Unhappy Student

[meli]

Hi, I have a problem with this student (7 yrs old). I feel terrible as I made her cry during lesson today. I am preparing her for grd 1 exam (ABRSM). We are working on a baroque piece, gavot (A1) which she played quite well, rhythmically and correct notes but I was quite strict with her LH legato which she struggled with. (It took ab't 2 months to get it smooth). However, I listened to a recording of it a few weeks ago, and I heard the LH crotchets were all detached! I immediately thought of trying to get her to play like that. When I asked her in the lesson, I felt that she was quite angry at playing detached after struggling with legato. I sensed this, so I didn't push it. Then today, I tried to ask her again if she could play it detached. She suddenly stopped playing, gave an angry look (at the keys!), and refused to talk! I told her why I wanted it played detached, and even apologized for the change! I am just wondering, why do I need to apologize for this? Am I expecting too much? I had to cheer her up by saying something like I am proud of her achievements, scales played smoothly etc..  Then she became all weepy, as if stressed out. Now I feel like such a horrible teacher. Have any of you teachers made mistakes like this? You assign a piece, and decide later on a change of articulation if you think it would sound better etc.. Sorry guys, but I have only been teaching for 2 years, so any advice would be appreciated!

[quantum]

No teacher is perfect.  We all have to deal with the occasional tears - it comes with the profession. 

For now you could explain to her that there is more than one way the piece can be played and you were just getting her to explore some possibilities.  Praise her work on legato touch and ensure her that such work did not go to waste.  By learning the piece with detached touch, she has more interpretive options to her toolkit.

[pianisten1989]

You have to apologize, cause she's a kid. 2 moth is like forever for a 7 year old, and then to suddenly say "Nah, your work was for nothing.. Do like you did before" can be really frustrating. And why don't you let her decide how it should be played? It's only grade 1, I really don't think that the jury will think "omg she didn't play legato there! She will so not pass!"

Show her some recordings, both legato and detached. Show her that there's more ways to play a piece (like quantum said).

Though, I would, asap, make her play what the score tells her.

[mcdiddy1]

In my opinion you should take it as a lesson learned. Morally you should not teach a piece that you do not understand. I was in a situation similar in that I was teaching a student to play a Mozart piece and I did not know how the trill was playing traditionally in this piece of music because of all the composers I play Mozart the least.  I went home and found recordings, researched information about the piece, history so I would be prepared to lead the student in the right direction. I am sure it was just as aspect you were unsure about but you have to know that music inside and out in order to do it the justice of teaching. You have to make a decision and live or die by it.

 Having the student play two months what you now decide the wrong way is incredibly hard to unlearn and I would want to cry myself. If you practiced a piece only three times a day which is very easy to do then in a month you would have played the piece 900 times! Theoretically that would be about 1800 times playing a piece what you now have said is the wrong way! 

It is that reason I feel the first lesson is the most important lesson, you could give her a preview of all the sections of the piece and technique involved even before the student plays it. You are not a horrible teacher but you have made an error. If you cannot live with the choice to have her play legato from the beginning , scrap the piece and start over on a piece that you know fully well.  You should apologize and move on. You

[prettypianoplaying]

My teacher did that to me all the time. I got used to it, in fact it made me a better pianist because i was able to play the passages in so many different ways. I never cried about it when I was younger, but I also didn't practice 900 times over a couple months when I was a little beginner. I never cried about it when I was older either.

When I was in senior grades and came to a lesson with a piece i just learned, I would play it for her and she would tell me to change something for next week. I would come with it changed and she would tell me to play it another way (the way I originally played it). This would always happen, so i figured if I never changed anything it would always work out in the end 

Anyways, she never ever said she made a mistake even when I was older - I figured she just had different feelings about the piece every week. The way she approached this was smart because if she told me all the time she was making mistakes and apologizing it would seem she was an incompetent teacher.

Next time you make a mistake like that with a little kid or have a different feeling about the piece (because it does take them awhile to learn the coordination), if you want to bypass tears don't introduce it like you made a mistake . I don't know, introduce it like "great job on the legato this week, now let's try an exercise like this - follow me!" and play detached notes along with her. And ask to her practice LH alone all week like that, then gradually ask her to do that hands together over the weeks. You don't need to address if there was a mistake made or not unless she questions you about it. And even then, it was still good for her to learn the passage in different styles so I still wouldn't tell her it was a mistake.

or, start her on something new to learn and bypass the whole crying/stressful issue.

[go12_3]

I think any 7 year old cannot handle any king of pressure and believe me, it has been my
experience through teaching such young students.  It just won't work.  I mean, they can only
learn enough to get by, unless the child is a prodigy, but even then, let the child be a kid and
let them enjoy playing the piano instead of getting all worked up about how a piece ought to be played!  Just let it be a lesson with a child that weeps during the lesson, because it sounds like a stress factor to me....

[mike saville]

2 moth is like forever for a 7 year old

I think this is the key point I picked up from the initial post. Forget the mistake. But 2 months on a piece? Where is the fun in that for the student?

I know that there are parents to please and exams to prepare for which will inevitably lead to more time spent on exam pieces but . . . . I would suggest a couple of weeks here and there indespersed with other pieces.

