get scolded by piano teacher

[happygela]

I'm an adult piano learner and just started to learn piano from a professional teacher. Previously I played a little bit electrical piano, which is totally different.  I'm really bad at sight reading and keep making mistakes in class with the new piece, which makes my teacher really mad at me and stop me many times. I feel sad about it. Is it common? and what's the effective way to improve my sight reading?

[outin]

I'm an adult piano learner and just started to learn piano from a professional teacher. Previously I played a little bit electrical piano, which is totally different.  I'm really bad at sight reading and keep making mistakes in class with the new piece, which makes my teacher really mad at me and stop me many times. I feel sad about it. Is it common? and what's the effective way to improve my sight reading?

Is the teacher really mad or do you just interpret him wrong? If the teacher is mad about mistakes, you should find a new one. Being stopped to show you a better way to do things is good teaching, but to stop just to tell you you've made a mistake is not doing much good. Besides everyone makes mistakes with new pieces. If we didn't, why would we need to practice?

Your sight reading will improve with time and practice, read through a lot of easy pieces, don't just practice the piece you are learning with your teacher.

[kopower]

Sight reading improvement never ends and takes years

You are an adult - you can be told off or asked to practice more


If the teacher is making you fearful and SCOLDING you then that's not right

[hfmadopter]

I'm an adult piano learner and just started to learn piano from a professional teacher. Previously I played a little bit electrical piano, which is totally different.  I'm really bad at sight reading and keep making mistakes in class with the new piece, which makes my teacher really mad at me and stop me many times. I feel sad about it. Is it common? and what's the effective way to improve my sight reading?

There is a difference between a stern approach and getting to the bottom of the difficulty and actually being scolded by a teacher with a rude attitude. In the first case it goes something like this , you are playing your practice piece and the teacher says: " Ok stop right there, Stop Right There, We have to fix something here that is a fairly typical mistake ". The teacher may be speaking a bit loudly to be heard over your playing. But you are aware that there is a mistake and the two of you are going to work on it and find a way to approach that so the mistake resolves itself. That's just good teaching, you leave having learned something. Maybe you now have a new approach to an old problem in your playing.

In the second case, scolded: : "Didn't you practice this week because one certainly wouldn't think so by your playing, you're doing it all wrong and it's a foolish ( interject your own word, perhaps stupid) mistake you shouldn't be making". This has no pupil energizer in it, it drags you down and the words stick in your mind in a negative way. You leave demoralized even if you did learn something.

That said, teachers are human, they have bad days too. So even if it's like the second case if it's not repeated often so be it.

[happygela]

Thank you all for your replies. I'm usually scolded because of playing the wrong notes with the new piece to learn in the class. He pointed out the first time like F sharp, but then I may played the wrong note like F or G sharp the second or third time or with the wrong finger. He thought I'm not focused. but I really tried hard and feel a bit nervous, maybe not quite confident. Also it's hard for me to get the rhythm correct in the beginning since I'm too busy recognizing the notes. He is a little bit pushed. But after week's practice at home, I can do a really good job with it and he sometimes praises me for that and gives me new piece, then came the scolding again...

[outin]

Thank you all for your replies. I'm usually scolded because of playing the wrong notes with the new piece to learn in the class. He pointed out the first time like F sharp, but then I may played the wrong note like F or G sharp the second or third time or with the wrong finger. He thought I'm not focused. but I really tried hard and feel a bit nervous, maybe not quite confident. Also it's hard for me to get the rhythm correct in the beginning since I'm too busy recognizing the notes. He is a little bit pushed. But after week's practice at home, I can do a really good job with it and he sometimes praises me for that and gives me new piece, then came the scolding again...

I hardly ever try to sight read new pieces on lessons, would be a waste of valuable lesson time. We may look into some spots together, but usually I look at the pieces at home first. I would not be able to take in anything useful until I have had the chance to get to know the score at least a little bit. If you already know the basics of reading the scores, you could just tell your teacher to assign the next piece instead of trying to play it cold and spend the lesson with other pieces.

I hope you don't mean you get a new piece every week and leave the old one? There should always be things to improve worth working for another week. I don't have high regard for teachers who think the piece is finished when you get the notes and rhythm just about correctly.

If he wants you to practice sight reading on lessons (which seems rather pointless) he should give you something easier than what you usually would practice. And if he just wants to see how you manage, he really wouldn't need to point out the mistakes while you are playing.

If it really bothers you, I think you should talk to him and see if he is willing to take your needs into account or if he is one of those teachers who teach how they always do no matter how the student works best. But also you must accept that any good teacher will point out faults in your playing constantly and push you for something better. That's why you need a teacher, to tell you what works and what doesn't and help you find better ways.

[quantum]

I'm usually scolded because of playing the wrong notes with the new piece to learn in the class. He pointed out the first time like F sharp, but then I may played the wrong note like F or G sharp the second or third time or with the wrong finger. He thought I'm not focused.

That does not sound right.  You should not be scolded for lack of knowledge or lack or skill.  You are going to lessons in order to learn these things, not to be told off that you do not know them.  IMO, if student is having difficulty with something, it is the teachers responsibility to help the student find a solution.  In this case he should be showing you how you can correct the wrong notes, not scolding you for playing them.

Agree with the above, have a discussion with your teacher.  If this is "his way" of teaching, and you cannot see yourself continuing in the same manner, it is time to look for another teacher. 

[hfmadopter]

That does not sound right.  You should not be scolded for lack of knowledge or lack or skill.  You are going to lessons in order to learn these things, not to be told off that you do not know them.  IMO, if student is having difficulty with something, it is the teachers responsibility to help the student find a solution.  In this case he should be showing you how you can correct the wrong notes, not scolding you for playing them.

Agree with the above, have a discussion with your teacher.  If this is "his way" of teaching, and you cannot see yourself continuing in the same manner, it is time to look for another teacher. 

Yep !

[pianoman8]

If possible, I would try a lesson with another teacher. While it is important to hit as few wrong notes as possible, the music is not only the notes. It has dynamics, feeling interpretation, etc... Your teacher should not make you feel bad about wrong notes. Maybe he/she makes few mistakes, but he is a professional piano teacher. Your piano journey should be fun and encouraging, not full of fear and obsession over correct notes.

[joplinfreak]

I was scolded by my teacher for hitting wrong notes, she can be rather short with me at times. I'm beyond that, now all it seems I get is praises (in my HUMBLE opinion). I know exactly what your going through, but don't let that turn you away. I don't believe Czerny was gentle with his student's nor Hayden with Beethoven in fact Beethoven dropped Hayden after receiving criticism. 

[j_menz]

Beethoven dropped Hayden after receiving criticism. 

Nah, Haydn sacked Beethoven after he misspelt his name. 

@ OP - Pointing out mistakes is not scolding. If you're making mistakes, it's your teacher's job to help you fix them, and that first involves identifying them.  Unless they are being abusive about it, of course, in which case either tell them they are being inappropriate or dump them.

[nyiregyhazi]

I hardly ever try to sight read new pieces on lessons, would be a waste of valuable lesson time. We may look into some spots together, but usually I look at the pieces at home first. I would not be able to take in anything useful until I have had the chance to get to know the score at least a little bit. If you already know the basics of reading the scores, you could just tell your teacher to assign the next piece instead of trying to play it cold and spend the lesson with other pieces.

I hope you don't mean you get a new piece every week and leave the old one? There should always be things to improve worth working for another week. I don't have high regard for teachers who think the piece is finished when you get the notes and rhythm just about correctly.

If he wants you to practice sight reading on lessons (which seems rather pointless) he should give you something easier than what you usually would practice. And if he just wants to see how you manage, he really wouldn't need to point out the mistakes while you are playing.

If it really bothers you, I think you should talk to him and see if he is willing to take your needs into account or if he is one of those teachers who teach how they always do no matter how the student works best. But also you must accept that any good teacher will point out faults in your playing constantly and push you for something better. That's why you need a teacher, to tell you what works and what doesn't and help you find better ways.

