Russian Piano Teaching Method?

[rebecca]

I just recently took over a teacher's student.  The teacher is a Russian and graduated from St. Pittsburg Conservatory.  She is a very fine teacher whose students are pretty outstanding.  The student is at the intermediary level.  He plays Clementi's Sonatina, Bach, and Czerny (purely classical and technical stuff).  Here is the strangest thing: his note reading is very poor!  He basically memorizes all music that he plays.  I asked the parent and found out that it was how the teacher taught him—by demonstrating the music to him.  

This student was in the YAMAHA Music Education System for 4 years, equivalent to Level 2 -3 in the Bastian method.  He studied with this Russian teacher for about 6 months right after he finished YAMAHA.  

I personally think that it’s too fast to make a toddler learn how to fly.  The contrary thing is that most of this Russian teacher’s students are excellent!!  I would like to hear your opinion or experience if you happened to encounter students like that or to teach the same way as that Russian teacher.  

[bernhard]

You did not mention the age of your student. I will assume he is around ten.

Most children at this age will have great resistance to reading music, because they have not reached the stage of fluent pattern recognition and interval reading, They are laboriously deciphering note by note on the score and probably they do it only during the lesson, which typically happens once a week.

I certainly don not teach by the Russian method (actually I do not even believe in the existence of a Russian method!), but I do start teaching by rote because students want to play, and if we are going to wait until they can read music, they will give up!

However, I believe that reading music is the single most important skill a student can acquire so we are at it from the very first lesson. Even if it is a small child who cannot read and write, I will teach music reading (Why should reading language precede music reading? Music reading is far simpler). I think Anda mentioned in one of her posts that she teaches note recognition on the score before note recognition on the keyboard. I completely agree and I follow the same approach (I think): First they are taught to recognise the names of the notes on the score. At the same time they are taught to recognise the names of the keys on the piano. Only when can they do both well do I start to show the correspondence between score and keyboard. Once they can do that we start interval recognition and reading by following the “curves” on the score rather than by reading individual notes. Other things are going on at the same time, most importantly recognition of scales and chords. It all follows a very systematic and organised procedure and by the end of anything between three months and two years the student should be able to sight-read music more or less fluently, but certainly without difficulty. All the while we continue working on pieces, and if need be I will teach by rote, while I wait for the reading to catch up with the playing.

Now for your question. It seems to me that the Russian teacher may have had a similar approach, and was working on reading as well as playing, but by the time the student got to you the reading had not caught up with the playing (don’t pay too much attention to what the parents say – their description is not informed enough). After all she was with him for only six months.

Memorising is good. It is not a question of reading X memory, but rather now that he can memorise well he should bring his reading skill to the same level.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[rebecca]

Bernhard,

Thanks for your helpful comments.  You always provide helpful tips and insights.  You are right about the student's age.   As far as I know, this Russian teacher only gives each of her students very few pieces to play in a year.  Her students have to keep working on the same thing until they are fully ready to move on.

I was taught in a "traditional" way--learning how to read and play at the same time.  It seemed to be the most logical way.  It's the method that I use to teach my students.  The majority of my students have no problem reading notes, but some do struggle with it.  This Russian teacher's teaching method opens another window for me.  As you mentioned that you also teach rote memorization before note reading.    It's just so new to me, but it actually is worth a try.  However, students who first learn in rote may refuse to learn note reading.  Does it happen to your students?

Here are a couple of articles about Russian piano study if you are interested in reading them:
1. https://www.pianoeu.com/russianpiano.html
2. https://ucsub.colorado.edu/~murphyem/Russian.Piano.Teaching.html

- Rebecca

[Pianos2dio]

HI Rebecca:
I graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Russia, I'm not Russian thou.  I believe the reading problems more likely come from the Yamaha. In Russia note reading is not and "option" is a requirement. They work really careful every aspect of music making, from reading, aural, technical etc. In the 8 years I spent in Russia I had the privilege to observe many times the work with young pianist (ages 3-on) and you would be amazed how many of them new how to read music but no the titles of their pieces.
By the way, sorry about my English... it is my third language

[bernhard]

HI Rebecca:
I graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Russia, I'm not Russian thou.  I believe the reading problems more likely come from the Yamaha. In Russia note reading is not and "option" is a requirement. They work really careful every aspect of music making, from reading, aural, technical etc. In the 8 years I spent in Russia I had the privilege to observe many times the work with young pianist (ages 3-on) and you would be amazed how many of them new how to read music but no the titles of their pieces.
By the way, sorry about my English... it is my third language

Rebecca:

Thank you for the interesting sites.

Can you tell us a bit more about the Russian teacher methods?

Piano2dios:

There is another thread discussing the Russian piano school. I would be most interested in your opinion (since you had first hand experience):

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=perf;action=display;num=1070796095

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[anda]

the russian school insists on sight-reading! we have classes for reading and accompanying other instrument players - separate from actual piano lessons.

i always require my students to sight-read any new work with both hands together, and if the work is not too difficult i even hold a book over their hands so that they have to read without watching the hands. also, i hold a hand on the score always on the bar they're playing so that they have to look ahead. it's a bit of a nag, but they get used pretty fast.

[nyonyo]

I took lesson from this teacher. This teacher is the best piano teacher that I have ever had. I had also another teacher from Moscow Conservatory. In 1991, he was young and what he care was just to make money. In addition, he had no teaching experiences.

For years, I had bad techniques (stiff). Most teacher will say relax.....but none knew how to correct me. Due to this stiffness, I was not able to play Chopin's etude (Revolutionary). In one lesson, she was able to show me what relax is......Before taking lesson from her, my forearms got tired easily...

If she taught the aforemetioned student only for 6 months, it means she had given up on that student. That is why she transferred to you.....you basically received students whom she thinks has no hope....It is sad but I believe she has better students in line.

I wish there were more piano teacher like her....

[helga]

True Russian school has nothing to do with rote memorization. It is all about  beautiful tone, solid technique,  and carefully graduated curriculum, they don't rush giving master level pieces played  presto. There is a lot of work going into theory, solfeggio, duet playing all subordinated to one goal: musicality and expression.  By the way I agree with one of the posts, that probably Russian school is a thing of the past. Van Cliburn was a student of Rosina Lhevinne (spelling?) and she was Russian, but she prepared a bunch of outstanding American pianists. As to that particular case, there are good teachers and bad teachers, doesn't matter whether they are Russian or not. Same goes for students. Some probably will be better off listening to music than making it.