Teaching over the internet

[Bob]

Have anyone tried this?  What's involved?  How well does it work?  Do you make any money at it?  Is it worthwhile?

[m1469]

Who's asking ?

[dan101]

I do. It's a lot of work. Web sites have to be constantly updated and you really have to be prepared for anything. You can teach through website content and related products, or by direct consultation. It's quite time consuming.

I hope this was helpful. Good luck in whatever you're aimimg to pursue.

[Bob]

Who's asking ?

Umm... I'm asking.    

I was wondering how much of an option it is and how much of a hassle it is to set things up.  Compared with teaching live.  I'm not confident enough in technology though, so I doubt I would attempt it.  And then the effort by the student too... I would think that would limit it to adults who are capable of setting up their computer things.  I'm not confident in my computer I suppose.  But I'm wondering how you teach -- Can you view their hands or posture?  Is the sound great?  Is there any extra time involed between their live playing and you hearing it? Quality issues I suppose.  And payment.  Do you have to own a website to do it?

Just how it all works in general. 

[m1469]

Well, there can obviously be different ways of going about it.  At the bottom of it all, just like teaching in person, what anybody gets out of it is going to be dependent on what is being put into it.  There are limitations to teaching in person and there are limitations to teaching over the internet ... there are pros and cons with everything.

Even with my private students in my home studio, I end up communicating quite a bit over the internet and exchanging info over the internet with them during the week.  The only difference is that they actually physically come to my house once a week.

As far as sound quality and these things go, of course that is dependent on the equipment being used.  As far as payment goes, paypal is an option, I think, just like is used here on PS for a gold membership.  We as forumers are already brinking on the educational side of internet piano experiences ... and like I mentioned before, what we get out of it is dependent on what's put into it. 

Also, just to mention, I have had "lessons by phone" before, too.  I didn't play for the person but we discussed subjects and treated it like some kind of lesson.  The internet and webcams are less limiting than a mere phone call for sure.

[viking]

You absolutely have to check this out.  It's a commercial involving my friend, and my teacher, Marc Durand.
https://about.telus.com/proudsupporter/rcm.html

[thierry13]

HAHAHAHA his "very good lucas, wow" at the end was SOOOO full of conviction LOLL genuis 

[Bob]

I suppose a practical way of knowing is to actually attempt it.  Find a guniea pig.  I think I really need decent sound and a view of their overall posture and hand position though.  Probably on both ends so I can demonstrate what I'm talking about. 

It just sounds interesting.  And considering the amount of beginners, the pool must be huge.  The technical hurdles would weed out a lot though. 

[leahcim]

I think I really need decent sound and a view of their overall posture and hand position though.  Probably on both ends so I can demonstrate what I'm talking about. 

It just sounds interesting.  And considering the amount of beginners, the pool must be huge.  The technical hurdles would weed out a lot though. 

Yes, and there's the rub...The very thing that the hopeless and beyond help have grasped amongst all these forum posts is the idea that, one day, some great teacher could look at their playing and say "No, you're wiggling that bit incorrectly, do it like this instead...see? Now you can play!" - and that's pretty much what you won't get either easily or very well at all.

So yeah, the pool is huge, but we've done the books / videos / forum posts and so on...this would just be something else that would fail miserably and then tantalisingly leave the idea that if we met a great teacher face-to-face, in the same room, and with a piano, it could work this time...

Better to meet face-to-face and prove them wrong once and for all, so they can get on with their lives. Forget this, it won't work.

If you think it will, just teach the people on youtube. You've half a million to start with there. If they aren't giving you enough information in their videos then it's doubtful anything else will.

OTOH, if you think a particular video would benefit from you making your own video to respond like "no wiggle like this..." Why not just make a video showing us all how to play properly?

See? Someone like myself wants this "it's easy to demonstrate" actually demonstrated. If you can't show me this thing that Bernhard went on and on about "easier to demonstrate" in a video then you can't possibly teach over the internet.

That said, I've watched hundreds of piano videos ranging in skill, everyone from Horowitz to youtube's own Barry Poor-Posture. Playing everything from chopsticks to Rach 3. Although they help a little, I still feel clueless about how I should play - and what, if anything, I should wiggle or move to get a piece that sounds completely crap so it sounds musical.

The irony is, most threads on the subject inevitably jump to some asinine Buddhist-esque nonsense about finding / discovering your own way of playing comfortably. Suggesting that my new book "years of fruitless practise and agonising pain on your piano - go figure it out for yourself" sponsored by aspirin, will sell shedloads

[johnk]

This is to Leahcim. You are so negative! If you really are a fanatical music lover, and you practice intelligently, you WILL learn to play the piano. You should be the guineapig! Put up a YouTube video with your webcam to show us how well (or badly) you play, and what standard. Let some of the wise people here see and hear you. They could then do a video response. Maybe you should spend less time on this forum and more on the piano.

[leahcim]

This is to Leahcim. You are so negative! If you really are a fanatical music lover, and you practice intelligently, you WILL learn to play the piano. You should be the guineapig! Put up a YouTube video with your webcam to show us how well (or badly) you play, and what standard. Let some of the wise people here see and hear you. They could then do a video response. Maybe you should spend less time on this forum and more on the piano.

Eh? I've spent hours and hours and hours over years practising the piano. Sometimes as much as 8 hours a day. Far, far more time than I've ever spent on the forum. Especially of late. Thanks for your advice, but please don't let emotion overcome your posts to the point of typing invention.

