name. I only took it because the itch needed to be scratched.

Finally…

8.       Teaching is a great way to learn.

I think someone once said that you only really understand something when you have to teach it to someone else. There’s some truth in that. I have often been in a situation where a pupil points to something in their music and asks, “Why is it like that?”. Sometimes the answer is very straightforward and easy. But sometimes it isn’t and I have to stop and ask myself “why?”.  I may have known it for many years but never really questioned it or thought about it. In doing so and then explaining it to the pupil, I come away with a better understanding. Similarly, when showing how to physically play something, I have to explain what I’m doing. I have been doing it without thinking for nearly 50 years, but I’ve never really thought about it. That may be because some of my first teachers never talked about technique very much. But it does make me re-evaluate what I do automatically,

This is one of the things that makes teaching so enjoyable. The interactions with the pupil and watching their progress are both great but there is a considerable bonus in that teaching enriches the teacher. It would be nice to think it makes them better at their job but, I suppose, you’d have to ask my pupils about that!