Practising a piece for the first time is some of the most productive time that can be spent in a lesson. If you're not willing to be "naked"  for the teacher sometimes, you're missing out on learning how to self learn effectively. To learn effectively, the next note must be a choice that follows mental certainty- not an ill prepared guess. If you're not sure of the next note, don't play it. Plan it, feel  it physically and only then play it with confidence. By the time the student has hidden their mistakes from plain sight by making them in private, it's already too late. The only way to learn reliably is to have a totally solid conception of the key signature and to go slow and thoughtfully enough never to feel a single note is a guess based on failure to consider essential information. All the accomplished performers are capable of learning this way. At the very least, they stop for mistakes and fix them properly at source. The pressure of having someone watching is the ultimate test of whether a pianist forces themself into needless errors or if they can respond to mental pressure by taking pressure OFF themself by slowing down enough to make clear and simple joins between notes under almost no self-imposed pressure.

There are various things that a teacher should be able to help with that will help students to stop guessing and learn how to get things right first time, without forcing themself into errors due to the wrong kind of pressures. Unfortunately, some teachers push rhythm too much however and actively force students into error. The key is you understand how to tap a rhythm. If you can do that, the first execution can be in totally free time with attention paid solely to feeling connections clearly and simply between all intervals. The second time onwards, you begin to expect proper rhythm too. But the biggest mistake of all is for students to run themselves aground by taking wild guesses in the name of rhythm. A teacher shouldn't be rude, but when a student is simply running themself off the road by applying time pressures and having to guess, a teacher must intervene. To allow guesswork in the learning stages is almost as destructive as hoping to begin a suduko puzzle by entering a few random numbers into boxes. A good teacher puts pressure on- but only pressure for the student to stop pressuring themself into casual errors. Pressure to remove self-imposed pressure is the only way to make learning truly efficient. Prevention is always better than having to cure guesswork.

PS I've regularly seen students who play rhythms wrong fix the rhythm by nothing more than a playthrough in free time. If they understand how it should sound, all it takes is to give themselves the chance to actually feel joins between notes that they d previously not felt.  The only rhythmic error that is truly wrong in the learning process is a rushed note- which signifies destructive premature pressure and no chance to observe the foundations with clarity. If you can play a passage accurately in free time AND tap it's rhythm correctly, you have your foundation for accurate notes played in proper rhythm. If either is impossible, it requires urgent intervention before it goes any further. Forced guesswork is as productive in even the first execution of a piece to be learned as it is in a child trying to learn arithmetic.

[happygela]

Thank you guys. It's so nice to hear your opinions. I guess I need to calm myself down and get focused on the notes with the pressure from teacher. Maybe now I'm just not used to that, with someone strictly watching by.

[outin]

Practising a piece for the first time is some of the most productive time that can be spent in a lesson. If you're not willing to be "naked"  for the teacher sometimes, you're missing out on learning how to self learn effectively. To learn effectively, the next note must be a choice that follows mental certainty- not an ill prepared guess. If you're not sure of the next note, don't play it. Plan it, feel  it physically and only then play it with confidence. By the time the student has hidden their mistakes from plain sight by making them in private, it's already too late. The only way to learn reliably is to have a totally solid conception of the key signature and to go slow and thoughtfully enough never to feel a single note is a guess based on failure to consider essential information. All the accomplished performers are capable of learning this way. At the very least, they stop for mistakes and fix them properly at source. The pressure of having someone watching is the ultimate test of whether a pianist forces themself into needless errors or if they can respond to mental pressure by taking pressure OFF themself by slowing down enough to make clear and simple joins between notes under almost no self-imposed pressure.

There are various things that a teacher should be able to help with that will help students to stop guessing and learn how to get things right first time, without forcing themself into errors due to the wrong kind of pressures. Unfortunately, some teachers push rhythm too much however and actively force students into error. The key is you understand how to tap a rhythm. If you can do that, the first execution can be in totally free time with attention paid solely to feeling connections clearly and simply between all intervals. The second time onwards, you begin to expect proper rhythm too. But the biggest mistake of all is for students to run themselves aground by taking wild guesses in the name of rhythm. A teacher shouldn't be rude, but when a student is simply running themself off the road by applying time pressures and having to guess, a teacher must intervene. To allow guesswork in the learning stages is almost as destructive as hoping to begin a suduko puzzle by entering a few random numbers into boxes. A good teacher puts pressure on- but only pressure for the student to stop pressuring themself into casual errors. Pressure to remove self-imposed pressure is the only way to make learning truly efficient. Prevention is always better than having to cure guesswork.

PS I've regularly seen students who play rhythms wrong fix the rhythm by nothing more than a playthrough in free time. If they understand how it should sound, all it takes is to give themselves the chance to actually feel joins between notes that they d previously not felt.  The only rhythmic error that is truly wrong in the learning process is a rushed note- which signifies destructive premature pressure and no chance to observe the foundations with clarity. If you can play a passage accurately in free time AND tap it's rhythm correctly, you have your foundation for accurate notes played in proper rhythm. If either is impossible, it requires urgent intervention before it goes any further. Forced guesswork is as productive in even the first execution of a piece to be learned as it is in a child trying to learn arithmetic.

So we are back to you making completely wrong assumptions how things work for some of us and you pointing out how your way of doing things is the only right way? Good luck with your students, I hope they all go far


But I completely agree about this:
"If you're not sure of the next note, don't play it."
And that is exactly why it is important to be able to concentrate on the score properly the first time instead of just trying to get through it somehow with partial guesswork just because someone tells you to. Remember, I did write "If you already know the basics of reading the scores" to the OP. If one is prone to making basic mistakes and not notice it, it may be useful to take a look with the teacher first.

I am not interested in hiding my mistakes, I don't like them, but I still go to lessons to find even more of them. Most of them are so obvious though, that I don't need anybody to point them out for me, I can hear them myself.

BTW. A really good teacher surely is able to work that way with a student, but my experience is that few even bother to find out why reading is difficult. My childhood teacher didn't even care to check that I could see the score properly, which I couldn't because I didn't have glasses and was already quite short-sighted. I managed to fool her quite well by playing by ear and guesswork. Very few teachers seem to be aware of the different forms of dyslexy type difficulties either. Asking the student to read and pointing out his mistakes without finding out the cause makes little sense to me.

[nyiregyhazi]

So we are back to you making completely wrong assumptions how things work for some of us and you pointing out how your way of doing things is the only right way? Good luck with your students, I hope they all go far


But I completely agree about this:
"If you're not sure of the next note, don't play it."
And that is exactly why it is important to be able to concentrate on the score properly the first time instead of just trying to get through it somehow with partial guesswork just because someone tells you to. Remember, I did write "If you already know the basics of reading the scores" to the OP. If one is prone to making basic mistakes and not notice it, it may be useful to take a look with the teacher first.

I am not interested in hiding my mistakes, I don't like them, but I still go to lessons to find even more of them. Most of them are so obvious though, that I don't need anybody to point them out for me, I can hear them myself.

BTW. A really good teacher surely is able to work that way with a student, but my experience is that few even bother to find out why reading is difficult. My childhood teacher didn't even care to check that I could see the score properly, which I couldn't because I didn't have glasses and was already quite short-sighted. I managed to fool her quite well by playing by ear and guesswork. Very few teachers seem to be aware of the different forms of dyslexy type difficulties either. Asking the student to read and pointing out his mistakes without finding out the cause makes little sense to me.

Who said anything about pointing them out and leaving it there? That's useless. It's the process by which you learn not to make them first time around that a good teacher works at. I'm sorry, but when you claim that it's useless to play through unfamiliar repertoire for a teacher, you're simply wrong. You've missed the point of what a really good coach does. They don't only "repair" broken performances. They show students how to be getting things right at source. All the finest teaching is done this way.

An average teachermay simply tell the student about wrong notes that they probably noticed anyway, but that's not how a great teacher works. A good teacher trains them not to make that type of mistake in their practise., by stopping them guessing and showing them what thinking prevents guesswork. The majority of learning occurs in practice. There's nothing more important in practise than learning the processes by which casual mistakes can be avoided. There's no better test of whether a student knows how to work properly than reading a piece for the first time for their teacher, to show how they'd begin learning when at home. Nothing is more revealing of where a student needs help. I stress though this is not traditional sight reading practise where the student tries to fake a performance. It's where a student shows how they approach learning and where the teacher shows them how to do it more efficiently. You can speak of learning styles, but all accomplished pianists learn to do this (other than a tiny handful who can play anything by ear). There's no replacement for these skills, which are a pianistic fundament-not a "learning style". If a student can't demonstrate the ability to go slow enough not to guess when the teacher is watching, it's safe to say that what they do in private will not be optimal. These things have to there in the open, or they cannot be improved on but merely swept beneath the carpet

If you think you know better than the master teachers who work this way, that's fine. But when you tell people that this is a waste of lesson time, you grossly overstep the mark. It stops being an issue of how you are personally willing to learn and becomes an issue of a person providing highly misleading information that grossly misportrays how the finest teachers work with students. The finest teachers check that students know how to practise new material- by watching them do so. A student who is not willing to expose the weakness in these all important processes is not a student who can be helped with them.