I'm negative because I've practised, for hours a day for around 5 years and my playing is, after all that time, completely and utterly crap. At the same time, I've quite probably injured my arm permanently as a result and I'm, bar an official diagnosis, clinically depressed because of the whole shebang.

During that time I've tried everything and anything. Bar, if there is some magic, then I've not found it.

That is the reality of learning to play the piano for me. Dress that up to sound positive if you like. I'd welcome your positive take on complete and total failure - although I'm sure you'll have a better living writing speeches for election day candidates that "won" despite not getting as many votes as the others

I take pain killers and go cycling when I want things to feel a bit better, YMMV.

So what's this intelligent approach? Intelligence isn't carrying on doing something that does nothing other than to harm me physically and mentally. OTOH, perhaps that is positive? I'm sure thousands of people would and have given up years ago and some buffoon who wants to believe "anyone can play" decides that person didn't really love music or didn't really apply themselves or was a cripple or whatever other fantasy they have to invent to keep their mantra that "anyone can play" alive.

Bollocks and hogwash. There are plenty, scores of people who suffer the same kind of, to a greater or lesser degree, frustration that I have.

The positive thing I did, is to play every day despite the fact it makes little or no difference and is still crap. Positive in light of the fact that I can see, quite clearly on this youtube thing, that there are lots of people who are playing the piano and they get better at it, whatever their particular skill level is.

Read this https://www.thefundamentalaction.com where he describes his frustration. Read Steven Fry's autobiography, I got a copy for Christmas [Moab is my washpot IIRC] see his frustration - I'm not the only one by any means.

If Mr Fry isn't intelligent enough then none of us are.

Thus far we've already established from a few that if I can't play it's because I'm either stupid, lazy or crippled....or perhaps all 3. Or not doing some magic, as yet unstated thing.

We know about these magic methods...Bernhard can chuck out grade 8 pianists in, depending which post you believe 3-5 years or 1-3 years. Can you? If so, tell me the secret - because I want to know and I'll practise however many hours it takes...but I'm not bullshitting you, if you think learning pieces and practising them works then all I can say is, no, it doesn't. It might work for those people who figure out how to garner control over the keyboard without injury, but I cannot play without injury and with any consistency at all - nothing, not even an alberti bass, or a scale or just a single, rhythmical note in such a way that it's rhythmical, has the correct dynamics and sounds musical.

In 5 years I've never played a piece or extract of a piece that sounded good. I've not finished a single piece [although I've had the usual teacher "shall we try a new piece" despite that - in the vain hope that whatever stymies me from playing the last 100 pieces I've tried, this 101st one, with their "guidence" will prove to be the first piece I can play]

Perhaps instead. And I think this is more and more likely to be true as each year passes and teachers and postings offer nothing of substance. It's easy to say "with the right method" "with the right approach" - but there's nothing of substance there. Why make a new video? Has really no one made a piano video that's right already? I can get plenty of piano videos [and youtube is great in this respect] and I can see hundreds of the worlds greatest [and even the not so greatest] playing the piano superbly....I can sit and watch all day and try to copy them, but I cannot do it. No matter how hard I try, how slowly I play, how many hours I spend over and over, no matter what level of piece I pick. I cannot do it. I don't improve. The piece / scale or whatever it is has never gotten better. There's no positive "spin"to put on that. If I could play a piece, if I was getting better, no sod that, if I could play the piano for more than a few minutes without feeling pain, I'd be over the bloody moon, but unless that happens tomorrow, the truth today, and yesterday and every day before that is what I've written here - read my first post to the board instead and you'll see what I asked puts me in the same position I am, except in post one I didnt have the depression and the arm injury wasn't as severe.

But, you cannot possible chastise me by pointing out what a useless, worthless, negative failing piece of sh*t that makes me, that I don't already know and aren't already perfectly aware of. If you have something to offer, please post it, but please, don't bother telling me I should spend more time trying to play or waste time pointing out what a miserable git I am. I already know that, and it's that bloody 88-keyed thing sat in the corner that's the cause of it.

Perhaps some people just suck at playing musical instruments? As Mr Fry points out, this has little to do with his desire to want to do it or his love of music. That is the frustrating problem. I really couldn't give a fig if I can't play Jazz...that's another positive thing...yeah? Everyone who gives in playing the piano or who can't play, won't play jazz...which can only be a good thing

Funnily enough at this point, some people are thinking "well, that's why you can't play, because you don't like jazz..."

There's no standard I currently have. I can't play a single piece, not even minuet in G, from start to finish, without every technical aspect [timing, rhythm, dynamics and so on] being incorrect.

That said, if you really don't believe that. The problem I have at the moment wrt making a recording is getting the recording out of my piano and onto the computer. Hopefully we're getting a new computer soon and I will get a chance to do that and post something. But I don't hasten to have to prove that I can't play. It's ironic given that more often folk have to prove they /can/ play that I get these asinine requests from forums to prove that I'm really crap at the playing the piano There are better freak shows than a crap pianist.

But as I said, youtube is already filled with piano videos to use [if it isn't, then I don't see how mine would be], so I don't see that delay stopping potential teachers from demonstrating how it would work.

[Petter]

Have anyone tried this?  What's involved?  How well does it work?  Do you make any money at it?  Is it worthwhile?

