My Student

[sunshine_keys]

Okay..so I've been teaching for a few months now and recently my students mom told me that she was thinking about just taking a break from it for a while, because her daughter is such a perfectionist that she dreads practicing. She wants to learn, but when she practices everything has to be perfect...

She's good with piano.. I mean, we're only on the primer level atm, but I can tell she should/would pick it up fast if she just stuck to it.

I don't know what I should do.. do you think she should keep taking? or just take a break from it right now?

She was taking lessons from another lady, but she wasn't a good teacher at all so they quit. and now she has to go back over all the stuff she had "learned" with her, and do it with me. I feel bad for her, cause she's really not getting anywhere with it if she keeps quitting like this.

Anyhow...what do you think?

[ajspiano]

perhaps this should be in the teaching forum? you'd get more responses from teachers..

if they decide they are going to leave there's probably not a lot you can do. However, you can look at it as a problem you're student is facing and try to resolve that..

You say she's frustrated because she can't play perfectly? Well then give her something small that she can do..  MAKE SURE SHE GETS IT TOTALLY DOWN at the lesson, and she can then go practice something correctly, rather than having to struggle with something during the week.

Maybe you need to approach the primer pieces a bar at a time..  ?  its hard to really say without seeing your student.

Some people are fuelled by the challenge of something they can't do and it makes them work harder, while some are immediately discouraged by it. You have to figure out how you're student works...

[quantum]

I concur with ajspiano's comments.  Set very small goals than can be achieved in a small amount of time.  It may also help to define when the goal has been reached.  For example: the goal is to fix fingering for one measure.  Once the student can play the single measure with correct fingering, she should know that she has achieved the goal.  Make sure the student does not confuse this goal with playing the entire piece by memory without any note errors.  Inform her that she does not need complete large ambitious tasks in order to succeed in completing goals. 

Does your student display similar traits in school?  If so you may wish consider asking the parents to have the student checked for any special learning abilities.

You may wish to look up materials on teaching gifted students as well as OCD perfectionism. 

[pytheamateur]

If she's obsessed with playing wrong notes during a performance, then show her some unedited recordings of concert pianists or even masters playing wrong notes. 

You could hear "wrong notes" in Rachmaninov's performance of his third concerto.  This could be a good example if she loves his music.

[sunshine_keys]

@quantum, she's a perfectionist with everything.. like even sweeping the floor or something. She just feels like she needs to do everything PERFECTLY. She's really good with stuff. Like I'll even forget to count the notes sometimes....every time it's pretty much perfect. She's really good with it, and I'm sure she could fly through it really fast and be great with it.

She's currently still coming, and I haven't heard anything other wise.

Even if I give her something that she needs to work on at home, it comes back perfect.

I talked to her at our last lesson, and told her I wasn't PICKY PICKY about practicing exactly 15 minutes a day.. She can break it up, and do 5 minutes here, 5 minutes there. I don't know if that helped or not.. but they're still coming.

I have another lesson tomorrow with her, so I'll see how it goes. and keep y'all posted.

oh, and thanks to everyone else who commented.. I'll look into the special materials..