[hfmadopter]

Thank you guys. It's so nice to hear your opinions. I guess I need to calm myself down and get focused on the notes with the pressure from teacher. Maybe now I'm just not used to that, with someone strictly watching by.

At least come to terms with what it means to be scolded vs just strong willed teaching. It sounds like your teacher points out your mistakes but also applauds your successes. You feel put on the spot, which actually is quite natural ! Now you know that you missed a note,  for instance, but also your teacher isn't going to let that slide. Some people when hitting a note accidentally now go off on a whole run of notes played incorrectly, as if the piece were written in a different key. I would like to hear though, that your teacher takes the time to also approach the incorrect note and get you so you then are not striking it. This can be taught to you and you can use that as a short term exercise to drum that mistake out of you for ever. This assuming it's one of those nagging slips and not just errant. Errant slips should probably be let go with just a passing comment.

[brogers70]

Who said anything about pointing them out and leaving it there? That's useless. It's the process by which you learn not to make them first time around that a good teacher works at. I'm sorry, but when you claim that it's useless to play through unfamiliar repertoire for a teacher, you're simply wrong. You've missed the point of what a really good coach does. They don't only "repair" broken performances. They show students how to be getting things right at source. All the finest teaching is done this way.

Please give it a rest. Even if you don't want to try to read the other guy's point of view in the most positive light, rather than the least positive, just consider not trying to show everybody you think is wrong that they are wrong. Once in a while you say some interesting things, but mostly this tone of constantly correcting everybody's errors just turns me (and I suspect others) off from reading your stuff. Go post a bunch of inspiring things in the audition room that will make us admire your musicianship and then tell us how you did them, without telling everybody else they don't know what they're talking about.

[nyiregyhazi]

Please give it a rest. Even if you don't want to try to read the other guy's point of view in the most positive light, rather than the least positive, just consider not trying to show everybody you think is wrong that they are wrong. Once in a while you say some interesting things, but mostly this tone of constantly correcting everybody's errors just turns me (and I suspect others) off from reading your stuff. Go post a bunch of inspiring things in the audition room that will make us admire your musicianship and then tell us how you did them, without telling everybody else they don't know what they're talking about.

Sorry, but subjectivity has limits. Knowing how to practice pieces in the most productive way requires practice and awareness of how to get things right from the start. If you don't develop that skill, you impose huge limitations on your progress at home. This issue is too important to humour the idea that practising in front of a teacher is wasted time. That's just closed-mindedness founded upon ignorance, not a subjective opinion. Such misunderstandings are deeply counterproductive and warrant response.

The best teachers do their very best and most beneficial teaching in such circumstances. It's not about who's right and wrong here. It's about the fact students have to learn how to practise  if they want to make the most progress. You do that by being observed practising by a good teacher- not by hiding your processes from them.

[pianoman53]

Even though, in principal, i agree on what N says, I also think there are better ways. I wouldn't go and sight read a piece, because I can get it to a certain standard by myself. We could, however talk about how I did it, and he could come with ideas. If I wouldn't be able to get it to a standard, after practicing it, it would be different. Though, i still wouldn't sight read.

And if it isn't about being right or wrong, then how come you, N, is always right and the other one is always wrong?

[outin]

Who said anything about pointing them out and leaving it there? That's useless. It's the process by which you learn not to make them first time around that a good teacher works at. I'm sorry, but when you claim that it's useless to play through unfamiliar repertoire for a teacher, you're simply wrong. You've missed the point of what a really good coach does. They don't only "repair" broken performances. They show students how to be getting things right at source. All the finest teaching is done this way.

An average teachermay simply tell the student about wrong notes that they probably noticed anyway, but that's not how a great teacher works. A good teacher trains them not to make that type of mistake in their practise., by stopping them guessing and showing them what thinking prevents guesswork. The majority of learning occurs in practice. There's nothing more important in practise than learning the processes by which casual mistakes can be avoided. There's no better test of whether a student knows how to work properly than reading a piece for the first time for their teacher, to show how they'd begin learning when at home. Nothing is more revealing of where a student needs help. I stress though this is not traditional sight reading practise where the student tries to fake a performance. It's where a student shows how they approach learning and where the teacher shows them how to do it more efficiently. You can speak of learning styles, but all accomplished pianists learn to do this (other than a tiny handful who can play anything by ear). There's no replacement for these skills, which are a pianistic fundament-not a "learning style". If a student can't demonstrate the ability to go slow enough not to guess when the teacher is watching, it's safe to say that what they do in private will not be optimal. These things have to there in the open, or they cannot be improved on but merely swept beneath the carpet

If you think you know better than the master teachers who work this way, that's fine. But when you tell people that this is a waste of lesson time, you grossly overstep the mark. It stops being an issue of how you are personally willing to learn and becomes an issue of a person providing highly misleading information that grossly misportrays how the finest teachers work with students. The finest teachers check that students know how to practise new material- by watching them do so. A student who is not willing to expose the weakness in these all important processes is not a student who can be helped with them.

1. A great teacher surely has the ability to know whether something works at a certain moment with a specific student or not. But since so many teachers could hardly be described as being "great", you should not assume they all know how to work right in situations like that. Since not everyone has access to great teachers, they need to learn to work the best with what they have. I can give suggestions and share my experiences, but unlike you I would not claim to know what is best without knowing either the teacher or the student.
2. It's confusing that you are not talking about "traditional sight reading practise where the student tries to fake a performance" when that was indeed what I was referring to as not useful.
3. It is you who are making generalizations, not me. I never said "it's useless to play through unfamiliar repertoire for a teacher", I said "I hardly ever try to sight read new pieces on lessons, would be a waste of valuable lesson time". There are reasons why it usually is a waste time, but I get that you would not be able to understand why. You don't seem to understand much about the differences in the ways people's mind works or even interested in such differences. You wouldn't bother to find out about the conditions either before stating how things must be.
4. Learn to read properly and comment on what was actually written instead of what you think everyone does/think. Then I'll be happy to continue the discussion.

If you are going to answer, please state exactly which sentences of my post you are referring to when presenting arguments instead of just quoting the whole post with a long answer.

[samsonite333]

My advice to reading music easier is to learn some jazz piano theory.  Less effort will be needed to read all the notes.  Your knowledge of chords will predict some of the notes in the chords so that you will only have to think about a few of them.  Also you can predict what the next chords will be based on the obvious chord progression.  As for the anger issues, I think it also depends on the age of the individual.  If you are very young, too much yelling will not make piano playing pleasant and may ruin your enthusiasm for continuing later on.  I would suggest finding a teacher who always SHOWS you how to play rather than telling you how to play.

[nyiregyhazi]

1. A great teacher surely has the ability to know whether something works at a certain moment with a specific student or not. But since so many teachers could hardly be described as being "great", you should not assume they all know how to work right in situations like that. Since not everyone has access to great teachers, they need to learn to work the best with what they have. I can give suggestions and share my experiences, but unlike you I would not claim to know what is best without knowing either the teacher or the student.
2. It's confusing that you are not talking about "traditional sight reading practise where the student tries to fake a performance" when that was indeed what I was referring to as not useful.
3. It is you who are making generalizations, not me. I never said "it's useless to play through unfamiliar repertoire for a teacher", I said "I hardly ever try to sight read new pieces on lessons, would be a waste of valuable lesson time". There are reasons why it usually is a waste time, but I get that you would not be able to understand why. You don't seem to understand much about the differences in the ways people's mind works or even interested in such differences. You wouldn't bother to find out about the conditions either before stating how things must be.
4. Learn to read properly and comment on what was actually written instead of what you think everyone does/think. Then I'll be happy to continue the discussion.

