Amplify one, then amplify all.

Last night was the final round of Greeley's version of the Kiwani's Stars of Tomorrow competitions.  We had three students from our piano studio make it into the finals and they all played quite well, but none of them won.  Nonetheless, it was a very positive experience for all.  Furthermore, all of the winners played well and deserved recognition.  Elementary, Middle, and High School divisions were all awarded to pianists all from the same family.  The Best in Show award went to a high school violinist.

O.K., here is the gripe.  This is a talent show that accepts any kind of performer.  Singers and dancers are very popular and are always amplified.  In between singers, there are young pianists that are not amplified.  They sound like they are playing in another zip code.  The only way to compete in this situation is to resort to theatrics and banging the piano to smithereens.  Therefore, tasteful, polished performances don't stand a chance against loud, crass, and sloppy playing.  This is especially true in the elementary and middle school divisions because of smaller hands and smaller sounds.  If everyone were amplified then the pianists would be on equal footing with the 7 year olds singing something cute, the middle schoolers singing something country (and flat!), and the High-schoolers singing something inappropriate.  Not only that, but the expressive players would be on equal footing with the pounders.

It would be nice if they would have the piano tuned as well.  Maybe that's why they won't amplify the pianos...

Middle School Piano Students

Students in middle school are more likely to quit piano lessons than any other age group.  Why is this?  Here is a list of reasons.

1. Students are more self conscious of gender roles.  Boys frequently quit at this age because "piano is for girls".  In elementary school, we have roughly the same number of boys as we do girls enrolled in lessons.  By high school, girls outnumber boys by about 5 to 1.
2. Students are developing their sense of personal identity and are attempting to separate themselves from things they perceive as childish.  Students that started in elementary school can begin to view piano as something for kids.
3. Students are being allowed to make more decisions about what they do.  Piano lessons are often the most challenging activity kids are involved in.  Because kids at this age have difficulty seeing the long term rewards of playing the piano, they will frequently want to quit at this age because it is too hard.  Parents frequently will decide that they no longer want to "fight this battle", so the student is allowed to quit.
4. There is greater peer pressure to fit in.  Since piano is a pretty solitary activity most of the time, it is vulnerable to outside pressures.  When competing against more visible activities, such as sports, piano can be a hard sell.  Plus, most middle school bands and orchestras have no chair for a piano.  

So, how do we keep these students?  I think positive adult musical models help.  Assigning more popular music helps motivate students and gives them something that they are willing to play for their friends.  Offering group classes for students of similar ages can really help as well.  Taking students to piano concerts can help students envision piano as something for adults.  That can be a powerful motivator for a middle schooler who is trying to appear less childlike.  

No matter what we do, Middle School is a challenging time for students and their parents.  As teachers, we can do our best to be supportive and use our best motivational tools.  For parents, we recommend love and logic.

What qualifications does one need to teach piano?

I am continually amazed at how many people in my community teach piano who have little or no expertise in the subject.  People who barely play the instrument themselves take money to teach others the fundamentals of piano playing.  As a pianist who has dedicated the last 20+ years to the instrument, it is quite frustrating to see bright, enthusiastic young minds, eager to learn music, taken in by teachers who may have had lessons in high school, but quit because it was too hard.  There are teachers who can't sight read the simplest of music. There are teachers who can't count dotted rhythms. There are teachers who can't match pitch. There are teachers who teach using untunable  instruments that were built before we had the automobile.

How do I know this is true?  Because I talk to these people.  I meet them when I tune their pianos at home or at church.  I've even met them at local MTNA meetings.  I see a couple of old method books sitting next to the piano, and I ask "are you taking lessons?".  They will then say "no, I teach piano".  I will then say, "Oh!  How long have you been playing?"  Then they tell me something like,"Well, I had voice lessons in high school, and I've sort of taught myself to play.  When I had kids, I needed some extra money, and when I inherited this piano from my grandmother, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to start my own studio."  I then try to hide my feelings of disgust.

Is it not unethical to take a family's money and a student's time teaching a subject which is beyond your own comprehension?

