How to get motivated / Motivating a gifted child

[pianoplayerstar]

How do you motivate children whom you KNOW are gifted; they can sightread easily on the spot, but don't want to push themselves that extra umph to get their talent vroooming!

short of giving up; what have you done? use Lang Lang videos? or young Kissin biographies from BBC?  what if they're only interested in playing with toys and Legos?

Is this normal among those who are very talented and have that X factor in playing?  

(yes, it always seems to be this case where those you may feel don't have that 'touch' always wants to show their stuff... while those WITH that touch, NEVER want to showcase their skills.

argh!! frustration.

NOW, HAVING SAID THIS, ABOUT YOU PERFORMERS WHO FELL IN THIS CATEGORIES? WHEN EXACTLY DID IT CLICK WHERE YOU NEEDED NO NUDGING AND YOU SUDDENTLY BEGAN PLAYING ALL ON YOUR OWN? AT AGE 13? AT AGE 21? 12? OR .... 4?

I KNOW SOMETIMES, SOME TEACHERS AND PARENTS WILL JUST FORCE THEIR WAY INTO THE CHILD'S WILL UNTIL THEY REACH 14 OR 15, AND THEN LET THE CHILDREN DO WHAT THEY WANT TO DO.

MANY WILL SAY NO WAY JOSE! WHILE THOSE FROM THE OLD SCHOOL (WHETHER FROM SPAIN, KOREA, RUSSIA, JAPAN, NORWAY.. CANADA.. WHEREVER THE OLD SCHOOL EXISTS) WILL SAY: NO, YOU DON'T GIVE THE CHILD TOO MUCH CHOICE WHEN IT COMES TO PRACTICE; IT'S LIKE EATING; THEY MUST DO IT EVERY DAY; THERE'S NO NEGOTIATION OR ROOM FOR COMMENT; YOU SAY-THEY DO.

I Mean, look at Lang Lang's biography.. I saw that he was forced to do it..coupled with his love for music .... and now he's in a spot so envied by the whole music world, even those who are so jealous of him make all kinds of critiques and comments like an embittered music has-been.

Anyway, I'd like to hear from some of you Performers who encountered this situation above?
Thanks.

[indianajo]

My parents instilled a love of music starting age 3 when they gave me an acoustic diaphragm (Bozo the Clown) record player & some classical records for kids with little stories interspersed. I still love Tchaikovsky! So much better than the dreck on the car radio in 1954. Doggie in the Window Woof Woof! Three Little Fishies? Come on.  I wasn't even impressed very long by Teddy Bear Picnic, and that was a nice yellow record I had myself.  
Then age 8 the parents started giving me piano lessons as a sort of cheap physical therapy for my hand injury.  The pain was gone, but I couldn't use the injured finger, no reason for it. The third grade teacher probably noticed, and mother had a piano she bought with the WWII overtime.  I bought in to the idea. after Mother pointed it out I thought pushing my 3 finger with the 4 one every time I used it was weird, too.    
After a boring year or two with an alarm clock timing my practice, and reading novels simulaneously with the Schmitt exercises, some of the pieces the teacher was giving me really impressed me. I liked this stuff! JS Bach Inventions,  Gotchalk, Debussy, Lecuona,  I started practicing more than thirty minutes tick tock.  I started getting little gold flash medals at NatPGuild local competitions, too.  
Kids were easier to wow in 1958, with three channels of western reruns on TV in the afternoon, plus the cat lady with the penny tree for the birthday kiddies.  Classical radio hadn't been invented yet in Houston, and while Carl Perkins and Little Richard did it for me on AM pop radio in 1957, replacements Fabian and Pat Boone were totally boring in 1959.  (No, I never liked Elvis. But the Liberachi show was cool in 1955 before he became a comic).  
Now there is instant gratification with media; every kid seems to have their own streaming service.  Do it yourself is not so thrilling.  
Families instill their kids with music now by having family bands, playing in the den after dinner.  The kids can't wait to learn an instrument so they can play with the grownups.  However, this mostly happens with guitar, banjo, mandolin, violin, etc.  The CherryHolmes is one example of a family band.
Piano is not so easy to work into a family band.  I have a string instrument family trying to work out rehearsals with me now, so the violin playing teenager can play some piano accompanied solos which are so big in violin repretoire.  They are mostly ear players, trying to instill some score culture with the kids. I think the mother is a Suzuki method teacher?  They've noticed I like sight reading out of the hymnal.  
A caveat, I'm not famous and  only perform in local churches and the occasional charity dinner that has an old piano. I have to tune the pianos myself, that is how low grade these performance spaces are.  