Judging by the numbers of hits you get if you do a google search on "piano technique" or "piano lessons" I think its very hard to market yourself because the competition is absolutely brutal, especially if your not familiar with html and web design.
 I dont know anything about the actual process but Iīd prefer to meet a teacher in person. But I do think the internet would be an awesome complement for a student to keep correspondence with the teacher (unless it would trespass on his/her privacy of course)

[gerryjay]

 hey leahcim!
 i read your last post, and i have a word or two to tell you.
 
 my first advice should be: quit now. if the piano turns into a nightmarish source of frustration, give up. we must figure out what we can do in this life and what we canīt. the misery you say youīre in itīs your fault, dude.

 if you think thatīs a radical approach, i would give a second advice: quit for a while (letīs say, a year) and get professional help. i mean, perhaps you need to discuss in therapy your issues about perfection, results, effort, frustration, feelings of emptyness and unhappyness. nobody here at the forum looks like a shrink. furthermore, you need a doctor to see what happened to your arms.
then, get professional help - part 2: find a decent teacher. after a break, you could resume with some freshness and open mind. with the proper guidance, itīs almost impossible that you will not suceed in playing, at least, bachīs g major minuet (your example). notice that there is the possibility you wouldnīt: i knew people that, after a decade or more of study, would fail in playing that piece with the grade of exigence you have. there are several alternatives beyond getting rid of the piano: enjoy playing anything (i mean, very easy repertory), or accept imperfect renditions (why not?), etc.

 there is something i must tell you. if youīre not studying properly (and just listen to it, donīt try to contradict me) , the more you practice, the worst you do it. eight hours a day of misleading fire could only have two results: unfinished pieces and body injury.

 finally, if everything else fails, consider my advice number one. i donīt know how old are you, but everybody dreams at some point of impossible things. and beyond that, i donīt believe the superman theory: there are things you just canīt do, other that you will do only at average (or below) levels, and so on.

 i really do hope you find a way. best luck!

[leahcim]

my first advice should be: quit now. if the piano turns into a nightmarish source of frustration, give up. we must figure out what we can do in this life and what we canīt. the misery you say youīre in itīs your fault, dude.

Well, firstly, I am quitting without really wanting to. I used to play all day. Now I play a few hours a day. I would expect that trend to continue unless I make some improvement.

Over time I play less. But not playing won't stop me wanting to play. It won't make me any less frustrated at not being able to play either. It'll just make it guaranteed that I can't play. That'd be embracing the failure. Is there really no hope? No one who can describe how to play the piano? No video? No teachers? I don't want to believe that.

get professional help. i mean, perhaps you need to discuss in therapy your issues about perfection, results, effort, frustration, feelings of emptyness and unhappyness. nobody here at the forum looks like a shrink

Well, we have one pretender on the forum perhaps you missed his posts Trust me here, happy pills I don't need.

Look, a few people want to believe anyone can play, so when someone posts "I can't" they have to give a quick answer to rationalise it. So they say "oh you're negative" or "try reading the forum less" - or some asinine comment because they have nothing technical to offer me or their students.

So I tell folk the truth and in detail, and they won't even read it. But you didn't give that kind of "one reason" reply, so don't read too much into me saying I'm depressed. Like I said I'm not on a window ledge or anything. It was just to explain to those that want to give a quick answer that, whatever I feel now about playing it's because of the results of 5 years playing, and not the reverse.

I want to learn how to play the piano, not how to be happy not playing it If that's not possible then I'll figure out the alternative.

At best I learn from a lot of people questioning perfectionism that they perhaps aren't as positive about their own playing / teaching as they tell me I should be But no, sadly I'm not my perfectionist...my playing is genuinely crap.

furthermore, you need a doctor to see what happened to your arms.

I played the piano and they were injured. That's what happened
You ever heard of the NHS? I have no doctor, thankfully avoiding the NHS by not being ill for 20 years or more, but if I went it would go something like this

"my arm hurts when I play the piano"
"Stop playing the piano. Take pain killers to relieve the pain. Come back if it persists"
"Err, right, and how to play the piano without injury?"
"...find a good teacher...

That 20 seconds would be it. He's not going to piss about worrying about injured pianists when people are ill [and I agree], and TBH, I see no reason to waste even that amount of his time.

I can do that anyway. I don't need a doctor to point out the obvious cause, nor to get non prescription pain killers to relieve the pain. Some GPs if you moan enough about the injury might prescribe Valium [to relax the muscles] but not to me they won't. Some might give stronger pain killers, but hey, that's just a different world of pain

Besides, I've 2 arms and only one is injured. Perhaps it's because I'm left-handed that my left arm isn't injured.

part 2: find a decent teacher.

Again, see my first post. Name one. Please. I want a good teacher. I've been to 3 who could offer nothing technically to help me play the piano. I don't think there are any good teachers in the UK...and I think most here who will say "...but my teacher..." have probably never had much of a physical problem playing the piano in the way I am.

"good teacher" is relative...the teacher that does masterclasses in interpretation and expression would probably have nothing to offer me, I can't play a piece in order for them to begin to say "play that slower...play that..." and so on. Whereas, the teacher, if they exist, that supposedly can explain or demonstrate how to physically play the piano is probably just going to have every advanced student and pianist disagreeing that they are right.

there is something i must tell you. if youīre not studying properly (and just listen to it, donīt try to contradict me) , the more you practice, the worst you do it. eight hours a day of misleading fire could only have two results: unfinished pieces and body injury.

Tell me about it. But, every teacher I've been to, not one has watched me play and said "no, like this" - all they do is

(a) Get you to pick a piece. Get you to play it.
(b) Say something, perhaps, let's take as an example Chopin's C# minor nocturne "practise the left hand getting it soft and even" nothing at all about HOW to play it softly and evenly. Nothing at all about HOW to play the piece at all.
(c) So I go away for a week and come back and it's the same, I still can't play it. That's just repeated week after week. Except usually not. What usually happens is you play it and they pick something else for you to do, so this week you're practising the right hand part, but the left hand is no better.
(d) Eventually one of you gets bored first [usually the teacher] and talks the other into trying another piece to which the same process happens.