Sorry for the rant, but it has taken 10 years for Robyn and I to build up a full studio in Greeley.  Why so long?  Because, there are a multitude of housewives and retirees who take private students, but have no qualifications and no business teaching.  None of them charge enough to make a living, some of them barely charge anything at all, and some of them copy music illegally for their students.

So to answer the question, "What qualifications does one need to teach piano?"  The answer is obviously none.  It is up to parents to have high enough standards to seek out qualified teachers for their kids.

New Class

We have decided that having 19 students in our studio at one time is a bit much, so we are splitting the 6th-12th grade class into two parts.  High school students will now meet at 1:00-2:00 for master-classes.

A busy fall so far!

August and September have been very busy. The new semester began in August, with our combined teaching load at 39 hours. With several tunings a week for me and with Robyn's job at Mountain View Academy, this is normally a very manageable schedule, but a couple of things have made the last two months extra busy. The first is our rehearsal schedule for our upcoming duo recital. The second is that the piano we have been piano-sitting for the past 7 years has been called home to its owner in Wisconsin. That has meant piano shopping and piano moving. The third, is that UNC has yet again lost a piano technician, which meant that I had more tuning work than I expected. All of the above has conspired to steal away every bit of down time we would have had over the past two months.

Putting together a Duet recital has been lot of work. Practicing, rehearsing, booking the hall, and advertising have kept us quite busy. We are really enjoying playing together though, and have already begun planning our next recital which will be for two pianos.

Private Piano Lessons vs. Online Piano Lessons

There are easily more than 50 different websites offering some form of "online piano lessons". There must be a fairly large number of people attempting to learn how to play the piano this way and my ears hurt just thinking about it. But, who knows, maybe in another 10 years, we will be hearing great things from countless performing artists who have learned to play only by taking piano courses online. I highly doubt it, though. Here are some reasons that I think private lessons are still the best way to learn how to play the piano.

1. Private lessons provide intelligent, instant feedback.

Once computers achieve sentience, online lessons may give traditional teachers a run for their money, but until then, the best that a program of online lessons can provide is information, video, and recordings. While these are great tools for enhancing one's knowledge and understanding of music, there is no substitute for a thoughtful and observant teacher who can catch problems as they are happening and correct them.

2. Expression!

Music is best when played with appropriate expression. Good luck getting any feedback about this aspect from online lessons.

3. Customized Experience.

Teaching privately involves a lot of give and take. A great (or even a good) teacher can evaluate your current skill and knowledge and help to fill your most immediate needs immediately. Online lessons are not able to do this in any real way.

4. Personal attention.

The value of a working student/teacher relationship is one that is difficult to overstate. A full hour of personal attention every week from a teacher who has no other interest than to help you become the best at playing a musical instrument that you love has tremendous psychological benefits. Even a simple pat on the back for a job well done is something that online lessons can't duplicate.

5. Non-verbal transmission of skills and knowledge.

My most effective teaching occurs without speaking a word. There is no faster way to fix technical issues or to communicate interpretive subtleties than to show the student what they are currently doing, and then show them new possibilities for movement or expression. In fact, frequently, this is the only effective way to address musical and technical problems at the piano.

6. Creative give and take.

Playing piano is an interpretive art. It is not an exact science. If this were not the case, then there would be no reason to play the piano in the first place. What would be the point? Even the simplest of pieces offer many possibilities for interpretation. A teacher can help you decide which of your ideas are worth exploring, and which ones test the limits of good taste. Furthermore, a teacher can help you discover ideas that you would never have thought of on your own.

The value of private lessons far exceeds anything online lessons could hope to offer. There is no substitute for a great teacher.

Top ten reasons to stick with piano over the summer

Every year we have a few students that decide they want to "take a break" from piano for the summer. The upcoming summer activity schedule can quickly get pretty thick. First there is that trip to the Caribbean coming up, then baseball, or swimming, or tennis, or soccer, or all of the above. Well here are some arguments for sticking with piano through the summer that may have slipped your mind while you were off shopping for shorts and sun-tan lotion.

