Adult students complain they can't play as well for me as they do when I'm not t

[joyfulmusic]

Anybody got some helpful hints to make students relax.  I have had students who are playing at an intermediate level constantly mutter and feel awkward when playing for me even after a couple of years of working together.  I am a relaxed style teacher and always try to encourage but it's not enough.

Help!

[counterpoint]

It may sound harsh, but it's really obvious:

They didn't practise enough.

[jenilyn]

I have come to realize that whenever a student says, "I can play it perfectly at home," they aren't realizing that they really couldn't play it perfectly at home.  It is just that during their practice time they aren't paying attention as much as they do in the lesson, so what I tell them is practice for perfection.  It is okay to make mistakes, but they need to be aware of them right away so they can fix it.  Also, I have my students do practice performances for 3 different people a week so they are used to the pressure before they come to their lesson.

[jlh]

I have come to realize that whenever a student says, "I can play it perfectly at home," they aren't realizing that they really couldn't play it perfectly at home.  It is just that during their practice time they aren't paying attention as much as they do in the lesson, so what I tell them is practice for perfection. 

Well, practicing for perfection is a strategy doomed for failure, because practice does not make perfect, nor will it ever.  Practice makes permanent, and if they are not practicing properly, they will not perform properly, and vice-versa.  If they practice without paying as much attention to detail, then they will perform without paying attention to detail.  Practice makes permanent whether you want it to or not.

[timothy42b]

Chang's book says that one of the causes for this is that at home they work on technique, and for you they try to make music, and they have only practiced the one and not the other.

One of my brass playing friends suggested the opposite might be true:  at home they really are relaxing and making music, and when they come to the lesson focus on technique, and again they haven't practiced the right thing.

Maybe different students do it differently? 

[gerryjay]

 hey guys!
 don't you think that this is due to nervous? playing at home, confortable, alone and at their pianos is one thing; another completely different is an audience (and sometimes is more difficult to face the teacher than a real audience). they practice all week in one condition, and have just one chance to play to the teacher (and get his/her approval). btw, to a child this approval probably means little or nothing, but to an adult it's fundamental.
 a good strategy is to promote open classes, collective recitals, any situation where they can gradually and regularly expose themselves. then, playing to the teacher must be piece of cake.
 hope that helps! good luck.

[pianochick93]

It could possibly be a change of piano as well.

I will play something at school in a performance really well, then I will go to piano lessons later that same day and find that because her piano has pretty heavy action compared to all the pianos at school and my piano at home, I find it harder.

By the end of the lesson, I am adjusted, but that is a bit late.

[lostinidlewonder]

Ask them to make a recording of their playing when you are not there and listen for yourself if what they say is true or not.

I have found sometimes students find it difficult to apply new ideas when working with me, thus their playing might sound worse to start off with, because they are trying to make improvements. I always tell students if they played perfectly why should I teach them. If a student plays a piece and they make a wrong note I don't ask them to repeat and start again if I know that was a random mistake. Students shouldn't be worried if they make slight inaccuracies in lessons, so long the teacher can determine if it is a constant mistake or a one off mistake.

[hyrst]

How many of the responders here are still taking lessons as adults?  Do we so quickly forget what the experience is like? 

Perhaps the right variation of practice does have something to do with it - but the reality is that the nerves set in, the brain goes into survival mode and everything tenses up.  The student very often truly does play far better at home.  It matters to them that they want the teacher to see how much work they have done and to value that. 

I think it simply has to come down to 'practicing' how to take lessons.  The teacher needs to reinforce accuracy of reading and producing music at a slow tempo as a preference to playing as they do at home - which is probably thinking about the times they play at a faster tempo with fewer mistakes, rather than the times they go through the work a bit at a time.  Lessons need to be a time of taking things in little details rather than 'performing' for the teacher, which is how it is often seen.  Playing slowly allows the brain a chance to think a little past the panic and to get more things right.  Over time, there might be a desensitisation - if playing is increasingly accurate and there are fewer errors to fear as inevitable.  Stress slow accuracy as a goal for playing in lessons.  In most cases, relaxation, being friendly, being positive, proabably doesn't help much.  I would acknowledge playing is probably better at home, but the student needs to learn how to play for lessons - and this is good practice for other types of performance as well.

