After one year of lessons

[fleetfingers]

How far along should a student be after one year of lessons?

I know this varies with age and individual talent and/or effort, but generally speaking...Let's say for an 8-year-old who started as a true beginner, with no former experience at the piano. Where does a good teacher expect them to be after a year of weekly 30-minute lessons? In terms of playing ability, knowledge of notes, scales, sighreading, etc.? Perhaps a best and worst case scenario.

[m1469]

[edit] @_

[birba]

Hmmm...Wow.  And the worst case scenario?

[m1469]

Worst case scenario is that they are learning piano just for fun.  haha.  That's mostly a joke.  But, obviously the worst case scenario is that they get absolutely nothing at all in any way, shape or form from our lessons together.  They learn nothing whatsoever, they can't stand it, they can't stand me, etc. etc.

Best case scenario would have no limit to how they exceed my average expectations.  And, of course, I'm assuming it goes without mention that my average expectation is not at all the average reality in my studio, but rather the exception, in fact, which has not been achieved by anybody yet.

[birba]

Now I get it! 

[stevebob]

I honestly wonder how many teachers have ever had any average eight-year-old beginner accomplish all the items on m1469's checklist (or even most of them) after one year of instruction.

Still, it's a nice wishlist.

[m1469]

[edit] @_

[fleetfingers]

Sorry, maybe I should not have asked for best and worst cases. (Although I have a similar 'wish list') I want to know, realistically, where a child should be after one year of lessons. Are there any teachers reading this that have come up with some goals as a piano teacher for what they aim to accomplish in the first year? I don't mean what would your dream student be able to do. I mean, in reality, what have your students of one year been able to do?

I am asking this question as a new teacher who would like to have a sense of whether or not my students are 'on track'. Have you seen the series of books What your Kindergartener Needs to Know, What Your First Grader Needs to Know, etc? That's kind of what I'm looking for. If there was a book What Your Piano Student Needs to Know After One Year, what would be in it?

[m1469]

[edit] @_

[pianowolfi]

Sometimes I think I'd get further with my students if I had studied psychology instead of music....

[lostinidlewonder]

Sometimes I think I'd get further with my students if I had studied psychology instead of music....

This is a very good point. I find personally I am playing a mental game with my students trying to encourage them to learn and excite them to solve their problems. You really need to  be able to relate things in terms of your students interest and have a keen understanding of how they behave and see the world around them. Just knowing the answers will never be enough, you need to make the knowledge delicious to them.


Worse case is when they are learning because they are forced to and they have no interest in the piano. The slowest student I ever had took 1 month to complete 4 bars of a simple piece. It was because they NEVER practiced and only did work during the 30 minutes a week lesson. These are the slowest students because they do not work when the teacher is not there.

Best case is when they work hard so much so that your weekly meeting is not about teaching them anything new but going over all the content that they have worked on for the week and making appraisals on their decision making and solutions. This is a very organic lesson which flows between the teacher and student and is not a one way stream. You sometimes get teachers who merely teach and throw knowledge at the student without bothering if it absorbed or are uninterested if it is reflected back to the them with their students blank stares. The best case student you will never feel this and always feel like the lesson you BOTH are solving the problem.

After one year a beginner should be able to play with both hands, play basic LH chord RH melody pieces, learn basic LH patterns that can support a RH melody. The general chords, scales, being able to play the piano with single positions of their hand (which can be emphasized with exercises), basic reading (being able to read both treble and bass and understanding how to read intervals, how to read music via relating to previous notes instead of reading each note individually), they should also understand about consistent effort at the piano i.e work every day. They should also have an understanding for the types of memory we have when learning the piano, they should understand how to use each one basically, how to create memory prompts from the sheet music, how to acquire their muscular memory for simple phrases. They should also know about the touches at the piano, the difference between legato-staccato, forte-piano (where volume comes from the body while playing) etc.

Generally I do not get my young beginner students to catalogue all of the knowledge I teach them like you might do adult students. It is overwhelming for them to consider it all in detail so we merely teach it to them through the pieces they learn. They are learning about many musical issues without being directly told about it but as a teacher we take that authority to teach it to them without defining exactly what it is and how it fits into their musical education.

[Bob]

Able to prepare a piece from their method book in a week without too much trouble.

Able to keep a steady beat, if they couldn't already when they started.

Some hand dependence.

Decent position.  Ok hand position -- Not perfect, but good enough.

No scales.  No sight-reading.  They won't have time. 

I'm thinking an average student and taking some breaks during that year.

Some kind of enjoyment in practicing and liking something about music.

Understands the idea of playing the piano while looking at the music.  I guess I'm thinking the tradition classical approach here.

Understands the idea of practicing.


I'm curious how long it takes the average student to get through the method books. 

[fleetfingers]

Thank you for your responses (even the one that was deleted). I really had no idea what other teachers aim for, but I'd put together my own list and wanted to know if it was expecting too much or too little. It is actually quite similar to what you mentioned, so I think I'm doing OK. I have several students who practice everyday and love it, and they are already accomplishing more than what's on the list. There is also one that never practices and he is going very slowly. It's weird, because he does like to play. I try very hard to encourage him and convince him that he is capable and can progress a lot faster if he practices. I have to work him pretty hard during lessons - and he even likes it! - because that's the only time he EVER plays the piano! So, yes, there is a range of accomplishment. But it's nice to have some kind of standard to aim for. 

[pianisten1989]

The worst case scenario is that they no longer enjoy music. Personally, I don't mind if not everyone becomes super-pro pianists, as long as they really likes music.

Best case scenario is that they really likes music, and that they wants to do it for the rest of their life