[pianoplayerstar]

..but how do you motivate these kids?

[dcstudio]

Well each child is different and generally speaking among younger students those who read well aren't the most gifted musically.  It's the ear players who are the best performers most of the time.  I motivate them by allowing them to play pieces they excited  to play.  A truly gifted student is already motivated...that's part of the gift.  I really have never seen a ubertalent that refused to practice. Plenty of students could be better it they applied themselves more...but usually the prodigy types are into it.  I get the impression that you are asking teachers "how far will you go to save a talented student who doesn't want to play."   In have never encountered that in 20 years of teaching.  It's the ones that are on the fence or highly frustrated that they have hit a wall that require "saving"     When an ubertalent wants to quit it's usually an issue of performance anxiety or the like.

Did you hate to practice?  Did you hate your teacher? No offense I am just curious

[pianoplayerstar]

tanks, "dcstudio", I enjoyed your input.

... it seems like in your experience, if someone is talented, they WILL practice without motivation.

but what about those kids who are 'different'.

ok, let's all agree (NOBODY WILL DISAGREE WITH ME HEAR... NOBODY - I'M SURE OF THIS) that every child is different.

ok, now that we got that aside and we all agree....

some kids just pick up music like Calculus coming so easily to them and they just know it.... no extra help, no tutoring.. just in-class teaching by the teacher and voila, they get it.

then there are kids who don't get it, and ONLY CERTAIN TEACHERS can figure out these kids after months, or even years of PERSEVERANCE AND PATIENCE, and then, WOW! these kids just pull it off somehow.

----- but now, you ask, which is the gifted child?  some kids are motivated, while some aren't.

is it just an immaturity stage? yes.

the very interesting point you're making "dcstudio", because some students have a TOUCH on the keys and piano

TOUCH - this ability is IMPOSSIBLE to learn; hear Rubenstein's touch - it's musical; hear Horowitz' touch, it's mind-bogglingly virtuoso-istic... Rubenstein once said if I recall correctly that Horowitz was a BETTER PIANIST, but that he [Rub] was a BETTER MUSICIAN. --- you get the picture.

Horowitz being the modern Liszt, without the COMPOSITIONAL gift.. but more of the fingering technical gift.

Rubenstein being the actual performer, movie-actor (if you will), and yes, the Musician.

so, if a kid's got great TOUCH on the piano but hates to practice except only those limited pieces that just sounds good, and just want to work in simple Cmajor pieces of Gmajor pieces, YES, THIS CAN BE QUITE FRUSTRATING TO any teacher.

MOTIVATION - so i guess THIS is why we have MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKERS like Tony Robbins to cause us all to ACT and DO

          -- "Mr. Robbins! help!"

[keypeg]

When you say that some kids have "touch" and that it is impossible to learn, where are you coming from?  Are you an experienced piano player or a newish learner?  Have you taught kids for a fair length of time and have drawn conclusions from your efforts and observations?  If so, how do you define touch and how did you teach it?  Were you a student yourself observing fellow students at recitals and drawing those conclusions?

[pianoplayerstar]

'touch' being that x-factor; it has nothing to do with making mistakes on the piano, or self-discipline in practice or stage fright.. but it's just another 'thang', that other x-factor.

you know it, when you see/hear it - the kid may not grab the trained ear, teacher, adjudicator, professor's attention, but he she grabs the majority audience's attention.... i'm guessing 80%? .. maybe more.

it's just 'enjoyable' to listen to and see the kid/adult play; it's that x-factor.

the technical specialist, the virtuoso pianist are different; they're the ones like horowitz, where the audience or anyone listening just drops their jaw in AWE.

with pianists with that TOUCH, it's just very enjoyable to listen to and see the pianist play.

[keypeg]

I'm sorry but that is too vague, and you also haven't answered any of my questions.  This is a forum of pianists, students, and teachers, all of whom are involved in the playing of the piano.  You also have not said anything about your background, where you are coming from in any of this.