[slobone]

I was an adult student a while back (I'm not a teacher BTW) and I was lucky enough to get a wonderful teacher who really understood how to teach adults. We both knew I wasn't training for a career, so we could relax and have fun while still working hard.

The key is to treat the process as a collaboration. An adult student will often not progress as quickly in technique, but can bring more to the table in questions of interpretation and life experience. If nothing else, they will have spent more time listening to music and developing their taste than a teenager has.

Also, adults often have many responsibilities and sometimes can't spend as much time practicing as they'd like, so you have to be flexible.

In general, my preference was for fewer, shorter, and easier pieces. At that stage of my life I was more interested in playing one piece beautifully than in tearing through all the Beethoven sonatas.

[tsagari]

Hi,
I am an adult student too (41 next August). I have exactly the same problem with your students and believe me I practice so much that you have remove me from the piano. Of course is thrue that  some might have not practice engough and they make excusses like children but I do not think that this is the majority here.
We adult students have a very delicate phycology - those who are committed to piano paying -   
1.We feel extremely awkward and you have to be  extremly positive ,
2. Also as adults I think we put very high stadarts which we are not able to reach so you need to remind that all the time to your students eitherwised they are constantly discouraged with their performance. I think most of us believe that because we are adults we can do much better but this not true.
3. Adults students also after themselves the first person who want to satify with their play is you the teacher and when they  fail to do so they fell very discurraged awkward and so on, they target the next teaching session to show you how much progress they have made. How to resolve this problem? well this is realy diffult because what we are having here is two adults - you and the student - in an non eual situation because when the student performes he thinks that you always can play better than he does and this will never change.
I think the only way to resolve this is by finding some elements to that person other than piano playing  that she or he might have something to give to you and the relationship between you and him/her becomes more equal.  I do not know if you undertand what I am saying here - you have to shift the balance between the two because you are the strong part and the student is  the weak by definition. For children this is how it has do be and is acceptable but for adults its awkward.
I hope I have been of some help to you. And one more thing, adult students usually feel very greatfull towards the teacher and this a strong source of stress for them during the lesson.

[keypeg]

I'm an adult student and piano is my 2nd instrument that I'm returning to decades after playing as a self-taught teen.  My insights come from two places: mutual support with another adult student halfways across the world with candid discussions of every possible issue and obstacle coming our way, family and friends who are professional musicians or en route.  Among the insights:

We do not perform for our teachers.  We are working mutually together with our teachers on a project: building our skills and building the piece or study we are working on.  Therefore we can look dispassionately on this outside object the way a carpenter's apprentice may look at a chair, without emotional involvement. 

In academic pursuits we must present a perfect paper.  In musical pursuits it will not be perfect because it is not a finished product: it is a thing in the process of being built.  Mistakes are wonderful: that's what we get to improve so that we become better and better.

The mere knowledge of these two points, and coming into a lesson with these two attitudes makes it possible to be at ease in a lesson, and the difference can be like night and day.  Imagine the opposite of what I have written, and the effect of that opposite.

It helps to know that a teacher can see beneath our performance, what our practicing might have been like.  Some residual effect may remain.  The thing is that if someone practices 3 hours per day, they have 18 hours behind them by the time they come into the studio, and maybe 15 minutes to demonstrate what they have gotten right during the week - If they blow it, then it has all been for naught (especially if the first two points aren't there).  The very fact that this is so creates pressure and nervousness.  The most likely time this will happen, and the most frustrating, is when we have reached a plateau and everything is perfect and we're excited about showing our teachers what we have achieved.  That is going to guarantee failure, and the resulting disappointment can destroy the rest of the lesson.  It helps to care a lot less, and about something different.  It also helps to know that our teacher can see, even in a flawed performance, signs of what and how we have practiced.