I have pieces that teachers have supposedly been teaching me and pieces that I've just taught myself and you can't tell them apart. I can learn just as well by myself. The only problem is "just as well" means they are complete crap and I can't play any of them. This isn't some perfectionist thing.

I've never met a single teacher who says anything at all about HOW to play. About how to make it even, about HOW to play a soft note, about HOW to play a loud note about HOW to play so the C E G E, C E G E, alberti bass, is even dynamically [or not, if it's supposed to have accents] and even rhythmically.

e.g I've tried for hours and hours since I made the post above to try to play that left hand part - to improve it, to no avail. Then I thought "I'll try something simpler"  So I got Fur Elise and I played just the first few bars, hands separate and I cannot fathom HOW to play it correctly, let alone begin to practise it.

So yeah, I fully realise that practising for hours and hours sometimes means you don't learn...I've done it for 5 years. But what am I doing wrong? No teacher I've met has an answer.
"practise" is their answer to what to do.

I've played the first bars of Fur elise, right hand, over and over and over at speeds from 20 bpm upwards, and, no matter what I do, it's always uneven, rhythmically and dynamically.

What I want to do is play it correctly, figure out how I can play so that (a) I can get the evenness and so on correct (b) I can repeat that and thus practise (c) It feels comfortable. That's what I've spent every hour on the piano recently trying to do...not just mindlessly playing the same notes over and over and over, but trying myriad and myriad different ways to play the notes properly...to no avail.

I've played the left hand, A C A and E E G# similary, over and over and over [again, not mindlessly but to try and get them correct] trying to get them so they are even dynamically [whether that's right or not] and softly. I cannot play those 3 notes in that way, let alone repeat or practise them.

I have absolutely no idea how to play just 2 notes on the piano in a way that, the resulting sound, loud, soft, staccato, legato or whatever, is the same twice in a row, let alone whether it's what I actually want to achieve.

I've tried single bars of pieces [classical, blues, pop], scales, hanon exercises, random doodling..to no avail. It's always uneven, rhythmically wrong, just noise and sounds sloppy and crap and, no matter how many hours I spend at it, it never gets any better. That's not being negative, that's just saying how it is.

..and I've sat for hour after hour trying to discover this way of playing that's controlled. I've tried standing up, I've tried sitting down...and every height in between. I've tried holding apples or with my fingers flatter, I've tried moving my shoulders, my elbows, my wrists, my fingers...which is right? I've tried seemingly everything...I've tried asking over and over how do you play the piano...how do you play the notes. I'd love to know and I'm determined to find out...because even if I can't do it [which as you, thankfully and realistically, rather than some here, note is a fact for all of us for some things] I would at least like to know what it is.

Positive? Well, I can read the music, so, I don't need notation reinventing. I've rarely played a single note of the incorrect pitch in all those hours of playing those bars over and over - which is apparantly the only technical issue your common or garden teacher deals with.

[drjames]

That last post seemed to tell me something about what is going on.  I don't have any real answers but maybe some more information may help.  You seem to have a problem with what is called proprioception.  This is the ability to know where your body parts (e.g. fingers) are in relation to each other in 3 dimensional space.  Not only where thay are but how they are moving; where, how far, how fast etc.  People can lose this ability with brain injury but I am sure there is variation in the ability from one person to the other.  This explains why some people can sight read better than others.  You have to know where your hands and fingers are without looking.  Now, how does one improve proprioception.  This falls in the area of occupational therapy and I do not know what exercises are available out there to help a struggling pianist.  Say a concert pianist suffered some brain injury.  He recovered his mental abilities but he just cannot make his fingers play the right speed, pitch, staccato, legato etc.  He would most likely try intensive occupational therapy to try to fix the problem.  I think that maybe something along those lines away from the piano may help smooth out a chronic problem of uneven playing.  I don't know for sure, I'm just thinking.  James.

[leahcim]

That last post seemed to tell me something about what is going on.  I don't have any real answers but maybe some more information may help.  You seem to have a problem with what is called proprioception.  This is the ability to know where your body parts (e.g. fingers) are in relation to each other in 3 dimensional space.

No, you just misunderstand what I'm writing. Where are the piano playing experts?...I  appreciate this group has a high %age of people who can play the piano and thus as you'd expect every answer is going to be someone digging into his medical dictionary. Let's pretend we're all doctors instead and look at answers that tell us how to play piano so it sounds musical and so it doesn't cause injury

I don't have a brain injury.

I do have an arm injury, that's caused by 5 years of piano playing incorrectly, but again I stress this is after the fact...that means that it's not the reason I can't play [well it won't help now, of course] but it's what not being able to play has resulted in.

What I lack is any knowledge or idea, at all, how to move my fingers / arms or whatever else is supposed to move [or not move] in order to play notes on the piano so they don't sound completely crap.

How difficult is that to understand? I can move my arms, I'm typing this at a fair rate without looking at the keyboard. I'll attempt to wiggle my fingers in whatever the prescribed way is, but I need someone to state what it is.

I don't know how to move them properly to play the piano well and avoid injury.

Perhaps this is the source of your misunderstanding? You think I'm saying I can't move my arms...no, I'm saying "How the #$% are you /supposed/ to move them?" to make a ppp or pp or fff or whatever, to get legato, to get staccato, to make music rather than the noisy crap I make now?