If you are going to answer, please state exactly which sentences of my post you are referring to when presenting arguments instead of just quoting the whole post with a long answer.

You said you'd rather prepare it on your own first-which differentiates between performance style sight reading as a one off and reading of a new piece that is to be worked at. That's why I was particularly perturbed by your dismissal of this as wasted time. If something is to be learned, the first things done are the most important. That's why a teacher will intervene with important things that should not be allowed to start happening without fix. As you say, some teachers do not differentiate and apply the wrong kind of pressure. A good teacher coaxes the student into taking OFF the pressures of performance sight reading and instead coaxes the student to deal with the pressure by making room for themself and avoiding guess work. This really isn't a matter of style, but of what makes for effective learning.

I say this primarily as a student rather than as a teacher. I'm a good faker as a sightreader and can happily tear into some pretty advanced stuff in a way that fakes a sense of performance right at the start. I end up getting by off all kinds of needlessly complex finger substitutions which benefit the moment yet which would be plain stupid and inefficient for a prepared performance. Right now I'm having to repair some terrible fingerings in a tchaikovsky transcription that work but which are pointlessly complex- having been foolish enough to repeat them far too often before using my brain to consider a simple and practical performance fingering. So this "strength" is actually as ruinous to a decent sightreader as a poor one, when things go unchecked due to unsupervised casual faults having been repeated unnoticed. No matter what subjective factors differ from student the student, it is consistently ruinous to begin with casual guesses and fakery. That's why it's so important to have the type of teacher who coaxes the student into giving themself time to learn (including when supervised) without casual errors of the performance sight reading kind. In order to get a good start with a piece, a pianist must put phenomenal care into the first approach. There's nothing more important in achieving serious development. With a truly first rate teacher, the majority of what they do will often be based on showing the student how to start correctly, rather than ingrained errors to fix. I'd the teacher doesn't spend any time monitoring how a student practises material first time round, they both miss out on specific problems in pieces and in general problems in how the student practices.

Sorry if it seems negative but nobody is a perfect practiser. We don't get better at it except by opening up our learning procedures to scrutiny and letting someone else observe when we're creating problems for ourselves and at risk of in graining them. I can say without a shade of doubt that any pianist who misses notes from a key signature needs to learn to slow down and take pressure off themselves in practise. These things don't come from nowhere, but from quality of practise procedures. The best way to get that is supervised practise of new material.

[outin]

You said you'd rather prepare it on your own first-which differentiates between performance style sight reading as a one off and reading of a new piece that is to be worked at. That's why I was particularly perturbed by your dismissal of this as wasted time. If something is to be learned, the first things done are the most important. That's why a teacher will intervene with important things that should not be allowed to start happening without fix. As you say, some teachers do not differentiate and apply the wrong kind of pressure. A good teacher coaxes the student into taking OFF the pressures of performance sight reading and instead coaxes the student to deal with the pressure by making room for themself and avoiding guess work. This really isn't a matter of style, but of what makes for effective learning.

I say this primarily as a student rather than as a teacher. I'm a good faker as a sightreader and can happily tear into some pretty advanced stuff in a way that fakes a sense of performance right at the start. I end up getting by off all kinds of needlessly complex finger substitutions which benefit the moment, it which would be plain stupid and inefficient for a prepared performance. So this "strength" is actually ruinous if I'm going to be learning that piece. No matter what subjective factors differ from student the student, it is consistently ruinous to begin with casual guesses and fakery. That's why it's so important to have the type of teacher who coaxes the student into giving themself time to learn (including when supervised) without casual errors of the performance sight reading kind. In order to get a good start with a piece, a pianist must put phenomenal care into the first approach. There's nothing more important in achieving serious development. With a truly first rate teacher, the majority of what they do will often be based on showing the student how to start correctly, rather than ingrained errors to fix. I'd the teacher doesn't spend any time monitoring how a student practises material first time round, they both miss out on specific problems in pieces and in general problems in how the student practices.

Sorry if it seems negative but nobody is a perfect practiser. We don't get better at it except by opening up our learning procedures to scrutiny and letting someone else observe when we're creating problems for ourselves.

Since you either did not read the whole post I wrote or simply chose to ignore the request I made at the end of it, I will not bother to comment on the details of your post or explain myself further. I'll just simply state that what you have written in this thread has little use to me. I am not helpless or brainless and so am able to come up useful things on my own and analyze and study things beyond what someone teaches me, drawing information from various sources instead of relying only on one. You clearly write for people who cannot.

I don't even have to rely on my own judgement only: My teacher clearly thinks I have the skills to prepare a new piece and good enough practice skills. She doesn't seem to think there's any need to change the way we work.

[nyiregyhazi]

Since you either did not read the whole post I wrote or simply chose to ignore the request I made at the end of it, I will not bother to comment on the details of your post or explain myself further. I'll just simply state that what you have written in this thread has little use to me. I am not helpless or brainless and so am able to come up useful things on my own and analyze and study things beyond what someone teaches me, drawing information from various sources instead of relying only on one. You clearly write for people who cannot.

I don't even have to rely on my own judgement only: My teacher clearly thinks I have the skills to prepare a new piece and good enough practice skills. She doesn't seem to think there's any need to change the way we work.

I wasn't posting under the illusion that you might be interested in considering what you neglected, when making your pronouncement. I was posting for the benefit of other forum members who might not realise quite what staggeringly ill-informed claptrap it is to dismiss supervised practise of unfamiliar material as being "wasted time". If you think you know best then learn your way (and see how "different" you really are to the reams of amateur students who do not get especially far due to lack of awareness about how to practise productively) . But I'm not going to ignore such a shockingly naive and casual dismissal of how good teachers typically do their most important work. Especially not given that this issue is central to the thread.

Try teaching a few students up to diploma level and then come back and tell us that teaching students how to make an effective start on brand new material is a waste of teaching time.

[outin]

I was posting for the benefit of other forum members who might not realise quite what staggeringly ill-informed claptrap it is to dismiss supervised practise of unfamiliar material as being "wasted time".

You are again putting words in my mouth, I have never said "supervised practise of unfamiliar material" is a waste of time. That certainly has it's time and place in the learning process.

But since you cannot/will not clearly point out where you get all these strange ideas about what I think, I have no way of correcting the misunderstandings you seem to be very prone to.

BTW. Since you brought it up, I'd be interested to know how many ADULT beginners you have taught from the very beginning up to diploma level and how many years did it take?

[nyiregyhazi]

You are again putting words in my mouth, I have never said "supervised practise of unfamiliar material" is a waste of time. That certainly has it's time and place in the learning process.

But since you cannot/will not clearly point out where you get all these strange ideas about what I think, I have no way of correcting the misunderstandings you seem to be very prone to.

I'm not interested in arguing the toss over backtracking. You defined it as material that you'd rather prepare on your own (ie not a one off sight reading experiee) said that it's wasted time if you haven't done so. You couldn't have been more wrong about the issue and should really look into how teachers of truly successful students work. A good teacher learns more about how to help a student by seeing what they do in the first steps with new material than by hearing them show a weeks unsupervised work. A student who is unwilling to let their teacher in on what goes on behind the scenes of basic note learning procedures is simply stopping their teacher from being able to teach them fundaments for success.

[outin]

You defined it as material that you'd rather prepare on your own (ie not a one off sight reading experiee) said that it's wasted time if you haven't done so.

Defined what? Even if I did say something like that, I was not talking about all situations, only my own lessons, so you were making false generalizations.

And clearly you will not answer any questions that might shed some light on where your expertise in this exact case comes from. You also do not tell us who those great teachers are you mention so often (unless yourself) and where their methods and their effectiveness can be examined. Some of the things you write do make sense, but you also write a lot of empty words just to prove your point.  

I'm not here to preach a gospel. I wanted to help the OP by letting him know that if he is unhappy about  lessons, it's not always a case that he as a student is the sole cause. There might be another way to study that feels better for him. To be considered AFTER trying to find out the purpose of the teachers methods and giving it a proper try. No matter how great the teacher is, the student (at least an adult) should know WHY something is done at lessons. Doesn't seem to be the case here. You seem to think that people don't need to know why the teacher makes them do things and what it is that he expects to be achieved. Never question anything, just assume that your teacher is one of the perfect ones? Just imitate all that was done on lessons at home (hoping that you really understood the point and still can remember it) and you will become a good pianist?

