They like to compare themselves to others.
Post Deleted: too cynical
Wooo....how intellectual and cunning! ...But I donīt intend to compare myself. I donīt see any point in this as my background is rahter discontinuous and I couldnīt even tell how long I have been playing. Furthermore I am pretty sure that I am at least a bit above the average student (levelwise) and donīt need assurance.You see: I am sorry, but my only motivation is curiosity. edit: Generally speaking though, you may be right. I have perceived piano as being a highly competitive activity.
Im confused , you just asked what avg students are like, mjames gives you an answer of his, and your reply is now misdirected. So youre special and youre confident, good for you good for you. He was saying what the avg student is like. If youre so confident and assured why even go off explaining yourself here when it was not even directed towards you?weird.
But there must be an average level and attitude which most teachers are confronted with in their normal teaching day..... - Which level do "average" students (not intending to become professional!! But attending normal lessons) have quite often?
- Which level do "average" students (not intending to become professional!! But attending normal lessons) have quite often?
- How about their attitude towards practicing, their goals etc...?
This does not reflect the student, but the amount of time he has been studying. You can't get at an "average" there. And if you surmise you may be "above average" because you have played longer, well no, you would have to see whether you meet some kind of "average" among students who have played the same length of time as yourself. It would be helpful to have a better idea of what you are after?
You seem to be using the word "average" in a mathematical way like in word problems that we used to get in school: add up a group of numbers and then divide by how many numbers there are in order to get an "average". But what you are asking has no sense to it, and I cannot see how it can help you in any way, or even give you any idea about yourself. Well think about public school which goes from grades 1 - 12. Does that mean the "average" is grade 6? If you are in grade 1 are you "below average", and if you are in grade 10 are you "above average"? If most piano students don't go further than grade 3 and you are doing grade 5 then it doesn't mean you are "above average" - It means you have gone further.When a student is deemed "above average" it refers to how well the student is doing. Maybe the student learns things faster than most students and needs less explanations. Maybe the student gets 9/10 questions correct in a test while most students get 7/10 questions correct. That is what "above average" means.Even that is not that useful in teaching music. A good teacher will look at your various skills. Maybe you are able to hear things readily in music, but your coordination is weak; maybe you pick up reading music quickly so less time needs to be spent on that and the teacher can use it as a tool to teach you. A good teacher will help strengthen you where you are weak, and build on where you are strong. She will also know whether there is reason for concern or whether your difficulties are normal and will go away because most students have them at your stage (another kind of "average"). Your purpose for lessons is to learn how to play, rather than comparing yourself for comparison's sake, so that's what is important I'd think.
Julia, the first answer you got to your post was a joke and a dig at you. The next response got deleted after a few hours. The problem is that nobody knew where you were coming from, why you were asking - the first assumption (the "joke") probably being that you were trying to compare yourself to others. I tried to give as broad an answer as possible, so that something in there might go toward what you need, and that maybe you could give some clues that would give us a sense of direction. I was also going by what you had written to get some clue: you had written that you were a student, you placed yourself somewhere in there --- ok, I see now that this was in response to what someone else said, but it seemed to be a clue about what you were asking. What I don't appreciate is the "Oh for god's sake" - the yelling at someone for trying to help. Maybe you don't know how that comes across.Until your last response it was totally unclear what you were asking - a what hinges on a why, on a context. Now that you have clarified that, shall we start again?
It is purely interest in the subject as I am a physician and am considering to specialize at an intersection between neurology and music. I already did research on focal dystonia concerning professional pianists and now I am trying to get an overall impression of the area of teaching. My intention was: getting to know what target group is the most prevalent one and how long adult beginners are taking classes in average, and what their attitude and motivation would look like, and of course what they mostly are able to achieve..... it is proven that there are certain neurologic differences at different ages and at different stages of playing.
Now that I know what the question is about, I can give my own response to some of it.I have studied two instruments as an adult student. I am also a trained teacher with some specializations in learning disabilities / alternate thinking (learning) styles, and my studies with my current teacher also include issues of piano pedagogy. Due to my experiences when studying the first instrument (violin) I spent some time finding out about teaching issues, esp. in regards to adult students, by talking to teachers and students a few years ago.1. About your population - there is a great diversity so "average" (or typical) might not be found. There are folks who had lessons as children and stopped: some were well taught and some were "ruined" by those early lessons; some who start as adults first self-teach, some are serious, some are not, and goals vary widely. How they are taught becomes the next factor.2. Many teachers stated that they don't actually know how to teach adults, because it is a relatively new phenomenon. Meanwhile a prevalent attitude in some quarters is that adults want to advance quickly, don't want to spend much time practising or a longer period of time, or go deeply into things such as technique, but that they grasp concepts very quickly. This can lead to a superficial kind of teaching which is low on skills, rushes through things, and focuses on the intellectual while the physical is left behind. I think that this can cause difficulties. Meanwhile many teachers avoid adults, so the student may not manage to get a good teacher, and poorer teaching leads to poor results.3. I believe that regardless of what the mind can pick up intellectually (abstract reasoning of adults), the body and senses need time. I would favour learning which is rich in experiences and physical guidance; in fact for an adult it may even involve a need to get reacquainted with one's body and senses. In language teaching we talk of the "phonological sieve" whereby the English speaker will "translate" a French R into the R he knows from his own language, and therefore never actually hears the sound, and does not experiment with his vocal apparatus for producing that sound (babies experiment). We probably have a similar "intellectual sieve" and we very much need to get this physical part. Some on-line teachers are now addressing it - Jaak Sikk and Piano-ologist. If you study their first lessons you might see a link to your question. Because if we don't start off by learning to move in an efficient way - and if we are rushed into "producing nice music" and strain to do it, that is when injury as well as failure occur.