No amount of practising has improved my playing. No doubt because I'm not practising a correct way of playing...I'm not improving my technique. I play crap and years later I still play crap - perhaps it's a little bit easier to play crap after all that time, but my playing hasn't improved a single iota, because I [and the 3 teachers I had afaict] have no idea how to improve.

If you've never thought deeply about movements, and can play anyway, and have never had an injury, then you're not alone...but you probably aren't much help either.

At the same time as my playing is crap, the clue that it's the way I move [well it has to be that, because that's the interface with the instrument and the only way of changing the sound] but I mean the clue that it's directly related to that is that my shoulder / elbow and wrist on my right arm are all in agony when I play. This isn't negative thinking...it's just a fact - no objective analysis of my playing would conclude anything other than the fact every technical aspect is flawed...whether I'm playing 3 blind mice or a Chopin Waltz.

At one time the pain was only after a while of playing. These days I can play for around 30 minutes once a week without any pain [assuming I've rested from previous playing], around an hour or two a day with tolerable pain, and if I play much more than that, my arm is in agony.

So now I can't practise for the "all day" sessions I did, thus, given that I didn't learn to play a single piece playing all day for years, I'm certainly not learning to play now at an average of 30 minutes to an hour or so a day. Moreso when you consider what I said above - I really have no idea where to start - what to change. How to move.  Not the first idea. So what do I practise? Playing the same way I always do? That is obviously just making me better at injuring myself and playing crap. Trying to find my own way of playing? After 5 years that's clearly not working. Trying to use someone else's way? So far they are thin on the ground. There are certainly no local teachers to my knowledge with the experience or knowledge and it's more or less impossible to decide whether I am actually playing the way that the person is trying to describe in the various books, videos, websites and forum posts I've read.

Bottom line : I don't want therapy, occupational therapy, hypnosis or the internet's next wannabee zen buddist "find your own path, be the piano", nor asinine nonsense that "anyone can play if they really want to", nor copper wires attaching to my genitals nor, if I can avoid it, to give in...I just wanna know how to play the #$%#ing piano

[m19834]

...I just wanna know how to play the #$%#ing piano

It starts with how we sit on the bench and our perception of how to "hold" ourselves as we sit.

[keypeg]

This is in response to leahcim's post.  I'd like to offer a number of perspectives.

A couple of years ago I got tied in knots.  I had my first instrument lessons, a small thing went wrong and it snowballed with my efforts until I could hardly use my body intelligently anymore.  It can come to a point where the line between the psychological and physical get blurred.  If you're doing something fundamentally wrong so that every effort meets failure and more entanglement, then despair sets in.  And that despair itself can cause an inability to play.  That is the first nasty cycle.  Those who are pointing to attitude are partly right.  It depends.  Or ... by now the side effect has also become the effect.  Chicken or egg?

Leahcim: somewhere in this post you pointed to someone's blog as a reasoning for that despair.  However, that writer wrote two things.  First, the 20 odd years in which he was lost.  Second, that he discovered that there were some very fundamental ways of moving which were not visibly apparent, and that these few fundamental things changed everything for him.  And if there are some two or three fundamental things, only that many, that are messing everything up?  Does that change the picture?  It may be a dead end but it's a thought.    In my case there was that, too.  I wrote that some small thing had gone wrong in the beginning and that it snowballed, and everything else built from that.

Secondly, though, I have a thought, and it comes from some of my experiences.  Totally and radically change the angle of your perspective and goals.  Read on:  You are trying to use your body properly in playing the piano.  You know that something isn't right about how you are using your body.  The more you try, the worst it gets.  You probably know every theory and idea out there.  You could probably teach a course on what should be done for proper playing but can't reach it yourself.  You are probably an expert in what you can't do.  Is there anything more frustrating. 

What if you stopped trying to use your body efficiently.  What if you took your attention away from the body, and the efficient technique that good body use will give?  Turn it on its head.  You have to get out of this cycle.   You know too much and you have practiced for too long.

Try this:  Buy some pudding or make some.  (Huh? He says. Pudding? For piano playing?)  Have a cup of pudding, and a cup of tea or coffee.  Have a spoon.  Now ... stir.  Each.  Now consider what you just did.  How did you manage not to slosh the tea out the cup.  How did you know how hard to stir?  How did you do the miniscule difference in force between the viscosity of the pudding and the lesser viscosity of tea?

Stir again, and this time observe what you are doing.  You are feeling the resistance of the liquid with your spoon, aren't you?  How the heck does one feel with a spoon?  But we do. 

Stir again.  This time observe the physical actions of stirring.  How are your fingers moving?  Wrist, hand?  Notice .. since you don't want to lose what is natural ... that while you were feeling with your spoon for the resistance of the liquid, that all these small actions came naturally.  The feeling of the weight of the spoon got your hand to adjust automatically and finely.  Your attention was on the spoon and the weight of things in your hand.  Your attention was not on what your hand was doing - yet your hand was doing it.

But now observe what you are doing.  Memorize "spoon stirring technique".  Analyze what is necessary for stirring tea and pudding.  Have you memorized it?  Good.  Now go about "learning how to stir coffee and pudding" by moving your hands in the proper way, using the correct motions, as though imitating what you have observed.  Try hard, concentrate.  Does that feel familiar?  Are you stiff, awkward, struggling?  Have your fingers started to feel foreign?  Stop.  Never do this experiment again.

This is the bad cycle you can get into.  Supposing that you tried from this point on to perfect your stirring technique.  It would get worse and worse, and you would feel helpless.