[pianoman53]

A good teacher will know that everyone is different.

[brogers70]

For many people, reading through a piece for the first time during a lesson can be extremely helpful.

It's a good point. And look, I made it without telling anybody they were wrong, and did it in a single sentence. It's not hard to do.

[outin]

For many people, reading through a piece for the first time during a lesson can be extremely helpful.

That is certainly right. And it is sometimes helpful for me as well. Just last week I asked to do it with the next piece. Wasn't really sight reading though, since we only did the right hand, where the actual difficulties were.

[indianajo]

My teachers (piano, bassoon) never scolded me.  I was paying the bassoon teacher out of my lawnmower and later summer job wages, it is a good thing he was polite.  
The piano teacher would circle, in carbon pencil, the mistakes after my run through for her.  If I was making a lot of them, she would insist I slow down to where I was not making mistakes.  This slow, sometimes there wouldn't be time in the lesson to get through the piece, but that was okay with her. We wouldn't waste lesson time on things I hadn't learned yet. Playing slowly enough to not make mistakes was an important lesson, one I learned quite young.  She told me that playing correctly, the speed would come easily later automatically. She was right.   
Mistakes that I continued to make despite the grey circle around the note, she would circle in red pencil.  this was permanent, not erasable; my pages still have a few of those.  
She would occasionally make up fingerings for me if what I was doing wasn't wise for some reason, but there was no emotion involved.  Emotion on the part of the teacher, IMHO, is a complete waste to time and my money.  
When I was very young, at the end of a successful piece there was a gold star stuck on the page, but that stopped by age nine.  Scheduling my  performance at recitals in front of the teacher's Piano Guild friends was praise enough.  

[j_menz]

For many people, reading through a piece for the first time during a lesson can be extremely helpful.

There are two types of reading through a piece, I think.

One is to attempt to play it at sight. That is to say, try and play it more or less at speed, with dynamics, rhythm etc all in place.  For this, the odd missed not or faked bit is generally fine and oft times necessary.  Being able to do that is a skill in itself.

The other is the read through one does when starting out on learning a piece. That is an entirely different experience, and is slower and with an emphasis on identifying the "what needs to be done" aspect of the piece. No missing notes, no faking it, and no attempt at a "performance". The effectiveness with which one can do this is an important guide to how effective early practice will be.  And doing it with one's teacher - particularly in the early stages of learning, would seem to me an extremely useful thing to do. It is part of the "learning how to learn".

[nyiregyhazi]

Defined what? Even if I did say something like that, I was not talking about all situations, only my own lessons, so you were making false generalizations.

And clearly you will not answer any questions that might shed some light on where your expertise in this exact case comes from. You also do not tell us who those great teachers are you mention so often (unless yourself) and where their methods and their effectiveness can be examined. Some of the things you write do make sense, but you also write a lot of empty words just to prove your point.  

I'm not here to preach a gospel. I wanted to help the OP by letting him know that if he is unhappy about  lessons, it's not always a case that he as a student is the sole cause. There might be another way to study that feels better for him. To be considered AFTER trying to find out the purpose of the teachers methods and giving it a proper try. No matter how great the teacher is, the student (at least an adult) should know WHY something is done at lessons. Doesn't seem to be the case here. You seem to think that people don't need to know why the teacher makes them do things and what it is that he expects to be achieved. Never question anything, just assume that your teacher is one of the perfect ones? Just imitate all that was done on lessons at home (hoping that you really understood the point and still can remember it) and you will become a good pianist?

You didn't specify that you were only speaking of your own lessons or suggest that it would be useful elsewhere. Regardless, it's sometimes the teacher who learns most from this-about how effectively the student begins work at new material. What they see will reflect how they teach elsewhere. That's why students need to be adaptable too and not just teachers. And teachers who believe that there is huge value in working at brand new material in lessons include Taubman teachers, Alan Fraser and many others. It would be more significant if you'd care to list a renowned teacher who doesn't consider it valuable to observe how students prepare new material/to show them how to start it with transferable procedures (with which to begin other new material well when unsupervised).

The things the OP said were about basics such as correctly reflecting the key signature. If someone gets the idea that this means they've got the wrong teacher for them at the drop of a hat (in relation to what are really serious issues), they may very end up with one who is less effective. We don't know about the teacher's exact manner. Sensitive students do need sensitive teachers, but all too often they end up with teachers who teach poorly and merely pat them on the back. A student who wants success only makes it unlikely if they're too keen to avoid criticism. A good teacher should never neglect the importance of taking care to follow the key signature accurately. Although I use many methods to help with this in a student who struggles, there is a certain point when the student really has to take accountability for their mind set during practise. f they simply don't tend to think of the key signature, or go slow enough to feel the hand is aligned to get it right, there's a point where they simply need to be told to focus on the right things and slow down enough to think. You don't forget an f sharp unless your head isn't in the right place during practise. I always tell students a little about how accuracy develops neural pathways, but there's a point where they simply have to get on with concentrating enough to get things right- which shouldn't need a whole lot of justification. Of course accuracy matters. A good teacher shouldn't hold back from conveying quite how much it matters- they just shouldn't be rude about it.

Speaking as both a teacher and a student, it's important for both parties to be adaptable or learning is always limited. Neither teacher nor student should be totally inflexible, but good teachers do know a difference between small things and really significant problems that need urgent attention. For sensitive students, they do far better when they remind themselves that it's in their own best interests to get basic things correct and that their teacher is pointing out things that really matter (in this case, where we're speaking of accuracy in the key signature, this is certainly so). Nobody learns better by not thinking about the key signature enough to get it right. This is an issue of learning quality, not learning style. A teacher needs to be tactful, but it bears greater fruit when a student is willing to accept that they're being stopped for very good reason, than when a teacher allows major errors to pass by without immediate correction. As a teacher, I see many students who are very sensitive about being stopped and who don't like fixing things. I can adapt up to a point, but ultimately, they don't actually get any better unless they learn to stop and make important corrections before wanting to launch into the next bit. No matter how far I adapt, they simply need to learn the objective differences between good and bad ways of fixing mistakes in order to do really well. A student who cannot adapt to the teacher to at least meet them halfway simply can't get very far. When a student is so lost in the flow that they don't want to fix mistakes, only they are in a position to make the big adaptation that will allow meaningful progress. The teacher can merely try to draw their attention to what matters or ignore the big problems. It's whether the student can adapt their "style" (into one that makes allows consistent and clear neural pathways to form) that makes the really big difference in the result . Errors that are made casually without stopping to think and correct (with a slower and more clear approach) do not magically fix themselves, if a teacher adapts to tolerate a hasty approach that comes with many errors.

[happygela]

Thank you all for your advice. I realize that I'm not focused enough with the new piece in class and sometimes I feel forced to play the next note by myself even I'm not sure about it due to rhythm I want to follow. But when I practice the new piece at home, I would not bother rhythm and try to get every note correct first. After I'm familiar with notes, I get back to rhythm etc. But in class, I care about it much more and then forced to make mistakes.

[j_menz]

Thank you all for your advice. I realize that I'm not focused enough with the new piece in class and sometimes I feel forced to play the next note by myself even I'm not sure about it due to rhythm I want to follow. But when I practice the new piece at home, I would not bother rhythm and try to get every note correct first. After I'm familiar with notes, I get back to rhythm etc. But in class, I care about it much more and then forced to make mistakes.

There are two reasons why we hit a wrong note:

1) We meant to hit the wrong note. Either we misread it or mislearned it, but the note we hit is the one we intended to hit.  Sometimes that is evident straight away, and sometimes not.

2) We meant to hit the right note, but missed it.

It should be evident that the way to correct these different cases is going to be really quite different.

So, don't sweat getting notes wrong in front of your teacher, and don't try and hide the reason. 

In your case, learning the notes beforehand seems likely to disguise some deficiencies in your reading ability, and you need to work through that with your teacher to get better at it.  Hiding it will not make it go away on its own, and the sooner you fix it the better you'll be.

And if your teacher thinks your reading is better than it is, the more likely they are going to be to think that its the other sort of issue, and that can mean they're (and you're) wasting time solving the wrong problem.

[vladimir_gouldowsky]

.

