new adult pupil

[trinapiano]

 I have a new adult pupil starting pretty soon. Shes in her 20s, plays cello to around abrsm grade 7/8, has theory at a high grade also and had piano lessons before for about a year as a child. Im a newbie teacher though and this is my first adult pupil so Im not entirely sure what to do. Any suggestions? suggestions on possible easy repertoire and studies etc welcome too..

[elspeth]

Being an adult beginner who came to piano with similar and higher qualifications on flute, I hope some of the following will make some sense!

You might well find she won't get on with the normal tutor books which all seem to assume no prior musical knowledge because she'll variously feel bored or patronised, by the book if not by you. Teach from repertoire instead. ABSRM do sets of graded 'easy' pieces, maybe look at some of them. Schumann 'Album for the young' is good. And when you think she's up to it, there are always the Bach 2-part inventions... If she's anything like me she'll shy away from the 'easy transcriptions of famous pieces' type books. Being good enough to play 'proper' pieces gave me a loathing of watered down versions, especially when I knew what they ought to sound like... Choose pieces with her that she likes, and within reason don't be scared of setting her pieces a page or two long even to start with, because with her background she's unlikely to find 8- or 12- bar pieces satisfying or motivating to learn. When you want to start her on a new piece, give her a choice of two or three - play them for her and let her pick one she likes. She's much more likely to stick with it then.

As she's a cellist, for playing purposes you may find her bass clef reading is excellent but her treble a bit halting. I had this in reverse being a flutist, my treble was fluent and my bass rather halting because I'd spent the previous 15 years playing in treble and only reading bass enough to do the theory exams. Conversely you may find her dexterity with the fingers of her right hand may be better than her left (right hand on the strings, left on the bow). Maybe do some simple harmony with her as theory practise - finding relative chords and simple inversions and things like that (she should already know what they are!).

She should already have good practise habits and understand things like 'scales are boring but essential' - so don't be scared of setting her scales straight away!

She probably already has composers she likes from her cello repertoire, so maybe try her with piano pieces by those composers. At the same time you're going to have to introduce her to piano literature, so use the composers she already likes as a starting point. 'That composer didn't really write much for piano, but here's someone similar in style who did.'

The stuff that goes with the territory with adult pupils... Some weeks she may not have time to practise - or certainly not an hour or more a day. Work and family will get in the way. As long as she tells you that and as long as it's not every week, let it go if it does happen occasionally. Do hold her to account for practising - obviously not in the same way you would with a child but if you don't think she's practising hold her responsible for it. Talk to her about it first lesson - how long does she anticipate practising each day/how many days a week, how does she practise on her cello, how can she adapt that to suit learning piano.

Talk to her about what her goals are. She may or may not want to go through the grind of grade exams again, she may just have a list of pieces that one day she'd like to play, so work towards them, not the exams. Is she still having cello lessons, what are her goals there and how does learning piano fit into that? For instance, does she want to teach cello and therefore want good enough piano skills to accompany for her pupils? And if that's the case what kind of timescale is she thinking about and is it feasible?

When I was just beginning my single biggest problem, having the musical background from before, was frustration. I would be working on pieces which were not difficult on my flute-playing scale of easy and difficult, and get annoyed at myself because I could see how the piece should go but I wasn't good enough to 'just' play it as I would be able to on flute. A certain amount of reassuance can be helpful just to remind her that being a beginner and finding 'easy' stuff tricky and making mistakes is OK and normal and she's progressing just fine. It took me a few months to stop criticising my piano playing by the same standards I criticise my flute playing.

Good luck!

[pianowelsh]

Very good point Elspeth about the self criticism.  She will need to be able to work in a level of quality almost straight away of she will get frustrated to the point of discontinuing. This is primarily a repertoire issue. The way I often get around this IS by setting etudes and studies which are musically satisfying but are in terms of facility and coordination fairly straight forward. that way we can get into the nitty gritty of making good sound and phrasing and articulation and detail and hone things almost straight away. Simultaneously is good to have a few pieces she aspires to in the reperotoire that are getting off the blocks but are perhaps more technically challenging or longer in terms of coordination and concentration stamina.  I find the prelude literature is fantasic for these kinds of students because they get musical gems in a very condensed form.  OK it may be very hard for them to handle repeated chords in one hand whilst they have a melody they have to shape in the other BUT its only 24 bars long - so its doable and - well! She must have pieces that she can be polishing off in a matter of a few weeks to a very good level - that way progress is very tangible and she will remain motivated.