insisting for a year on only few works

[mammy]

My son is studying piano for two years and a half; he is nine years old and goes at a College of Art. He is made for music having all the needed  natural attributes, but he is not very confident in himself, is extremely tensed when playing at school, but not so much during the auditions or exams. He has nor enough courage or patience to practice alone. When he thinks he is not observed he is in a hurry to finish all quickly. Now he is studying Bach –12 Little Preludes no. 8,  Bertini - Etude no. 16 op 29, Czerny - Etude 69 op. 599, and a Dussek’s Rondo.
His teacher is great: most of her students win first or second prizes at national and even international musical contests. All of them are hard-working girls.
The problem is that excepting the first and the second of these works, which he has recently approached, the others are from September, and he managed to play them well two or three times but he is still asked to work them. I feel that he is almost saturated of the old ones and the lack of interest makes him not paying attention anymore and it happens to be sent home to work them again and again.
I am not a very good money maker and that could be an issue. Even if the school is free and the teachers have their salaries (it is true not very satisfactory). But I think it is a free option to be or not to be a teacher. He is a boy (specific psychological features).
Finally (after I have told you “the entire story”) the question is whether the teacher’s attitude is good for my son as a piano player. In other words, isn’t it wrong not to work more diversely with the child and stubbornly to ask him increase the super-perfection of few pieces instead of offering him various repertoire opportunities to experience maybe at a lower level than perfection for the moment, but maybe more constructive in the future.

[3htohn]

Hi Mammy, well, from a student's point of view, over my time I've had various teachers with different teaching methods.

I once went to one teacher (for only 12 months) and she gave 75 pieces (not 75 separate pieces but when you include all the different movements of the sonatas it added up to 75). My head was so full of music I didn't really know whether I was coming or going. But what an experience that was, wow the different technieques of piano playing I never knew existed.

I had other teacher over the time that demanded perfection on just 3 pieces. But this was also of benifit because it helped me to better practice certain techniques that would be used for other pieces.

I had another teacher that gave me a few pieces of the usual repertoire, but was 95% Beethoven. But wow, what an experiece this was, learning all about Beethoven. It's where my love for Beethoven came from.

But I am not a teacher so I don't know that I could really answer you question, it's more a question for a teacher I think. This is just my story I wanted you to be aware of, which may help.

Энтони.

[go12_3]

Hello Mammy:
 I would not have my students learn a piece for several weeks, I'd have them move on to another piece if it doesn't make them progress in a timely manner.  I usually have my students learn a combination of easy and more challenging pieces.  I believe they do need to stretch their abilities, and yet,  not too much or the student would become frustrated with the challenging pieces.  Your son's teacher should know him well enough to determine what he is capable of learning and yet, I do not sense, from your post, that your son is happy about his lessons....I don't know....
Perhaps the expecations of a parent can be sensed by a child and therefore creates this
tension, which would not be beneficial for a child. To learn music and especially playing the piano should and ought to be a happy experiene, if not, then the situation needs to be evaluated....why is the child tense?  what can the teacher do to help increase interest and progression? 

[peterjmathis]

That does strike me as a little strange. Normally if a student isn't progressing, a teacher will switch.

Have you talked to the teacher about this? If there's a money issue you might be with him for a while and maybe you can work out a solution.

[oxy60]

I think we all need to relax and remember how we were when we were nine. Didn't we want to work on something longer? Did we feel that the adults were pushing us? The fact that he is still working on those pieces is very positive. Maybe he hears something he wants to fix or discover.

And remember, there are flat spots in the learning curve..

[stevebob]

I think we all need to relax and remember how we were when we were nine. Didn't we want to work on something longer? Did we feel that the adults were pushing us? The fact that he is still working on those pieces is very positive. Maybe he hears something he wants to fix or discover.

And remember, there are flat spots in the learning curve..

Hmmm.  Well, we're all different.  Personally, my tendency to wrap up a piece before it's truly "finished" because I'm impatient to start exploring something fresh and new has very deep roots (though I'm happy to say that now, many decades after I was nine years old, I've reined it in some).

But the OP doesn't seem to be suggesting that it's the boy who wishes to draw out the study and mastery of a limited number of pieces.  Rather, Mammy's concern appears to be that her son is perhaps being held back by his teacher's approach.

I found this description intriguing:  "He has nor enough courage or patience to practice alone," while, simultaneously, "[h]e is made for music having all the needed  natural attributes ...."  Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but those statements seems contradictory; a child with a real flair for any field should, I believe, have the patience and interest to immerse himself or herself thoroughly in that area.  I would think that the desire to do so is a fundamental requirement for foreseeing a future career path in that discipline.