At this point however you can use the stirring analogy in reverse to help at the piano.  Go back in memory to when you first stirred the tea without trying to figure out how - the shifting weight of the spoon in your hand, the feeling of the liquid transmitted by the spoon.  Consider that when your attention was on the object and not on your hand, your hand knew what to do exquisitely.

See if you can bring that experience to the piano.  Shift your attention to the feeling of the keys, the sound that comes without value judgement of the sound.  feel the key.  Do not observe yourself feeling the key.  This is important.  You have spent 20 years observing yourself, trying to improve what you are doing.  Feel the key.  Play with the key.  Feel its bounciness.  Feel the hammers.  Hear the sounds and immerse yourself in their qualities.  You may want to try your piano, forte, various sound effects at this point, but do it in the manner of exploration between feeling and hearing.  Reach toward the instrument and toward the sound.  Do not direct your actions.  Do not have a body.  The piano and its sounds are all that exist.

If this works, you will be liberating your body to play and unlocking yourself.  You cannot make a good sound unless you also have good motion, but by not directing yourself you may unlock what is currently locked.  It's not psychology.  I'm not a music teacher.  But this is what babies do.  They feel, explore, balance.  They are oblivious of themselves, and they learn to walk and talk.  They immerse themselves in the experience and the goal.

Might this work?

[m19834]

Might this work?

Sure it might, but I have my doubts  .  Though a baby learns a lot about the world in the way you have described, a baby does not have years of preconceived notions to undo, about how to do.  Undoing and letting go of preconceived notions is a very important element in developing a useful technique (and undoing a not so useful one), especially after years of not knowing up from down as far as technique is concerned.

Leachim may have been observing himself for years already, but he is not at a point of knowing what to pay attention to.  And, yes, conscious thought about technique is very important and quite useful, though it is only a tool alongside other tools (like our ears). 

I am not against how you suggest for a person to experiment, I just have my doubts about it truly providing anything concrete for leachim (at this point) to grab hold of and use on a consistent basis -- which is very important in creating new channels.  To create a new way of doing something, we need new information, or at least we need to know how to focus on particular aspects of the information we are already getting (or already have), and then use that point of focus to build on.

Right now, from what I gather, Leachim is stock-piled with information and is a little confused.  I get the feeling that even if Leachim has all of the right kinesthetic and aural information, he doesn't quite know what to do with it.  I don't blame him at all for his attitude and, as a matter of fact, I can very much relate and empathize. 

[musicrebel4u]

I truly believe that technology is a future of any education.

Also I am not skeptical about such master classes over the Internet.

But I know, that the main problem of music education – is a lack of interaction between student and piano keys/Grand Staff's lines and spaces, illiterate masses who care less.

Before anyone would actually need a Master to help with sophisticated polishing an advanced piece, students ought to pass the stage, when music  is read fluently with understanding. As for today many have to use drills bar by bar, learn 1 piece in a year and playing like circuis animals.

So, as a member of teacher's forum, I mainly concern about interaction between student and music notation. Thank God, there are still enough great music teachers around to master more advanced skills with great Masters in person – not on computer screen.

Regardless of poverty, lack of support from Government, no health insurance, paid vacation and all other social benefits we still have great piano teachers who is ready to help to master advanced students.

Sincerely yours, Musicrebel4u

[keypeg]

Karli, I am not suggesting this as a be all and an end-all, but I am suggesting it as a way of breaking the cycle.  I am also suggesting it because of some teaching that I received which did just that.  There are rare occasions where losing the body can help regain it.  Essentially you come to the same point from a different angle.  If a person is really tied up that may just be a way of untying.

If I read Leachim's story correctly, he has been to more than one teacher and has gone into a dead end.  I'm following partly gut, partly experience, and partly guidance that I received.

[m19834]

Keypeg, what you have said may be exactly what leachim needs, I am just expressing my opinion that I doubt it is really going to solve everything for him (though in this case, I would be happy to be wrong), and that I disagree that conscious thought should not go into developing our technique.  In any event, I actually want what is truly best for Leachim -- he said that he would just like to know how to play the piano, and I have responded in a way that I know how to respond.

I will say that I very much respect the time and consideration you have taken to post what you did .

[keypeg]

To tell the truth, Karli, I probably should [not/i] be posting here.  I am a student, not a teacher, and in no position to give advice.  But this little bit did get me through the tunnel that I had managed to dig for myself, and once this hyper-awareness had vanished I could start responding to a more guided approach.  My own story did not involved the piano.

There is one danger about reading about technique and studying it.  You can no longer come into a teacher's instruction with a fresh mind.  The words and instructions are replete with what you know and you become unreachable - your own notions contaminate the usual instructions which you have "learned" otherwise: a self-programming.

I am not a music teacher, but I do have some background in teaching past disabilities and obstacles by looking at things alternatively.  Sometimes a change of angles can break through a cycle.  I have given the bit that I could, and in the hope that it will not do harm.

[m19834]

(...) once this hyper-awareness had vanished I could start responding to a more guided approach.

I think there is a place for that, but hyper-awareness can be channeled in such a way that it actually begins to work for us and not against us.  I think Leachim just needs the right channels .

[keypeg]

Yes, of course.  But I mean a hyper-awareness that was self-created, pushed into an extreme, like a place rubbed raw that actually makes things worse and worse.  It seems like decades ago, but I would say it is actualy the opposite of awareness.  It's a vigilance gone wrong.  That is exactly why I suggested this about-face, where the attention goes to the instrument and the sound.  the self-programming disappears.  Some natural reflexes come back.  A greater neutrality is reached.  It is a beginning.