[lostinidlewonder]

Never try to make a beginner play a piece perfectly or as close to an A grade as possible. It is just useless and frustrates the poor student. A single piece generally should not be under the lesson microscope for more than 1 month, the student is of course required to practice the piece as long as they can, but not all of my beginner students practice ALL the pieces we go through. At the end of the year most of them get through over 20 pieces, they will continue to play the ones they really like and discard the ones which they don't. Some people think it is a waste when you forget about pieces you learnt before but it absolutely is not. You can prove this to yourself by simply trying to relearn the piece, you will get it under you hands many times faster than your previous first attempt (In fact I use this constantly as a motivation point to many of my students when we relearn a piece, because we keep a journal we know how long it took them when they first learnt the piece, ALWAYS when we relearn the piece the amount of time required to bring it back is MUCH shorter than when we first learnt it, students delight in this knowledge.)  The brain does not forget paths that we walked before, but the path might get a little thick with "weeds' what have you but the general way is still there and things will start to feel familiar again as you remember things.

You should also be able to play a piece in many different ways and not get stuck playing it in one fashion. Beginners inability to change how they express their music demonstrate 1) lack of technical capability 2) underdeveloped muscular memory which is a slave to the initial prescribed note memory process. As teachers we should set up our students to act against these issues or it will restrict their ability to teach themselves and overall progress further in piano. Even advanced pianists must change their perspectives on things now and then, if we are stuck in a stubborn singular method our progress will plateau.

A beginner of course will get frustrated to have to change a way in which they play a piece after struggling to play it one way. Your idea to try to make her play the LH legato then detached was a good one but you should have told her at the start that there are two ways in expressing it and we will explore both. It is teaching 2 musical voices with one piece, the student does not have to learn new notes and can appreciate the contrasting sounds in the same piece, efficient.

But how you have gone about this process with this student is a little wrong imo. Struggling for 2 months, then trying to change something again, it is like saying, ok you have run around this track 20 times, well done, now lets do the same track again but now you have to hop around. It is a mental torture, do something new! Young students like to do new things, constantly do new things, small manageable pieces. Even if you think it is too easy for them, give them these pieces that they can get through fast and see quick progress. It will give them energy and encouragement to try more difficult things. I do this all the time with my young students, make them do things which is easy to succeed with then we try something more challenging where they trip over but get up and try again and again. Once they are exhausted they can go back to the stuff which they do so easily, it is a good source of self motivation and crucial to young minds.

[meli]

Thanks guys for your valuable advice! I gave into the parental pressure to enroll her for grade 1 exam. I told her mother it would be struggle for her, but I would choose the easiest songs in the syllabus. I am a new teacher, and really scared to lose this business, and wanted to proove myself somehow, but now I regret I thought this exam might 'wake her up' into practicing but it clearly hasn't (she is not a constant practicer).

This girl seems very reluctant and unhappy lately. On some days, she will not answer me and even play!  I even gave her other easy and fun songs to learn (so that its not just exams!), but she doesn't even practice it. I even asked her if anything happened over the week, too much homework? etc..She just keeps quiet.  I told her mother about this. She has also fallen off on her practicing e.g. she fumbles, makes note mistakes etc.. I feel its just laziness on her part, cause she can play it correctly on a few occasions. I even praised her playing on such occasions, but next week - its much worse. What happened? 

I even told her very nicely and the mother that her exam is coming, I would expect more practicing from her. She used to be a bubbly and happy girl, but I noticed she has changed completely during her exam preparation.
 
The mother is a nice person, and told me she will start supervising her practicing next month. (Her exam is in Sept) so I hope it will work out. I am also giving her extra lessons, just to check on her practicing. My only fear is she will fail this exam and the mother will blame me How would you deal with this?

[go12_3]

You know, whenever a student is unhappy and very reluctant, I think it would be wise to step back and re-evaluate how YOU are feeling at the moment.  Don't think about this young student, don't think about what the parent will think.  Now, what is more important...your mental and emotional state of mind and health or this particular student?

How many students do you have, take that into consideration.  Can you just recommend another teacher for this student?  Is there another alternative way to solve this problem?  Sure there is and you know what, it's not going to be the end of the world!  Let go of this unhappy student and don't let her be this chain around your neck.

I have come to realize it is a good thing to quit teaching students that are unhappy or making me unhappy because it's not worth my well being.  Life does go on.  That's why I don't do recitals and making my students play to perfection because of the reason what you are going through now.  It's not worth the hassle.  Your young student will end up hating the piano and it  may be time to think about what she would like to do instead of being pressured to play the  exam!  Children need to be kids and HAVE FUN and ENJOY MUSIC!!!   I hope that you will truly think about this and take action for yourself and your student.  The next time I hear from you in this thread, I'd like to hear some happy resolutions and you have the power to make it HAPPEN!  Today before life is more miserable than ever.

I wish you the best...

[frank_48]

If you practiced a piece only three times a day which is very easy to do then in a month you would have played the piece 900 times! Theoretically that would be about 1800 times playing a piece what you now have said is the wrong way! 

i dont mean to nitpick or whatever, but, isnt 3 times a day for 1 month only 90 times and not 900?

[emusicmaestro]

Hi
The thing to do is to forgive yourself for not being perfect - children have to learn that adults are human too! I wonder if it might have been better to have left the piece as it was however.

Speaking as an examiner and experienced pianist, I can tell you that playing legato in a Baroque piece is really a matter of choice, although the accepted stylistic convention, broadly speaking, is to play with detached longer notes and legato shorter notes. Your student would certainly not have failed the piece for playing it legato, but may not have achieved a distinction mark.


 

[valkyrie11]

Forgive me if this question is stupid, but does your student actually want to play? If I were forced to go to piano practice against my will and then had to endure the "play it this way, no this way, no you had it right the first time so go unlearn the last two months of work we forced you to do anyway" fiasco, I'd be pissed. Especially if I were a seven year old.

If she wanted to take lessons and is now unhappy, that can be handled, but if her parents are making her take lessons, it seems like there would be some issues that need to be addressed before she can actually start playing again...?

Just curious.
-V