[quantum]

There are two reasons why we hit a wrong note:

1) We meant to hit the wrong note. Either we misread it or mislearned it, but the note we hit is the one we intended to hit.  Sometimes that is evident straight away, and sometimes not.

2) We meant to hit the right note, but missed it.

I'd actually add a third point: We do not understand what is happening in the music and attempt to play a note in hopes it will be the right one. 

[outin]

You didn't specify that you were only speaking of your own lessons

Sorry, I really thought using the word "I" was enough to specify this. Yet I doubt that I am so special that nobody else would share some of my experiences...

You don't forget an f sharp unless your head isn't in the right place during practise.

Exactly. But what you don't seem to accept is that it is not always a conscious choice to be focused or not. Most of us amateurs do not have the luxury to choose when we have a piano lesson, mostly not even when we practice. We may be really tired from work and have other reasons why we suffer from distractibility and disorientation. Some of us may even suffer from ADD/ADHD or other types of attention deficit problems. There are also so many ways the situational factors affect one's concentration. So you have no way of knowing whether the OP can just by will become focused enough to benefit from regular reading exercises on lessons. That is for him and his teacher to find out. You offer a solution to the problem (focus and let the teacher do his work), but without taking into account that the solution is adequate only if certain basic conditions are met.

Have you worked with an adult who have attention deficit disorder? I have (computer programs, not piano). If you just tell them to concentrate and push them to keep going it often only gets worse, their mind goes blank. They may need a lot of quiet time to be able to refocus back to the task, and they are often well aware and very frustrated/anxious of their inability to do so while someone is waiting, which is working against them. This probably happens to most of us every now and then when the conditions are against us. To get over this it's usually better to redirect the focus to something less taxing. This is what I meant when I talked about wasting lesson time, to keep going with an exercise when clearly the student is not ABLE to focus enough. It is much better to move to something that does not require as much multitasking and focus and by doing so get over the anxiety which is blocking the mind. IMO a good teacher will either adapt to the student with such problems or accept his own limitations and refrain from teaching them. Not everybody can handle special education either; it requires a lot of specific knowledge and patience and probably also some life experience.

I used myself as an example, didn't say what you propose never solves problems. With an average kid it often does because they simply haven't learned to focus and control themselves yet. It's less likely to be the only problem with an adult. To be able to read notation, and especially something I haven't looked at before, I need to be able to focus 100%. If not, both my visual abilities and my memory recall suffer badly. Also I must not be tired and I also need a very clear print, good light and don't do well on a grand where the sheets are higher than with an upright (because of my tension neck problem). Not all of these conditions are met on my lesson.

What I have learned at home is that I can usually work myself into a better focusable state by just sitting on the piano doing tasks which require less multitasking for a while (half an hour or so). This is little help when a lesson lasts 45 minutes. The other option would be to have a warming up session before the lesson, but it is not possible either. Also if I only practiced while well focused already, I would probably be able to practice 1-2 times a week which simply is not enough. I adapt my practice and we adapt my lessons instead of banging our heads to the wall trying to adapt me and my other life which is not possible. 

I’ve been with my teacher 2.5 years now. We do try sight reading every now and then, and I try to stick with it even on a bad day. Most often I end up with a headache (literally) and the rest of the lesson suffers as well. There's little to gain from repeating the experiment on every lesson, since we both already know quite well where my issues are. I work on those on a better time, which just happens to be at home. If I could invite my teacher over those times, I am certain we could have some beneficial sight reading sessions. But the world is not perfect.

[nyiregyhazi]

Sorry, I really thought using the word "I" was enough to specify this. Yet I doubt that I am so special that nobody else would share some of my experiences...

Exactly. But what you don't seem to accept is that it is not always a conscious choice to be focused or not. Most of us amateurs do not have the luxury to choose when we have a piano lesson, mostly not even when we practice. We may be really tired from work and have other reasons why we suffer from distractibility and disorientation. Some of us may even suffer from ADD/ADHD or other types of attention deficit problems. There are also so many ways the situational factors affect one's concentration. So you have no way of knowing whether the OP can just by will become focused enough to benefit from regular reading exercises on lessons. That is for him and his teacher to find out. You offer a solution to the problem (focus and let the teacher do his work), but without taking into account that the solution is adequate only if certain basic conditions are met.

Have you worked with an adult who have attention deficit disorder? I have (computer programs, not piano). If you just tell them to concentrate and push them to keep going it often only gets worse, their mind goes blank. They may need a lot of quiet time to be able to refocus back to the task, and they are often well aware and very frustrated/anxious of their inability to do so while someone is waiting, which is working against them. This probably happens to most of us every now and then when the conditions are against us. To get over this it's usually better to redirect the focus to something less taxing. This is what I meant when I talked about wasting lesson time, to keep going with an exercise when clearly the student is not ABLE to focus enough. It is much better to move to something that does not require as much multitasking and focus and by doing so get over the anxiety which is blocking the mind. IMO a good teacher will either adapt to the student with such problems or accept his own limitations and refrain from teaching them. Not everybody can handle special education either; it requires a lot of specific knowledge and patience and probably also some life experience.

I used myself as an example, didn't say what you propose never solves problems. With an average kid it often does because they simply haven't learned to focus and control themselves yet. It's less likely to be the only problem with an adult. To be able to read notation, and especially something I haven't looked at before, I need to be able to focus 100%. If not, both my visual abilities and my memory recall suffer badly. Also I must not be tired and I also need a very clear print, good light and don't do well on a grand where the sheets are higher than with an upright (because of my tension neck problem). Not all of these conditions are met on my lesson.

What I have learned at home is that I can usually work myself into a better focusable state by just sitting on the piano doing tasks which require less multitasking for a while (half an hour or so). This is little help when a lesson lasts 45 minutes. The other option would be to have a warming up session before the lesson, but it is not possible either. Also if I only practiced while well focused already, I would probably be able to practice 1-2 times a week which simply is not enough. I adapt my practice and we adapt my lessons instead of banging our heads to the wall trying to adapt me and my other life which is not possible.  

I’ve been with my teacher 2.5 years now. We do try sight reading every now and then, and I try to stick with it even on a bad day. Most often I end up with a headache (literally) and the rest of the lesson suffers as well. There's little to gain from repeating the experiment on every lesson, since we both already know quite well where my issues are. I work on those on a better time, which just happens to be at home. If I could invite my teacher over those times, I am certain we could have some beneficial sight reading sessions. But the world is not perfect.

Sorry, but you're still just missing the point. I'm not talking about a pressured performance sightreading test followed by an empty suggestion to focus better. I'm talking about active tuition on how to stop guessing and make the next note a prepared CHOICE that follows consistent certainty. You defined it as repertoire to be worked at, not a one off. So it matters that a student can use good practises. Everyone is capable of this if they approach it with sound practise. It's not an issue of where ability lies, but rather of learning how to avoid casually exceeding ability limits and thus going pointlessly wrong. People who go wrong most easily need to study the techniques for avoiding that more, not less. To suggest otherwise is simply to quit on a weakness that affects all aspects of piano playing if unchecked. When you process things from many different angles, you don't go wrong. You learn when a slight alarm bell is ringing before playing the next note and use the opportunity to stop and regroup. This an essential ingredient for reaching potential.

If a student struggles, I don't just tell them to focus more and then waste time on futile comments next week. I get them slow down and say every letter name/interval or possibly both before playing the next key. Who said they are not given time? You couldn't have missed the point more as the whole idea is to check that they DO give themself enough time, so they have the foundations not to make casual errors at home. The sole proviso is not to be guessing. Time is available freely. I get them to look at it and the finger to verify that it is what they want by clearly tapping the key before actually sounding the note. I tell them to imagine a gun is held to their head and single wrong note will cause the trigger to be pulled. But there are literally no pressures of time. The only pressure is to actually appreciate when you are not ready, take the pressure off yourself to go forwards and to really care about getting this right with comfort. As I said, teachers must adapt to students, but students must also adapt according to what skills are needed to do well in private, by letting the teacher see if they've developed them. A student who makes an apologist attitude for why they cannot achieve the above when being watched is simply robbing themself of fundamental skills for both efficient note learning and also for pressured sightreading. We'd be talking about wasted time if you routinely got things accurate first time, but what you wrote above makes it pretty clear that this doesn't tend to happen-so you have something that needs attention. If you can't sightread notes accurately without rhythmic pressure when someone is watching, how on earth will you learn to sight read notes in rhythm if someone hands you a score and asks for accompaniment? These things matter. Don't try to avoid it or blame concentration. There are plenty of superb readers with ADD. Learn to see where you are falling victim to your own pressures and learn to take them off in the name of certainty and comfort (until you never have a block on how to read a note under any circumstances). A good pianist never forgets how to read basic notes in free unpressured time. If you do under pressure of someone merely watching, you should expose that and come to terms with what is not yet reliable enough for success in that. Reading skills don't vanish unless they are on shaky ground. Rather than go through this rigmarole of having to get in the right state to do well, just learn a simple series of steps and you'll soon be as accurate and confident when going in cold as after warming up.