Knowledge of teacher expectations:  You guys do not want us to perform a perfect and impressive piece.  If you wanted that, you'd attend a concert and listen to a professional performer.  You want us to master the skills you are trying to impart to us.  The realization and resulting frustration in hindsight is almost comical, "You mean, that's all he/she wanted?"  Your brilliant, "expressive" playing does not as much as raise an eyebrow, but you've played in time, able to count from one to four, and your teacher is over the hills with happiness.  Grrrr.  Oh, ok, lightbulb time.  The thing is that if you do think you are to do impressive performances, and you do miss the "counting to four" moment, that's stressful as the student strives and strives.

On the same subject: not being able to count to four is not embarrassing, it is not a failure, it is not something that a four year old can do and therefore humiliating for an adult not to be able to do.   Believing that it is causes unnecessary stress.

The pedestal on which we place you, the Teacher, The Musician.  Clay feet inevitably follow.  After that, there is a human being who has worked incredibly hard to achieve what he can do, and if I, as a student, wish to achieve, I have to work as hard to reach my own potential.  The final stage is probably true respect and appreciation based on a bit of knowledge.  It comes in stages if you can get that far as student.

A nasty little thing comes up if you're doing a good job teaching and we're doing a good job following you: We start hearing how we really sound instead of how we imagine we sound.  The results can be devastating because to our own ears we have suddenly gotten worse and can't improve no matter how hard we try.  If you tell us that we're improving, then you must just be sweetening the blow and protecting us from the awful truth.  Kids don't become self-aware until around age 12 or 13 so it doesn't hit them the same way.  And possibly they don't care in the same way that an adult dues.

Something a bit more abstract is the concept of music making itself.  Music performances are perceived as a whole, but are not created that way.  They are built element by element, apart and together, and they improve over time in practicing and rehearsing.  If you expect that it is either good or not good from the start, and want it all to be perfect immediately, that is stressful.  I have run into several adults, including my own parent, who believed themselves to be failures because it was not perfect immediately.  Creating a piece of music is more like creating a sculpture.  You begin with a blob, and whittle away, turning it round and round, until eventually you have some cylinders, spheres, cubes.  You whittle some more until eventually it is a recognizable figure - a child holding an umbrella.  No sculptor would stare at the blob, or the spheres and cubes, and despair, because he knows that sculpting is a process.  We don't necessarily know that, and this is another reason for stress.

If I know that I am creating a sculpture, and also know that I am the sculpture being created in the sense of being given skills and knowledge which cannot come all at once, my perceptions will be different.  The bottom line is perception and attitude which cause the stress and uptightness.  Ultimately this lies in the hands (minds) of students, and your reassuring words and positive manner are only part of the equation.  If you tell me I'm doing well, I have to be able to believe you and know what that means.

In my personal journey I have found my dialogue with a few wise students and ex-students to have been very helpful, as well as some candid talks with a teacher or two. hth

[mass]

I'm an adult (intermediate) student (50) I've been taking lessons from the same teacher for 5.5 years and occasionally I still feel anxious. It's usually when I've "polished" and am playing the entire piece for him. It often falls apart.....  I rarely declare that "I can play it better at home" as I know that he knows that.  He will sometime say before I ever get a chance. "Does this passage go smoother at home?" or.. when I "nail" a section.  "Do you get it perfect most of the time now at home?"

Maybe it would take the pressure off your student if teachers recognize aloud that "I'll bet this went better at home"     If I'm having a particularly bad lesson (unable for some reason to focus as well)  He will intuitively spend a little more time chatting about the composition, composer, something he's working on and may be having a trouble spot with....etc.    I also find lessons go better if we begin with an exercise or new study or passage that I don't feel pressure to "perform."    It give me good opportunity to adjust to his piano, chat a little, make expected mistakes and get any little jitters out of the way.

[pcr_la]

I'm a piano student and teacher-in-training, and I work in a medical setting.  We often see patients who run a normal blood pressure when monitoring it at home only to have it go sky-high when faced with a doctor or nurse.  It's called "white-coat hypertension" and is probably very similar to what a student experiences when playing for an audience of one after playing alone all week.

