Here's a story that happened while I was taking the required piano pedagogy course at my school. I should preface by saying that I did not agree with the ideas of the professor, a doctorate of music, about using pieces as "baby steps" to build up to harder and more difficult pieces. I also did not agree with the way a lesson should be taught. Here's why:
Part of the course required teaching a beginning piano student how to play. Twice during the semester, I would have to teach the student in front of the class. The first in-class lesson went like this: the student repeated certain harmonic patterns, over and over, to learn how to improvise over the chord progression. This went on for 30 minutes. My student was making progress very quickly and by the end of the lesson, she was improvising surprisingly well. She understood how notes could pass from chord to chord and had learned the idea of consonance and dissonance. However, even though it was obvious that she was improving, I could see that all of my classmates, and the professor, were bored to tears listening to her repeat the same chord progression, over and over. They all criticized me over it. None of them made any comment about how much she had improved from the moment she walked into the room to the moment she left. But, being the student, I listened to their criticisms and their suggestions which were: tell the student to do this, they do it a few times, explain it, assign them that for practice. (If you're a piano teacher, you know the drill.)
My lessons with this student went downhill from there.
I did as the professor told me to teach. (This was a piano professor who charged $100 an hour for lessons, btw.) But immediately, I could tell that my student was uncomfortable. Very quickly, she stopped showing up for weekly lessons. I didn't blame her because lessons had become boring. And honestly, I didn't know how to teach the way I was told to teach.
During the last in-class lesson, she hadn't improved much. Almost an entire semester went by and the only thing she could do well was improvise over the same harmonic progression. None of the things I told her to do were learned at all. I was visibly frustrated and upset. But you wanna know what? The professor and the other students all thought it was a better lesson than the first even though she didn't make any noticeable improvement!
I made a remark in class one afternoon. This is me when I try to prove someone that they are wrong and I right. I said to the class, as we were sitting in a small circle, that I was going to teach an absolute beginner to play the Rach 3. Skeptical smiles and eye rolls were their responses. They said something very dismissive and sarcastic but I can't remember what. But I was confident in my belief. And I was also pissed at all of them.
When my student left the room after the first in-class lesson, she was noticeably upbeat and had a slight smile on her face. She was happy! But when she left the room after the last in-class lesson, she wasn't. She actually felt like she was doing me a favor by showing up that afternoon and she was no longer interested in playing the piano. What had I done? Thinking about it now, I feel a great sense of sadness regret that I was directly responsible. Why oh why did I listen to them? This was something she really wanted to do and I destroyed it.
My point is, if you want to play the Rach 3 even if you're a beginner, find someone who will teach you how. I was willing then and I am still willing now. Most people, like the professor and the other students, thought it's ridiculous and preposterous. I didn't. I still don't. I think these people just don't know how to play chords. Seriously. Among other things.
Topic: How much should I practice a day???