[m19834]

It is a beginning.

In this context, maybe not.  But, like I have said before, that is really up to Leachim.  The thing about a forum like this is that a person can receive many different thoughts on a subject like this, that's part of what the forum is about.

[keypeg]

I have put in the caveat that I am a student in this instant, and not an experienced music teacher.  What I have is an internal perspective that may possibly help someone at least untangle himself from a kind of inner shouting - not to replace a teacher (this man has not found any) but to open the door a crack, in case it might help.

If Leichim's situation is anything like the one in which I found myself - mine lasted about six months and after that I began leaving it but it took 1 1/2 years or more - it seemed a lifetime.  I cannot imagine decades of it: the longer one remains in that state the more entrenched one becomes.  It creates a deafness and  blindness, as though overshouting.

You will probably say that such a student has to let go to a good teacher. The reality is that a teacher able to push thorugh something like that is a rare expert, hard to find, one must find a teacher who is willing to go to that length, know whom to find - what are the odds?

So I am looking at this individual who has struggled for years.  I am sure that he has read every book on the subject, has heard every conventional thing that exists - things that do work when applied properly such as posture, hand shape and whatnot - he'll continue reading and being told the same thing over and over - but it's not working for him.

If .......... by any small chance ......... a shift in perspective can cut a couple of these threads of entanglement ... when there is a hopelessness currently, what is there to lose?

You see, one of the things we adult students do is we read advice which is actually meant for teachers.  What does a teacher do?  A teacher observes us from the outside with inner knowledge.  We begin to observe ourselves from the outside, but we are not outside of ourselves - or shouldn't be.  No internal interaction is left, no dialogue between instrument, sound, body, self.  We then get the teacher's instructions, which sound like the book, and so we remain stuck in that.  It is our own efforts which are the culprit.  Those efforts are like a shouting which overshouts what we are taught.  They also overshout what should be happening.  Normally a teacher tells a student to do something, and we experience things, and those experiences teach.  But if we have self-taught, then every teacher-instruction is translated into the books we have read.  We continue observing ourselves from the outside and seeing ourselves from the teacher's perspective.

This is the aspect I have sought to break through, in case that is going on.  I would never try to teach someone technique over the Internet.  I'm not sure that I would even if I were qualified because so much can get "lost in the translation", but obviously in this case I'm not.

I have offered nothing more than to shift perspective from one's own body toward the instrument *** temporarily *** in order to get past that crippling effect.  I have offered this as  a way to counter-balance what might be happening.  Nothing destructive can happen by feeling the springiness of the keys, the ground under your feet, or hearing the qualities of sounds and their richness.  There is no technique being suggested.  There is no interpretation of music. 

But if you feel the keys, hear the sound, stop intensely trying to direct the body, then some of that self-programming can disappear.  The decades long associations can be halted.  The cycle of anxiety and despair can be broken.  The inner shouting of a thousand instructions can cease.  The "self" can be regained - this self that delights in interacting and discovering - a feeling of safeness.  And if that safeness and self are regained, then it is also easier to let go to a teacher and be able to hear that teacher.

Nothing has worked.  What if this might open the door a crack?

Karli, a question - Even if it may not help, do you see harm in temporarily shifting attention to exploring the instrument?

[m19834]

So I am looking at this individual who has struggled for years.

And I am looking at an individual who does not need to struggle in the same ways anymore.  I am looking at an individual who is capable of focus, calmness, quietness, and who is capable of a deep joy in what is being learned. 

Karli, a question - Even if it may not help, do you see harm in temporarily shifting attention to exploring the instrument?

In general, I think experimentation is necessary, and in one sense it is all we have got.  But in order to really glean from that experimentation the inidividual's own life-blood of playing, certain elements need to be in place first (or along with), especially if the individual is experiencing pain while sitting at and playing at the instrument (which is actually my main concern here).

I am not trying to disqualify anything you have posted, not on the account of what type of person you are or are not.  As I have said before, perhaps what you have posted will be exactly what Leachim needs.  If it is not, well, in one sense I say that there is more to it than what you have said and it is waiting to be discovered when he is ready .

[keypeg]

Yes, K - there is a much more positive experience available and struggle in this sense need not be.  Also, even if what I wrote has any merit, is nothing more than a cessation of hole digging - possibly a moment of quietness where other things can be heard.  Effort in itself can be destructive and in that sense stopping effort can help, without, however, being a solution.  I've sent a PM just now.

[blanchbee]

Hello to everybody, my name is Brenda (nick'sAnna). I am a Piano Teacher who is currently teaching 30 students in Orange Park, Florida in a school "North Florida Academy of Music". Teaching piano online can be realized and it is possible. I teach online at www. universalclass.com and I teach the theory and fundamentals and of course teach them how to play the piano. At the end of my curriculum, I ask my students to record their own performance on the piano by using an mp3player which they can also upload and send to my email. It just takes patience and a lot of internet hands-on. Currently, I have graduated 2 students from the course "How to teach Piano" Thanks http://

[leahcim]

Try this:  Buy some pudding or make some.  (Huh? He says. Pudding? For piano playing?)  Have a cup of pudding, and a cup of tea or coffee.  Have a spoon.  Now ... stir.  Each.  Now consider what you just did.  How did you manage not to slosh the tea out the cup.  How did you know how hard to stir?  How did you do the miniscule difference in force between the viscosity of the pudding and the lesser viscosity of tea?

I might try this.

Problem is, of course, it's like being asked to sit. Once you say "sit there" then I'm going to try and have better posture because you've asked me to sit, because we're self conscious.