[nyiregyhazi]

I'd actually add a third point: We do not understand what is happening in the music and attempt to play a note in hopes it will be the right one.  

That's a very good point. That's possibly the worst category of mistake of all- a relatively aimless spasm that occurs on the vaguest off-chance of lucking out. To the finger slip, I'd add that even these are from casual "guessing" of a kind though too. In fact, there can be a fine line between a true finger slip and the aimless guess of this third category. Was the finger really felt clearly to be in the middle of the key, with precise awareness before it moved? If it had been, the slip probably wouldn't have happened. If you take these as seriously as any other, you get better at linking understanding with ability to execute.

[outin]

Sorry, but you're still just missing the point.

I am only missing your point because you don't make a relevant one. "Someone watching" is not relevant here. ADD doesn't necessarily cause any problems in reading. But it does affect the way those problems can be assessed IF they exist. And there are so many different forms attention deficit can express itself, that one cannot generalize.

You are just repeating the same things over and over without actually making any sensible new argument to be taken seriously. I will have to give up, since you seem to be incapable of understanding what I write, maybe because you don't have enough knowledge about human behavior and learning. Or maybe you are just so fixed on having to be right that you read things on other people's messages that were not there and ignore everything that doesn't fit with your ideas.
 
You write yourself:
"If a student struggles, I don't just tell them to focus more and then waste time on futile comments next week. I get them slow down and say every letter name/interval or possibly both before playing the next key."
You say YOU do but does the teacher of the OP? Doesn't seem that way from his posts. I got the impression he is just correcting mistakes while he tries to play. When did this become a discussion on how YOU teach?

PS. Some people will never learn to sight read really well. Many have ended their piano lessons because of being forced to do it anyway. No sense to argue if it's possible or not with some method for everyone, because something like that cannot be proven. They may still want to play the piano. Different goals for different people.

[nyiregyhazi]

I am only missing your point because you don't make a relevant one. "Someone watching" is not relevant here. ADD doesn't necessarily cause any problems in reading. But it does affect the way those problems can be assessed IF they exist. And there are so many different forms attention deficit can express itself, that one cannot generalize.

You are just repeating the same things over and over without actually making any sensible new argument to be taken seriously. I will have to give up, since you seem to be incapable of understanding what I write, maybe because you don't have enough knowledge about human behavior and learning. Or maybe you are just so fixed on having to be right that you read things on other people's messages that were not there and ignore everything that doesn't fit with your ideas.
 
You write yourself:
"If a student struggles, I don't just tell them to focus more and then waste time on futile comments next week. I get them slow down and say every letter name/interval or possibly both before playing the next key."
You say YOU do but does the teacher of the OP? Doesn't seem that way from his posts. I got the impression he is just correcting mistakes while he tries to play. When did this become a discussion on how YOU teach?

PS. Some people will never learn to sight read really well. Many have ended their piano lessons because of being forced to do it anyway. No sense to argue if it's possible or not with some method for everyone, because something like that cannot be proven. They may still want to play the piano. Different goals for different people.

It's not a matter of how I teach but a matter of what makes progress. Allowing casual errors doesn't make good progress in ANYONE. Thus all pianists need to be capable of playing new material without casually making them. The brain learns from getting things right and gets confused by guesswork. Learning not to casually make mistakes is not a style but a basis for progress. If you are not willing to accept that, then it won't change reality. If a teacher doesn't know how to teach students to avoid them by taking pressure off, it's still important for the poster to learn how to do this better in his own time.

You can make all the excuses under the sun, but remember that you're in charge of your own destiny. If you would really rather shy away from what you clearly struggle with, you're shutting off your chance to reach your potential. When people do sightreading in an exam, do you think they can say "sorry, I've self diagnosed ADD/it's the wrong time of day for me to focus so I've forgotten if the first note is an F or a G/I'd be okay if I was at home but right now the colour of the walls is stopping me from reading fluently" or whatever else? Stop making excuses and start improving on your holes by going slow enough never to guess-just like everyone does when learning the foundations for certainty. Before long, piffling trivialities will no longer need to be an excuse and it will seem to plain silly to think that the time of day might stop you correctly reading a note. There are people with dyslexia who read music extremely well at sight. For grown adults to come out and start claiming that it's just their way to be unable to concentrate enough not to guess is merely a lack of courage that makes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can tell everyone that you're just an individual with a learning style, but if you don't come out at the end with the ability to read things accurately either with or without pressure, you're a pianist with a self imposed narrow skill set, not a pianist with a "learning style". It's a matter of learning to slow down and really care- not a matter of individual characteristics being set in stone.

You're talking about how you are WILLING to learn, not about what "style" would best help you to develop standard skills. Those who simply don't want to be good readers should seek improvisation lessons, as there's almost no way to teach them anything. Even when they've learned notes, they are so set out on a the physical habits that it's typically impossible to work on any detail with them. But for a pianist who wants to learn repertoire, there's no replacement for reading and then executing with a simple certainty (except freakishly high talent levels such as the blind Japanese guy- who worked this way out of genuine necessity rather than because he decided that he can't concentrate enough).

[outin]

It's not a matter of how I teach but a matter of what makes progress. Allowing casual errors doesn't make good progress in ANYONE. Thus all pianists need to be capable of playing new material without casually making them. The brain learns from getting things right and gets confused by guesswork. Learning not to casually make mistakes is not a style but a basis for progress. If you are not willing to accept that, then it won't change reality. If a teacher doesn't know how to teach students to avoid them by taking pressure off, it's still important for the poster to learn how to do this better in his own time.

You can make all the excuses under the sun, but remember that you're in charge of your own destiny. If you would really rather shy away from what you clearly struggle with, you're shutting off your chance to reach your potential. When people do sightreading in an exam, do you think they can say "sorry, I've self diagnosed ADD/it's the wrong time of day for me to focus so I've forgotten if the first note is an F or a G/I'd be okay if I was at home but right now the colour of the walls is stopping me from reading fluently" or whatever else? Stop making excuses and start improving on your holes by going slow enough never to guess-just like everyone does when learning the foundations for certainty. Before long, piffling trivialities will no longer need to be an excuse and it will seem to plain silly to think that the time of day might stop you correctly reading a note. There are people with dyslexia who read music extremely well at sight. For grown adults to come out and start claiming that it's just their way to be unable to concentrate enough not to guess is merely a lack of courage that makes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can tell everyone that you're just an individual with a learning style, but if you don't come out at the end with the ability to read things accurately either with or without pressure, you're a pianist with a self imposed narrow skill set, not a pianist with a "learning style". It's a matter of learning to slow down and really care- not a matter of individual characteristics being set in stone.

You're talking about how you are WILLING to learn, not about what "style" would best help you to develop standard skills. Those who simply don't want to be good readers should seek improvisation lessons, as there's almost no way to teach them anything. Even when they've learned notes, they are so set out on a the physical habits that it's typically impossible to work on any detail with them. But for a pianist who wants to learn repertoire, there's no replacement for reading and then executing with a simple certainty (except freakishly high talent levels such as the blind Japanese guy- who worked this way out of genuine necessity rather than because he decided that he can't concentrate enough).

You seem to be confused what parts of my post refer to myself and which parts didn't. Or maybe I am confused about what you are referring to. But you have no idea how I practice reading or anything else, or what methods I find useful. This was a discussion about lessons. Your post presents both lack of logical reasoning (there are black cows, so all cows are black) and ignorance (dyslexy does not necessarily affect the ability of note reading at all), so it's really not worth to comment more. And you're clearly not interested in educating yourself, you are quite content in your immature fanaticism.