1. Competition! Students who continue with piano lessons over the summer have a huge edge over those that don't. Consider this: Our summer session is 2 months long, and it takes about a month (sometimes two) to get back into the swing of things after such a long break. So every year, the students who continue with lessons over the summer will be 3 months ahead of where they would have been if they had taken a "break". That means that a student who misses every summer for 4 years will be a full year behind where they could have been if they had continued through the summer.
2. Maintenance. Think about other things that without a certain degree of maintenance would simply fall apart, or worse, if we decided to "take a break". Have you ever quit a membership to a gym with the intention of starting up again? How did that work out? Well, students who don't have lessons all summer not only lose momentum, they get really rusty. Muscles used in creating music at the piano atrophy and the patterns of fine motor coordination begin to fade. In fact, after two months of neglect, their playing can take two months to recover. Two very long and painful months for all involved. I'm sure you can imagine what this might do to a student's motivation.
3. Focus. Even though summers can be filled with lots of extra activities, think about all of the things you don't have to do! No school and no homework means 6, 7, 8 or more hours a day suddenly free! What are you going to do some of that time? Practice! Not only that, your practicing won't be constantly interrupted by thoughts like, "I have to remember to finish my science project", or "How on Earth DO you spell 'podzolization' anyway?" Summer is likely to be the most productive 2 months of practicing all year!
4. Fun! Student's schedules are generally much more relaxed in the summer, allowing for the possibility of more group activities like duets or chamber music. Since students have more time available for practicing, they might add that fun Star Wars or Hannah Montana piece they have always wanted to play. As long as you commit to practicing your regular lesson stuff, your teacher should be on board!
5. New Projects. Summer is the perfect time to start projects that, for many students, just aren't feasible during the school year. Students may decide to compose a piano sonata or start work on playing a piano concerto. They could pick a composer and listen to his or her complete works. The possibilities are endless!
6. Extra lessons! Another possibility is scheduling up to 6 extra lessons during the Summer. But the cool thing is, these extra lessons can be totally different than your regular lesson. Students can use this extra time to get help with their summer project (see above), or we could spend those extra lessons focusing on a special area of interest. Some ideas include intensive studies of rhythm, sight reading, composition, music history, improvisation, listening, harmony, Beethoven, technique, tuning, and more. The important thing to realize is that your hour a week lesson really only allows us to graze the surface of the great depths of music. We could easily fill several hours a day just covering essential musical skills.
7. Keep your spot! Some of our students don't realize that if you quit piano during the summer, you run the risk of losing your spot permanently! We have a maximum of 50 hours a week (although we try to keep it down to 45 or so) to dedicate to teaching students after school, and we always have students waiting to get in. So when a student leaves, the spot goes to the next person in line. Just like everyone else, we have bills to pay and we need to keep our studio full in order to keep our rates low and our heads above water.
8. Camp! Camp is one of the funnest things about taking lessons with Gould and Fall Piano. Just ask our students who do it every year! We offer two, week-long summer camps every year available only to students registered for summer session. While we have made exceptions to the registration rule in the past, we are no longer allowing students to quit for the summer and still do camp. If you are not registered, you are no longer a student of Gould and Fall Piano, and you lose any benefits that go with registration.
9. Continuity. The loss of structure that comes with summer vacation can be a challenge. "Huh?" you say, "what can be better that no school?" Well, after a couple of weeks, having little or no schedule can mean boredom. Furthermore, continuous piano lessons can provide a bridge that makes the transition from school to summer and back again a little less shocking. It also helps students stay motivated, because they don't have to deal with the atrophy that occurs with an extended vacation. (see Maintenance above).
10. We miss you if you leave! Believe it or not, we like you. We love teaching our students, and we miss them if they leave. Teaching and playing piano is not just our livelihood, it is our life. When students leave, our long-term dreams for them are at best postponed, and at worst cancelled. We invest not only our time and money into teaching our students, we invest ourselves. We ache when students leave.