Now, let's say you observe instead. eventually I sit how I usually do and you witness that, like a lot of people, "sitting naturally" for me is just as "wrong" as my piano playing or anything else that I do "naturally" that someone hopes I will do in a way that will make me eventually play Liszt

Now you hope, as Merrick hoped I could throw a stone at a target, that I stir things well.

What if I don't? Do I need to do a catering course and learn fancy spoon and knife work? I note they stir in a variety of ways [all about keeping air in the mixture and so on] and use a knife in a way that makes a mockery of any idea that my pitiful attempts are in some way "natural"

No, to learn to use cutlery in the way a chef does would probably require being shown what to do and then lots of practise, just as playing the piano does.

See, the way most people sit, stand, throw stones and walk is usually far from any ideal. But, by the same token none of these things is particularly difficult to do in an everyday way. In that sense they couldn't be more removed from playing the piano.

Playing the piano is an extremely complex and difficult thing. It takes even the most talented of people who start at the youngest of ages decades to learn. Most of us are walking [unfortunately copying our parents' gait and probably doing it "wrong"] a long time before that.

Playing the piano for me feels like :  let's say I can't do extremely advanced maths and I'm sat there with lots of books and I've been on courses and so on and I'm determined to want to be the next maths genius and I'm "wahhh, I'm trying to learn maths and I can't" Of course, I know with maths I have a certain ability, anyone who says "anyone can learn maths" is, frankly, stupid and someone would say "look, you aren't good enough at maths and you never will be...don't waste your time"

But with piano there are people around who perpetuate the myth that anyone can play despite all the evidence to the contrary....and yes, there are people like myself who are stupid enough to ignore the evidence and bang our heads against the wall for years

Similarly, playing the piano to me feels like drawing. I can't draw. I've tried. I've been through the years of frustration with that, but thankfully decades ago...and yes, I've seen the buffoons who say that "anyone can draw" and I've read some of the books they write - but, thankfully, I'm not fooled by them any more. A more honest approach these days is the idea that it doesn't matter if your drawing looks crap. Indeed, you can just burn toast and call it "burnt toast" - art is open to everyone not because "anyone can draw" but because "it doesn't matter if you can draw"

Music is less forgiving...of course there are genres where "it doesn't matter if you can play" but clearly for most it does. Even people that play Jazz can play, usually very well. Which is ironic if you've ever heard any jazz, but true

I know drawing, dancing, winning the F1 drivers championship and so on are all things that I cannot do. I just accept it. Oh, there are buffoons who will say "there's no such word as can't" and so on, but they are just kidding themselves and the people they are talking to. Of course, if the person is 6 and they are trying to tie their shoelaces we know they will do it one day...[but it's still useless to say "there's no such word as can't" - much better to sit and teach your kid instead but I digress] For something as complicated as piano playing some won't learn.

I need to accept that I cannot play the piano....because I've tried to, in a serious way, for years and because, as you two note, I've seen all the information there is. There is no one who can demonstrate something else.

Of course, stirring a cup of tea has 2 things on our side (a) entropy and (b) the fact there's not much difference between good and bad stirring with respect to the cup of tea you get

Similarly, I've a video that compares piano playing to walking. Again, the author hopes we can walk in a certain way...but it doesn't matter how well I walk really. I can get from A to B, that's all that matters.

Besides, as we know, unless we're trained in a Swiss finishing school or starring in America's next top model a lot of us probably don't walk with good posture either.

Piano playing is different. How well it is done directly influences how good it sounds. This is probably why I care about how well I play, and not about how well I can stir or walk.

It's like the game guitar hero, how well you press the buttons doesn't affect the sound [because the sound is someone else playing the guitar] so it's a lot, lot easier than actually making music and we can see that by the large number of people on youtube who can demonstrate dexterity with guitar hero but cannot begin to play a real musical instrument well [often despite trying] and indeed, often the reverse, their piano and guitar playing is often extremely poor.

As I've said in here before, I can type away at a fair whack, but a typing tutor would find a lot wrong...but it doesn't matter, how well I type doesn't affect the content of the post. Playing the  piano couldn't be more different, it's precisely how well I play that affects the content.

A better comparison than "walking, sitting, stirring" would be things that typically require years of practise to perfect - things that some people who can't play the piano [and some that can too] can't do either.

I can't take something from another skill I have, because (A) afaict playing the piano is not a simple activity like walking or stirring and (B) the complex activities are only like it in the sense that they too are are complex. They aren't the same as it in other ways. In simple terms : playing the piano is playing the piano, to learn it, if you ever do, you need to practise playing the piano...walking, running, stirring and so on probably won't improve your piano playing - although they may improve those activities - choose one that keeps you fit, especially if you stir lots of puddings

Anyway it's moot now because what I have learnt in the last 5 years or so about piano playing is that I either need to find out for myself how to play or find a good teacher both of which are laughably poles apart and demonstrate that no one really has much idea either despite how much is written about it Nevertheless, if either of those would work, I can do neither of them

So I'm giving in. Thanks for all your replies, and if you see a plume of black smoke rising above Bedfordshire in the near future, it just might be a piano on fire

[m19834]

(..) if you see a plume of black smoke rising above Bedfordshire in the near future, it just might be a piano on fire

Oh, Leachim. 

Thanks for your enlightening post , but please do not set the piano on fire .

[son wolsi]

You absolutely have to check this out.  It's a commercial involving my friend, and my teacher, Marc Durand.
https://about.telus.com/proudsupporter/rcm.html

I wouldn't want to learn ms3 from this guy. <_<