@ahinton: I am sorry I wasnīable to make it understandable to you. But as already two people have replied to my question in a very interesting way (unfortunately one of the replies has been deleted), I am sure it isnīt completely confusing when one tries to follow the idea behind.
No need to apologise, but I have to say that those other replies seem likewise to offer little in direct response to your question, in terms either of enlightening as to what "the average student" might be or what one such might look like (if indeed there could be any such visual commonality) and why and in what ways his/her appearance might be thought to matter (as much as their achievements might do, that's to say).
The premise of the thread topic is that of the unanswerable question; there is no such thing as "the average student" and every student look different to every other student, just as does every other human being.Alistair
Except that the question was not, in fact, about the "average student" - it was a problem of wording and terminology - and that has been straightened out. Julia's subsequent explanation helped. It was more of a statistical thing than in regards to ability or characteristics.
Be that as it may, the part of the OP's question that relates to what any such student might look like and what reference his/her appearnce might be deemed to have is not yet straightened out, so I remain puzzled by the premise of the question.
I thought that it had been straightened out and that my last understanding of it was confirmed. I may be mistaken.The word "average" can mean "typical" - what most students are like. When we read "average student" that is what most of us think of, and I did too.But the later explanation suggests that it was meant in a mathematical statistical manner. It's like those early arithmetic questions we get: 5 + 7 + 5 + 4 + 5 = 25 --- there are 5 numbers - 25 / 5 = 6, so the "average" is 5. If these numbers represent grade levels, then the "average" grade level of these 5 students is grade 5. Change this a bit: 12 + 12 + 1 + 1 + 1 - You'll still get statistics telling you that the "average grade" reached by students is grade 5. Which does not reflect the reality of two students passing high school, and three students not getting past first grade. I think that this is the kind of "average" that was meant, given that grade levels were in the discussion somewhere.
But whilst you've expounded upon the "average" aspect of the question, you still haven't addressed the issue of what such a student might "look like" (and why it might matter)!
Please do not strain my original words. As I am not a native speaker I might have chosen the wrong phrasing.I think through my explanation it became a lot clearer what I was acutally asking for and additionally, keypeg has explained it very well (thank you for that, keypeg ). I am happy to see the debate alive though and after all - isnīt it quite interesting what we are talking about, even though it might be different to the original question? So why keep complaining?
. My intention was: getting to know what target group is the most prevalent one and how long adult beginners are taking classes in average, and what their attitude and motivation would look like, and of course what they mostly are able to achieve. It isnīt a serious study (of course!), but only a personal interest as it could provide me a first overview. E.g. it is proven that there are certain neurologic differences at different ages and at different stages of playing.
I believe that clues to the "look like" part can be found in the explanation addressed to me on April 3 (the non-statistical part dealing with "average")It must be remembered that this is being asked by someone who is only starting to get familiar with issues, and may not know which questions to ask. The interest appears to be primarily in regards to adults. "look like" continues to attitude, motivation, and what they tend to achieve. The interest behind it is influenced by the asker's medical background, shown by reference to neurological differences.I tried to answer that question according to what I know, in my previous post. My first point was that there would be different groups within this group: folks who had lessons before as children - and whether those were good or bad lessons would have a great effect on where they are upon seeking out a teacher now. Some are serious, some are not. I also pointed out that how they are taught, and how they learn to learn, will have a major impact. If one considers neurological things or physical things, and then considers the tendency to address music cerebrally and not so much physically, when there is physical need, then the outcome may have at least as much to do with the teaching - learning part, as in inherent physicality.It would be interesting to read thoughts other than my own.
Alistair, I have given my best impression, since you have asked about this more than once. In the meantime I have tried to give some answers to the question, and would be interested in thoughts on the same.
Please do not strain my original words. As I am not a native speaker I might have chosen the wrong phrasing.
Quite so. Would you be willing to share what your native language is? That might or might not be useful in this context.Also, I'll help you out a bit on perceptions. In English your first sentence sounds like you are giving us orders. You expect us to obey. That isn't how this works! There's an echo of that in some of your earlier posts as well. But once you've released a post, you've lost control over how people will respond.
German. Though I donīt think my English is that bad.
No, your English is quite good.
@timothy24b: Indeed, this guy had a lot of courage! Did he get the job in the end? The only time I really struggled with expressing myself properly was 3 or 4 weeks ago. (okay in fact THIS was the first time I had to speak English after school, sorry, just forgot about it).I was invited to a conference about philosophy in Cambridge and struggled not to paraphrase some words - philosophical debates require the exact expression.
His lecture was in French and the audience was American so a translator was hired. After about his first paragraph, the translator turned to the audience and said, "I'm sorry. I speak French, but this is all technical. I do not know the meaning of what he's saying and I can't explain it."
After a little conference, Fabrice continued auf Deutsch. He was not as fluent as in French but had enough to explain himself, and several audience members had enough German to translate. The audience had a lot of military members and back then most would rotate through Germany during their career. Because it was a second language he spoke slowly and carefully, and I could follow most of it myself.
Going back to the topic. You cannot in fact get any kind of valid conclusion about anything by going by way of statistics in terms of number of years etc.
Topic: What does the "average student" look like? 