[indianajo]

Thank you all for your advice. I realize that I'm not focused enough with the new piece in class and sometimes I feel forced to play the next note by myself even I'm not sure about it due to rhythm I want to follow. But when I practice the new piece at home, I would not bother rhythm and try to get every note correct first. After I'm familiar with notes, I get back to rhythm etc. But in class, I care about it much more and then forced to make mistakes.

I always played in strict rhythm one hand alone in the beginning, even if the speed was quarter note=12. 
Variable speed for emotion came after I learned the piece. 
And Vladimir G, I paid cash for my college education.  I fired my first college after four years and went to another college where the fourth year teachers explained mathematical concepts in English instead of more squiggles on the board. No alumus donation for that useless school that gave me a lot of D- grades. They were so proud of their entrance requirements, they felt they didn't need to teach.  The actual teaching happened in a dorm room after hours, by a brilliant student. Sounds like your teacher needed the end of his financial support, also. 

[gregh]

Come on, that's not that bad. My teacher once went NUTS at me.  He was seething because he had found out I had talked to another teacher at my conservatory.

I walk in, sit down on my bench. He is irate.

I say "Teacher..."

He fires back with the most intense rant ever:

"Don't "Teacher" me, you backstabbing, smartass piece of ***.
What the *** you doing over at the conservatory anyway?
Why the *** are you talking to some **bag Professor?
These are for you, Gouldowsky. [he then proceeds to give me the finger on each hand]
This one over here is going up your narrow ***ing lrish ass.
And this bad boy over here is in your ***ing eye.
I'm upstairs answering questions about some conservatory fella I never heard of who's supposedly beat my studio out of 10 masterclasses"

Wow. That guy has a few things to work out. Did you stay with him for long?

[j_menz]

I'd actually add a third point: We do not understand what is happening in the music and attempt to play a note in hopes it will be the right one. 

I'd include that in the first category, I think, unless it's just a random stab without any specific target in mind.

Not always a lack of understanding of the music, either. I've guessed a few myself over the years when sightreading (in my first category - ie, trying to play it rather than learn it). Lots of leger lines = guess. In tonal music, it's a bit easier, and errors are likely to at least be plausible, but in atonal stuff it can be quite a leap in the dark.

[nyiregyhazi]

You seem to be confused what parts of my post refer to myself and which parts didn't. Or maybe I am confused about what you are referring to. But you have no idea how I practice reading or anything else, or what methods I find useful. This was a discussion about lessons. Your post presents both lack of logical reasoning (there are black cows, so all cows are black) and ignorance (dyslexy does not necessarily affect the ability of note reading at all), so it's really not worth to comment more. And you're clearly not interested in educating yourself, you are quite content in your immature fanaticism.

The absolute referenced is that unnecessary mistakes via guesswork do not aid learning. If this is your black cow, in this case all cows really are black. You stated explicitly how you struggle with reading if it's the wrong time of day or wrong room etc. I'm simply stating straight up that solid foundation skills do not get thrown by that. It's the same as the countless questions about why things work at home but go wrong in lessons. The answer is that the student hadn't learned it as well as they thought and needs to know which areas to pay attention to, for deeper security. Making excuses doesn't help anyone- least of all yourself. Especially not implying that dyslexics may actually be better off than you with your self-diagnosed concentration issues. Dyslexia affects perception of shapes, so don't kid yourself that it was easier for those dyslexics who read music very well than for you. They got there by not making excuses (in this case, based on a genuine condition) but instead putting major effort in. You're clearly not willing to listen, but as someone who made all those kinds of mistakes (and later realised that it's entirely within my power to change my ways in order to fix them at source) I'm stating for the benefit of others that a pianist who insists on being in charge of what they are and are not willing to face up to is not one who fulfills their potential. A pianist who says to themself that it simply won't do when basic skills are thrown by trivial issues (and who asks what they can personally change to fix that, rather than what empty excuses can absolve them of responsibility) is a pianist who will typically go far.

[brogers70]

The absolute referenced is that unnecessary mistakes via guesswork do not aid learning. If this is your black cow, in this case all cows really are black. You stated explicitly how you struggle with reading if it's the wrong time of day or wrong room etc. I'm simply stating straight up that solid foundation skills do not get thrown by that. It's the same as the countless questions about why things work at home but go wrong in lessons. The answer is that the student hadn't learned it as well as they thought and needs to know which areas to pay attention to, for deeper security. Making excuses doesn't help anyone- least of all yourself. Especially not implying that dyslexics may actually be better off than you with your self-diagnosed concentration issues. Dyslexia affects perception of shapes, so don't kid yourself that it was easier for those dyslexics who read music very well than for you. They got there by not making excuses (in this case, based on a genuine condition) but instead putting major effort in. You're clearly not willing to listen, but as someone who made all those kinds of mistakes (and later realised that it's entirely within my power to change my ways in order to fix them at source) I'm stating for the benefit of others that a pianist who insists on being in charge of what they are and are not willing to face up to is not one who fulfills their potential. A pianist who says to themself that it simply won't do when basic skills are thrown by trivial issues (and who asks what they can personally change to fix that, rather than what empty excuses can absolve them of responsibility) is a pianist who will typically go far.

1. You're clearly not helping Outin (assuming she needs your help). Once you get to the point of telling someone that what they are saying is ignorant claptrap, you pretty much shut off communication.

2. But you're not helping anybody else, either. You've made your point many times at great length and in an unpleasant tone. Anybody who will be convinced by your arguments already has been. You'll get no added benefit for "lurkers" by responding to everything Outin writes. You do not need a foil for your arguments; you can make your points without having to contradict someone else first.

2a. If you're really just interested in talking to non-Outins out there, there's absolutely no need to tell her that she's self-diagnosing imaginary problems to avoid taking responsibility for herself. You don't even know her. Do you get how offensive and presumptuous that line is?

3. It sure looks like you simply enjoy telling people they are wrong, in this thread and in many others. The good ideas you have would get a better hearing if you didn't do that. And an even better hearing if you'd post some really great playing in the audition room first.

[nyiregyhazi]

1. You're clearly not helping Outin (assuming she needs your help). Once you get to the point of telling someone that what they are saying is ignorant claptrap, you pretty much shut off communication.

2. But you're not helping anybody else, either. You've made your point many times at great length and in an unpleasant tone. Anybody who will be convinced by your arguments already has been. You'll get no added benefit for "lurkers" by responding to everything Outin writes. You do not need a foil for your arguments; you can make your points without having to contradict someone else first.

2a. If you're really just interested in talking to non-Outins out there, there's absolutely no need to tell her that she's self-diagnosing imaginary problems to avoid taking responsibility for herself. You don't even know her. Do you get how offensive and presumptuous that line is?

3. It sure looks like you simply enjoy telling people they are wrong, in this thread and in many others. The good ideas you have would get a better hearing if you didn't do that. And an even better hearing if you'd post some really great playing in the audition room first.

If points are not met with counterpoints, there's no such thing as thought provoking debate but merely monologues. The issue of whether a pianist takes accountability for their mistakes and thinks seriously about how to avoid making them in the first place (or merely tries to find ways to make excuses that will justify continuing to make them) is central to how this thread set out and something that all pianists of all levels can benefit from considering. The OP messaged to thank me for my replies, so obviously he's interested in these issues.

I have plenty of films online:

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PS the only thing I called ignorant claptrap is the idea that approaching brand new material in a lesson (without preparation at home) is wasted time. Given what she said since about how she struggles to get into the mindset to do this effectively, clearly it's something that actually needs great attention. Attention to important issues is only wasted time when a student is simply unwilling to put their mind to developing them.

[pianoman53]

N, God dammit! We all get your point! Everyone gets your point. We simply don't agree with it. Why do you have to argue everything to death, until the topic is locked, or until the other ones give up? Just leave it at your argument. You're really not helping anyone. Frankly, I (I guess many others too) have stopped even reading your replies. We all know that it's gonna say "No, you're wrong. I'm right". They always do, and it's not even funny anymore.

Your reply to this one will be "Tell me one place where I say that anyone is wrong" I will then tell you to read your own replies, and you will find some tiny little detail in the thing I wrote, and claim that I'm wrong in that too. Just leave it, once.