PC

[keypeg]

...probably very similar to what a student experiences when playing for an audience of one after playing alone all week.

PC

The point I was trying to make, however, is that if as an adult student you can remove the concept that you are playing for an audience or performing, and enter the idea that you are both working on a project which is what and how you are playing, then that anxiety disappears.  Mistakes are almost a welcome thing, because they become opportunities.  It's like being on your hands and knees putting a jigsaw puzzle together - no stress.

[loops]

The point I was trying to make, however, is that if as an adult student you can remove the concept that you are playing for an audience or performing, and enter the idea that you are both working on a project which is what and how you are playing, then that anxiety disappears.  Mistakes are almost a welcome thing, because they become opportunities.  It's like being on your hands and knees putting a jigsaw puzzle together - no stress.

I think this is how I get over being nervous in lessons as well. I can set myself up for failure by thinking I'm going to really nail it. OR I can tell myself, play it like you normally play it and get a real critique that will make it tons better....so that how you really play gets better and better.

But I do have to learn to perform as a separate skill. I play for family, the guy fixing the central heater, at friends places when no-one is specifically listening, etc, and I'm gradually getting better.

[alzado]

There are probably several explanations.  BTW, I am a senior citizen who takes piano lessons.

1.  The piano and setting.  I own a 5'8" grand and play in a large room, but at the lesson I play an inexpensive upright in a studio that is very small.  The action is different, the pedals feel different, and the aural feedback is entirely different.  Drag an upright into an oversized broom closet and see how it sounds.

2.  At home I only play for my two cats.  No one else is there.  So even playing for my teacher, there is just a little "stage fright."

3.  Nerves.  I feel, "this time it MUST be right."  Maybe I force it.

-------

One thing that's interesting -- when I play a long repeat, it is common that I play the passage more accurately the second time through.  Why?  I think a lot of my problems are just so-called "nerves."

Also, when playing at the lesson, I inadvertently start playing the piece too fast.  When I played it at home, I played it a little slower, lessening my mistakes.  The reason I inadvertently speed up like this may again be nerves.

------------

I might add, reading through the many replies above, some of the replies seem very critical of the student, or even hostile.  "He doesn't practice enough" or "he thinks he plays better than he does."  Some of this is a bit demeaning of the student, don't you think?  Perhaps people DO practice enough, and perhaps they really try, but they find it hard to deliver a polished performance for their teacher.

[keypeg]

I am noting that this thread was started by a teacher wondering about the psyche of adult students.  Several responses were left by the students in question.  Of course it says on the top "This board is primarily intended for professional pianists and piano teachers etc." which made me hesitate in my reply.

However, since some insights were gained by myself and a few other adult students, and these insights created some breakthrough in just such impasses I dared to share them in case some of these things might in turn help the teacher who is stymied in teaching adult students.  If I was mistaken, then my apology for having written on this board inappropriately, since I am neither a professional pianist, nor a piano teacher.

[hyrst]

Personally, I am grateful for the insights from adult students on this thread.  I have found them very helpful.  Especially, I needed to be reminded that lessons are not about performing, but about learning.  If we don't make mistakes, we cannot learn from them - if we do not need the experience and knowledge of teachers, then what is the point in lessons?

I am a teacher, of children and adults, and I am a student.  I have had adults in lessons disappointed that they have not played well - and I have simply acknowledged that nerves does make it harder in lessons and that's Ok.  Everyone I have worked with has been fine after this acknowledgement.  I don't dwell on mistakes that are obviosuly the result of shaking hands, but those based on understanding.

However, I am a perfectionist and have very high expectations of myself.  I returned to lessons to further my diplomas just over a year ago.  It has been a very challenging period of growth for me - I have had to face a lot of things about myself and how I think and feel so that I can begin to progress.  It is actually seemingly very connected to how I think that I end up making progress or not - the technique is able to improve when I am in a mental place to develop it.  This thread has been very helpful to me of late - and helped me look at myself and begin to make some breakthroughs.

