Help in designing a survey of good pianists?

[ericnolte]

Revised 30.VI.03, at 2352 GMT)

Hello all,

  I've posted a draft of a survey over on the Students' Corner of the piano forum, and it seems to me that I might do better by starting over here, with the teachers.  You would naturally have a more didactic and analytic turn of mind (I hope that doesn't sound pejorative!) and maybe I can enlist some of you to help with what I think is a worthy project for our little community, as we strive to realize our talents at the keyboard.

  Does anyone here have experience of designing a good survey?  I want to know something about what psychologists would call the "set range" of hours at the piano, between which one might expect a student to reach a very high level of accomplishment.  I keenly realize that other factors would be more important, among which are the student's native talent, interest, and determination to achieve.  I'm certain that the number of hours spent practicing is not a sufficient explanation for such accomplishment, but it is a necessary condition for any such facility.  

  Well, how many hours?  What does it take to play Twinkle Twinkle?  The f minor two part invention of Bach?  Mozart's K.545?  A lively three voice fugue from the first book of Bach's WTC?  Beethoven Opus 14/1?  Opus 111?  Chopin Opus 10/1?  I think having such answers expressed as a range of hours might help bright kids who have a certain maturity, and would certainly help adult students, to gain some perspective on the problem, so that they will be encouraged to stick with music.  

  What a shame to abandon music, feeling that one will never gain great facility, when the likely truth is much more circumscribed, mundane, and, in a word, smaller, than that terrible insurmountable word, "never."  The more likely truth would be something  as simple as saying, "other people have been able to give a passable rendition of a certain piece after working at the piano for somewhere between x and z number of hours.  It's likely that you will too, but you have to put in those hours first, if you are to expect to achieve this."  I'm sure you tell your students something like this anyway, but given that we live in a world that instills in many an expectation that one is entitled to instant gratification, wouldn't it be a good thing to have some survey data to back up these claims, and some hard numbers for evidence?

  I believe the world is made a better, more peaceful place when people become enchanted by music, and perhaps this little project can do a little something to help others decide to stick with music long enough to open the door to this exalted realm, this little "parallel universe," which is music.  The magic words that open the door to this alternate universe work only when students get good enough to feel that incomparable thrill that comes with a high level of performance.  Anything (peaceful...   ) that gets them to stick with it long enough to cross that delightful threshold makes the world a better place.  They won't stick with it if they don't feel thrilled.  Kids crave such excitement as comes from being able to play well.  So do adults.  I suspect that it would encourage many to stay the course, knowing that achieving a high level of performance is a not a function of some utterly baffling alchemy, sprinkled upon the brows of god only knows whom, like pixie dust, for some indecipherable reason, and is instead a predictable product of putting in a known range of effort.

  Of course, we know that some lucky few enjoy the pixie dust too, but this is a realm that remains, for at least a while more, inscrutable.  We here are concerned with how "muggles" can learn to fly too, if they persist for long enough.  I just want to know how long it takes....

  If you're interested, have a look at my post over on the Student's Corner, called "New Survey: how long...." and let me know what you think, and how I might design a better survey.

  If you're interested to hear more about how I'm thinking about the survey and the answers I'd like to get, you can have a look at my other post on the Student Corner, called "My New Survey Explained."

Sincerely yours,

Eric Nolte