[indianajo]

My teacher brought me pieces to learn that were so cool, and I had never heard of them.  An easier trick to do in 1958-67 than now when youtube is "free".  I was the first person that had ever played these pieces, to my ears.  It was like exploring for the source of the Nile or something. Noone even played these pieces at recitals before me, when I was very young and starting out.   Nowadays kids have to fly a wingsuit through a hole in a rock to do anything new.  Nobody can be special anymore.    
And I didn't come to the piano with touch.  I was so crippled by my injury I couldn't even use my right hand age eight- caused by nothing but bad habits.  I had to learn the touch from scratch, with help from Schmitt, Edna Mae Berman, Czerny, and my teacher Mrs. N. Jelson.  The pure music was in my head put there by records and the radio. It took a couple of years of hard work to get it to come out my hands. 
A third thing, a good live piano sounds so cool. Earbuds from a cellphone just don't cut the mustard.  Too distorted if you like to listen.   Even with my $1000 sound system bought in my fifties, the piano sounds better.  Cultivating the kid's good taste in music counts for something even if the best is a paper diaphragm record player.  I liked good music (Mercury Living Presence LP's were so close) on Mother's $100 hifi back when , but the live piano was so much better.  I didn't need a lot of persuading to make me practice. And if you practice slowly enough while learning, you don't make mistakes which mess up the beauty of the notes - you are just slow.  I felt sorry for kids learing on  out of tune beater uprights when I was a kid, and I feel sorry for kids with ****y electronic keyboards and cheap speakers now.  My Mother's 1947 Everett console in a quiet living room was great, Mrs. Jelson's Sohmer grand was even better. And at NPG contest one year I got to play a Baldwin Acrosonic studio piano; what a thrill that was.  What great tone!  

[pianoplayerstar]

... then motivation is BOTH learned AND inborn.

LEARNED:  play music the kid likes AND get a piano and/or stereo system that sounds good; otherwise, nobody will be interested.... when CD's came out when cassette tapes were the universal norm, we all remember how AWESOME and clear CD's were... or we "thought" they were... for those who can remember 8-tracks.. I don't, because I was too young then.. BUT , YES, I was old enough to remember my mother playing them all the time in our country-squire station wagon [THE GOLD STANDARD OF THE FAMILY CAR... WHEN CADILLACS WERE "THE" STATUS SYMBOL]....
----------------> LP's /REcords /8-Tracks -----> cassette tapes -----> CD's ---> now MP3's/HD TV [nobody wants tv WITHOUT HD these days - it's like seeing without glasses/doublevision]

... the point is:  what "indianjo" is saying is that ALLOW THE KID TO ENJOY THE MUSIC, LET IT 'SOUND' GOOD TO HER/HIM, AND the Motivation will come and be learned.

INBORN/GIFTED:  Motivation is inborn for those just born with it... nothing anyone can do about that... how on earth can one make SOME LIKE THE color blue, when they like GREEN?

[dcstudio]

tanks, "dcstudio", I enjoyed your input.

...

TOUCH - this ability is IMPOSSIBLE to learn; hear Rubenstein's touch - it's musical; hear Horowitz' touch, it's mind-bogglingly virtuoso-istic... Rubenstein once said if I recall correctly that Horowitz was a BETTER PIANIST, but that he [Rub] was a BETTER MUSICIAN. --- you get the picture.

Horowitz being the modern Liszt, without the COMPOSITIONAL gift.. but more of the fingering technical gift.

Rubenstein being the actual performer, movie-actor (if you will), and yes, the Musician.

so, if a kid's got great TOUCH on the piano but hates to practice except only those limited pieces that just sounds good, and just want to work in simple Cmajor pieces of Gmajor pieces, YES, THIS CAN BE QUITE FRUSTRATING TO any teacher.

MOTIVATION - so i guess THIS is why we have MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKERS like Tony Robbins to cause us all to ACT and DO

          -- "Mr. Robbins! help!"

I learned my "touch" at the piano.  It has continued to develop and grow as I have matured.  I was not born with these chops

There is also a big difference between talented and gifted...   I have seen plenty of talent go to waste over the years from lack of practice but the truly gifted students always amaze me.
I had an autistic student a few years back who really was gifted.  He spent his first lesson banging his head against the wall...literally.  a few weeks later I tried to teach him a d harmonic minor scale...the kid loved scales.  To my amazement this child suddenly began improvising beautifully in d minor.  His style was baroque to the bone and his tempo was steady throughout . I watched him figure out parallel, contrary, and oblique motion and then immediately apply it to his improv.  All I could do was hit the record button on the Roland and stand there with my jaw on the floor.  This boy was 8 years old.  He was able to read music at his level...but he hated it.  If I tried to force it he would slam his head against the wall over and over.

Usually with ubertalent the problem is getting them to read not to practice. 

[Bob]

What's with the extra dollar signs and caps?

[schyeyen]

I found some useful tips for motivating a child to practise piano from this website, www.wowpianowow.com

Hope it is useful...

[pjjslp]

I found some useful tips for motivating a child to practise piano from this website, www.wowpianowow.com

Hope it is useful...

You "found" them on your own website? Okaaaay.