After a year, I had begun to fall into bad habits with lessons.  I expected myself to stuff up my pieces.  I was reacting rather than thinking when I played.  I made fun of every time I made a mistake, instead of being able to slow down and think.  My teacher would ask me how practice was, and I was so afraid he would think I hadn't improved that I always said I hadn't done as much as I wanted to - which was always true, but made him think I had done hardly any rather than the 2 to 3 hours a day I often did.  Believe it or not, I have only just realised I have been self-sabotaging!

I have found it challenging because my teacher rarely says something is good or even getting there.  I know, very consciuosly, that he can hear every time I hold a key for a millionth of a second too long, or I don't quite get enough tone into a rhythm pattern or similar.  I know he teaches young people who are far better than I am and I will probably never be as good as them.  Although  a lot of teachers don't have diplomas, I have always been afraid that I was being judged as a teacher as well - if I couldn't play, what business had I to teach?

After reading this thread, I have determined to be more honest with myself and my teacher.  Last week, he asked me what I had acheived in practice - rather than a more ambiguous question of "How was parctice".  This put the lesson in a positive place to begin with.  I have asked for help in places that I can't get the feel for.  I have tried to listen to the piano instead of perform.  Lessons have been useful.  It is important as an adult to be a partner in the process and to have soem idea of what I need and want to learn.

There is one other thing that I think is important for the teacher to do.  I was rather frustrated with lessons because I made mistakes that I did not make at home.  Five minutes going over these bits during practice would make them secure again.  My teacher would spend time on these things, then I would feel left to myself for the whole week since what I was told in lessons I could accomplish in minutes.  While I need my teacher to pick up on these things - so I don't think they are passable - I need him to take me further into the feel of the piece, into its interpretation, into new skills.

[mattgreenecomposer]

If the lessons are at your house offer them a drink...

[keypeg]

After reading this thread, I have determined to be more honest with myself and my teacher.  Last week, he asked me what I had acheived in practice - rather than a more ambiguous question of "How was parctice".  This put the lesson in a positive place to begin with.  I have asked for help in places that I can't get the feel for.  I have tried to listen to the piano instead of perform.  Lessons have been useful.  It is important as an adult to be a partner in the process and to have soem idea of what I need and want to learn.

Thank you for sharing this, Hyrst.  As a student, I think it took me several years to even understand what taking lessons and practicing were really about, and I still didn't get it. 

It sounds like you have a sudden shift in focus.  I am curious whether your new experiences will eventually have an impact on your teaching.  My thought is also, from my own experience, that one must be ready to make the leap into a different mentality - I don't know whether that is true.  Might your own teacher have waited for that leap?

I tutor some academic subjects occasionally, and I find that my experience as a music student definitely has an influence on my one-on-one teaching.  I have even caught myself saying "practise" instead of "study".

[jepoy]

I'm an adult student and I find that I can play better when the teacher or anyone else is at a comfortable distance from the piano. I really get anxious and nervous when my teacher stands behind or sits beside me while I perform a piece from memory. I don't mind though having him close to me when I'm studying a piece for the first time or when I need help on a passage.

[hyrst]

I also need time with my teacher at a distance, but I find it doesn't really influence my tension when he is with me - and I need him there.  It helps me settle into the piano a bit, even though I know he is still listening. 

However, I also find it is helpful when he is near me and conducts me - something he has been doing recently.  For some reason, I find this helps me work with him instead of feeling like I am being watched.  I used to play in an orchestra, so I don't know if it is this familiarity.  It is probably a very personal thing.  Soem people would probably find this very pressuring.

I do think teachers need to be sensitive to students' space.

[joyfulmusic]

Imagine my surprise that all these wonderful responses were here.  I had checked the notify me of replies box but didn't get them.  Thank you soooooooooo very much for these replies.  And yes I'm happy to hear from an adult student as well.  In the end. we are all students.  I am constantly learning from my students and am always working on new music both because I like  it and because I appreciate the student's experience better.  This board is such a gift!

thanks everyone