Maybe it's the word "practice" that I'm misinterpreting.  I had no competent instruction as a child, and I admit that I disliked (for the most part) practicing the pieces assigned to me.  I could barely bear to spend 30 minutes daily preparing for lessons, but I had an abundant supply of courage to sightread most anything I could get my hands on, patience to work independently on pieces I did like, and interest in learning as much as I could about composers I was most fond of.

Of course, there are surely many paths leading toward becoming an adult professional in some facet of music.  I didn't even come close ... but that's another story. 

[peterjmathis]

I think we all need to relax and remember how we were when we were nine. Didn't we want to work on something longer? Did we feel that the adults were pushing us? The fact that he is still working on those pieces is very positive. Maybe he hears something he wants to fix or discover.

And remember, there are flat spots in the learning curve..

I think the problem is that the son seems bored in this case. That might not be the amount of study on one piece as much as the specific piece itself, though. For all we know he'd love to work for an extended period on pieces he likes more.

[mammy]

Энтони shared very interesting experiences but I wonder if you were of my son’s age. The question is whether the feelings you are talking about were at that time or you feel this way now when thinking about them.
Stevebob gave me a lot of hope. I have thought that it is bad sign if the child tends to spend more time on his “discoveries” than on what he is supposed to perfect for classes I have been afraid that this is a sort of focusing inability like beating about the bushes (I am not sure I correctly remember this saying). And I could say that he knows and wants to know very much about composers, their lives and especially how they were at his age.
I agree that the description that I made to my son is intriguing. But he is full of paradoxes: extremely intelligent, but extremely lazy, extremely wise (like an old man), but doing all the “undesired” and unpredictable things possible. I also have a daughter but he is the real challenge for me as a parent.
Thank you for your opinion peterjmathis. I have found it really useful.
go12_3 revealed me a possible problem that I should pay more attention on what my son feels when he works on piano and what kind of message I sent him about my expectations

[quantum]

I think a very important element in this discussion is the child's own views on the matter.  Mammy, you need you ask you child to express his ideas to you. 

What does he wish to learn?  Does he like spending a long time on only a few pieces?  Would he like to learn more pieces in a shorter amount of time?  What does he think is "fun" about lessons?  What is not "fun"?  Does he think learning piano is too hard?  to easy?  Is there something he wishes to learn that is not being covered in lessons?  Are there recordings of music that make him excited about music?  What are they?  Does the music covered in lessons give him the same excitement?

As a parent you need to realize that the volume of material covered is not proportional to the amount of learning that occurs.  It is difficult as a parent to judge weather or not your child is taking in the material, and often times the counting of completed tasks is given too much weight. 

The problems may not even be in piano.  It could be something else in his life that is bothering him.  Ask him about it.

How is your child doing in school?  Are there similarities in his learning in other subjects?  From your description, your child appears to have some traits of a gifted learner. 

I've had gifted students before.  One of them was in Grade 1 at school, but had a reading level of Grade 8.  She could compose and improvise music quite easily, but had difficulty reading a music score.  She played better without a score on the music rack.  Every student has their strengths and weaknesses and sometimes they may seem contradictory. 

[mammy]

There are some problems in his life, if I can say so. One is intimate – lack of a real relation with his father (he feels himself somehow rejected). I believe that unfortunately he feels that nobody except me wants him (he is very dramatic in everything). And the other one is “social”: he has an incompatible class teacher (extremely and exclusively impressed by the children who have financially impressive parents). I cannot move him in another class because in the other one is the teacher’s wife so there is no use. This is the only Art College in our city. At the beginning I asked a psychologist to help him improve his level of concentration and motivation. After few week sessions she told me that my son has an amazing capacity to concentrate and he is able to solve problems for the six grades within a perfect time interval, he is very mature and eloquent in his discourse, and when he is appreciated for his work he has better result at the next step.

[oxy60]

Does anyone recognize themselves in this discourse?

My parents were not artistic nor anywhere near as eloquent and contemplative as this poster. So I was left alone to my moods and dramas. These sorts of things were never discussed between parents and children. Parents ran the show and the kids obeyed.

In those days we were at war. Lots of my friends were being raised by single parents. There were much bigger issues for adults that the moods and dramas of a child. The rule for me sounds harsh by today's standards: "only speak if you are spoken to" and "get over it, there are children who are far worse off than you."

I started piano lessons the year following Pearl Harbor. I was seven when we landed at Normandy and eight just a few days before the liberation of Europe. The Sixth Fleet is stationed in our harbor and the First Marine Division is just up the road.