Funny Piano Lesson Moments

[asianpianoer]

since there is a topic abt the most rewarding times for teachers... i think students should have a section so ....

i know my teacher can be so funny as to relate piano towards, cricket, and food.

like i was playing a piece with not enough conviction and he was like , it sounds meek, like like it has iron difficiency...

[orangesodaking]

My teacher makes the funniest choking noises when I accidentally play a wrong note (and he knows it's not a misreading, just a fluke innaccuracy).

[asianpianoer]

hahaa yeah my teacher laughs at me when i make a stupid mistake or when something is really hard that he is asking me to do.
and i'mlike IT"S NOT THAT FUNNY
and he just laughs which makes me laugh too

also he cracked up when i was doing a trill and it ran forward (like say it started on the edge of the keyboard it ended up towards the piano board thing)

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

I have so many funny lesson moments, because I know I laugh at least once every lesson. But I can never remember exactly what happens at lessons... so I can't give any examples. (I can't believe my memory is that horrible)
Usually she'll make a joke (about the piece, my playing, my mistakes), and then laugh at her own joke, and that makes me laugh. Sometimes the joke sinks in after I start playing again, or I suppress my laughter and I burst out laughing in the middle of a piece!
Other times I just make a really stupid mistake and I start to laugh at myself.

[asianpianoer]

I have so many funny lesson moments, because I know I laugh at least once every lesson.

same here!!!!
my teacher is really funny
without knowing that he is.

[mnmleung]

I was accompanying a Britten piece for a singer curing a coaching session.  The vocal coach said
the first time he noticed I played a section in the wrong clef (!), he thought it was an accident.

The second time he heard it, he knew I learnt it incorrectly.  (No matter, he was working on the singer).

The third time it happened, he had to bring it to my attention ... it did sound different when I played in the correct clef, but I said it was not that much of an improvement ...

Another time, I was accompanying a singer during her lesson.  The power went out, and it was dark.  For some reason I had a torch with me.  So I strapped it to my forehead and we tried to continue with the lesson.  I was hoping the power outage would not affect the lesson, but both singer and teacher had the giggles because it was a little unexpected for them to see me kitted up ...

[kelly_kelly]

I can't help but smile when my teacher tries to make math/physics analogies. She knows that I'm a physical science person, so she sometimes starts talking about Newton's laws in ways that are incredibly sweet and not really correct

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

I can't help but smile when my teacher tries to make math/physics analogies. She knows that I'm a physical science person, so she sometimes starts talking about Newton's laws in ways that are incredibly sweet and not really correct

yeah, sometimes my teacher likes to use big $50 words found in the thesaurus...
and speaking of physics instead of speed/ tempo, she likes to say velocity... a LOT

[sucom]

The funniest lesson I have ever given was with a male adult student who has been with me for around 4 years, and despite loving his piano study, doesn't always have the time to practise as much as he should!  During his lessons, if I hear him struggling, I usually stop him to save his embarassment and utilise the lesson to give him some extra hard practice.  But after several weeks (months) of this and tired after quite a long teaching session, I let him continue through a piece, and he was getting slower and slower as he progressed to the point where it started to become painful.  And I was thinking, yes, I'm going to let you suffer because you know you haven't practised yet again!  But he bravely kept going, and it was so painful for him, it started to make me smile.

And then, at the most painful point, he suddenly stopped playing and said "This is complete ***** isn't it?"  and I couldn't help but burst out laughing.   The poor man!  lol.  A year later, and we're still ploughing on with his lessons, and he's thoroughly enjoying them, despite his lack of practice.  It still makes me smile, just thinking about it.  I love this man's courage

[pianoplayjl]

Once when I couldn't follow the metronome the teacher said I was hopeless and that was near exam periods. I couldn't help but silently laugh at that remark.

[bachbrahmsschubert]

This is a little dirty, but I just can't help but post this.

I don't remember the exact piece, but I was playing Bach and my teacher shouts out "Stop jerking off tempo with your left hand." She really didn't understand why I was laughing so hard, which just made it funnier for me.

Anyway...

[keypeg]

I know this is old but I just noticed it.

The funniest lesson I have ever given was with a male adult student who has been with me for around 4 years, and despite loving his piano study, doesn't always have the time to practise as much as he should!  During his lessons, if I hear him struggling, I usually stop him to save his embarassment and utilise the lesson to give him some extra hard practice.  But after several weeks (months) of this and tired after quite a long teaching session, I let him continue through a piece, and he was getting slower and slower as he progressed to the point where it started to become painful. ........

And then, at the most painful point, he suddenly stopped playing and said "This is complete ***** isn't it?"  and I couldn't help but burst out laughing.   The poor man!  lol.  A year later, and we're still ploughing on with his lessons, and he's thoroughly enjoying them, despite his lack of practice.  It still makes me smile, just thinking about it.  I love this man's courage

If he is going slower and slower, then it is not because he is getting tired, but because he doesn't know the middle as well as the start, and he knows the end even worse than the start, right?  This, in turn, means that he was practicing starting at the beginning,  and probably always starting over at the beginning when he was stuck, going just a bit further.  The parts he knew would get practiced very well, and the parts he needed to practice were hardly getting touched.  It is an inefficient way of practicing.  Especially if he has little time, shouldn't he learn to practice efficiently?  For example, I was taught to work on a small section, preferably near the end, or to identify what I need to work on the most, and concentrate on it.  When you learn to do this and you start getting results, it can even motivate you and suddenly you "find time" you didn't think you had.

This struck me as important.

[Derek]

Back in college, I was working on Haydn sonata Hob. 59 with my piano professor. I was having difficulty playing a certain passage the way he was instructing me, and he said that I must confront my "inner neanderthal." Obviously he didn't mean anything by it, and we both laughed.

[dcstudio]

...my professor in college got up and started watering his plants during my jury--swear to God--I thought he was taking a leak---so to speak.     One of those sounds that I can still hear to this day--lol--in his defense--I was "murdering" the Pathetique...