I guess just like some piano students resist working and solving problems, so do some teachers
Actually I thought this problem was typically Swedish, or rather "typically Scandinavian".I wrote a blog post about it, https://pianovning.wordpress.com/2016/11/23/ow-wouldnt-it-be-loverly/
In Sweden, we certainly measure the student after his/her teacher.
Why are some students lazy, lack motivation and seem "untalented" in general? Well, most likely some are just lazy, lack motivation and are untalented in general. Piano playing cannot be everyone's cup of tea, and you are definitely allowed to try a hobby out and then conclude you lost your interest in it. That is normal, that is human, we all do it and it is perfectly ok.
But I also bet many just feel locked out. It is pretty strong to maintain an interest although voices both from within and from the outside constantly whisper to you that you are too old, you are probably not good enough, you are stupid to take this too seriously, you don't really belong here and so on, so on. This little voice from within is often so subtle that we are not aware of it, but yet we react on it - with hesitation, "laziness" and other maneouvres to mark that we are not investing too much in this, therefore we should not be scorned if we fail. You can call it a defense mechanism.
I therefore think it is important that teachers learn to see beyond these obstacles and that even the "untalented" and "bad" piano students can feel welcome in a serious piano community. And what is that? Teachers and others that have a serious passion for their instrument, who think it is far more important to enjoy the ride and to share the joy than to pass exams, participate in recitals, practice diligenty, reach certain goals etcetera. The love for piano should be a means to find kindred spirits, listen to wonderful music, have fun together or have fun when you are alone, and it should not matter if you are an established concert pianist, an upcoming star, or just a dabbling beginner. We must stop the sad development where piano playing is a spectator sport, where only the Gifted and Talented are allowed to take an active part, and the rest are supposed to act as audience and often also sponsors ...
Many wise words from lost but I have to disagree on stressing discipline so much. Discipline simply isn't much of an asset in today's world unless you want to be the one who is told what to do and be paid little for that. It may be useful when self inflicted but studies show self discipline is not a very efficient means of changing habits, because it's almost always too weak.What I see as more useful to have and learn is persistence or whatever word to use for being able to handle failure and turn it into a positive force. Also ability to look at something that seems impossible and dive into solving it anyway.
Not sure if we talking about the same discipline It encompasses many things for me like organisation, goal setting, motivation, dealing with success failure etc. I consider it the driving force for all work done. People with poor discipline merely do activities when they feel like it, when it suits them, they dont sweat and bleed over their work. They never really know how much they really can achieve because they do everything so half heartedly.
Learning can actually be more efficient with some of the things you mentioned as signs of poor discipline.
In modern pedagogy it's more common these days to think of discipline as something that facilitates teaching in school environment rather than something that actually promotes learning.
This is not to say that many kids today would not deserve some good spanking...but I don't think it would actually teach them anything. At the age of 7 or so it's already too late...
Thoughts on "discipline".There is ANOTHER meaning for discipline, and that's the one lostinidlewonder is after....This is where you learn to work in an effective way in your studies so that you learn and grow: and in your music so that it comes to fruition. Blindly and stubbornly bulldozing through music for hours and days to make it sound right is not it. Knowing what to concentrate on, how to be focused, what to focus on, for how long - that's the discipline. And part of it has to get taught. And for many of us, in our regular education, this was never taught anywhere.
@Keystring, Seems like LIW is starting with the basic concept: a piano student requires the 'self-control'/'motivation'/'discipline' to practice even if he/she is not in the mood, has had a long day at work, or can think of other things to do.
As a teacher who deals with actual students I can't consider these kind of things being true without seeing it in action myself. Could you give examples of where poor discipline makes learning more efficient?
Sometimes it's far more efficient to do things that you want to do instead of forcing and sweating and enduring boredom. I almost never force myself to do things I am not interested in and I still learn new things every day
Tolerating hardship, dedication and consistency are fine and required to succeed in life, but boredom and lack of interest is intolerable for me, so I would not expect it from anyone else either. Unless they are paid for it...
In short I think the desire to learn (it's not the same as desire to be good) is what one should develope and it's hard to force. Some people find it best in their own way, not the teacher's way. After it's found it's easier to build work ethic, fight lazyness etc.
...it would beat having students that never practice. That's more of a teaching/motivation thing at that point rather than actual teaching (depending on how you define teaching, if it includes motivation).
I think you are mistaking the word "efficient" with "enjoyable" because I still don't understand how ONLY doing things whenever you like and doing only things you find interesting improves efficiency. There are also plenty of instance where you "don't know that you don't know" so if you merely study only things that interest you and excite you there is a huge amount of important issues you forget about because it doesn't interest you at the moment, this leaves holes all over in your knowledge. You must realize that there are things in life that you might not enjoy at the start but can slowly realize its benefits and eventually find enjoyment in it.Who said you have to be bored or lack of interest? Why would someone study the piano if they are totally not interested in it? There must of course be a reason for why you play but just because you do piano because you love it that doesn't mean you only subject yourself to all the good things about piano only. You try to have a relationship with another human only experiencing the good times with them and not wanting any of the bad at all, you will never have a lasting or rewarding relationship like that. If you think you can do it better on your own then do it! A teacher helps a huge amount of people improve and deal with things that might be not be so interesting at first but master it. All the students I have come across who ignore my ideas and simply go off on their own generally quit soon after. What is the point in having a teacher if you dictate exactly what should be learned because you will only do what interests you? Outin you really need to reassess how you learn in this world, ONLY doing things that you like is not always the best way that leaves very little room for your to grow as a person.
It seems our thinking is so different that there's no way I'll ever manage to make myself understood
You interpret things I say in a very different way than what I actually mean because they don't fit your world view.
There's a fundamental difference in our thinking, may be partly a cultural difference.
Where I come from many old ideas of learning and teaching were abandoned decades ago.
It is true that the new ways do not work for all, since they require more willingness and ability to independent thinking and decision making skills.
Those who would need a more teacher dictated disciplined approach are often left behind. With individual lessons this is not a problem if the approach is tailored for every student.
You also seem to confuse "like" with "interest".
I never said I only do things I like. I try out things to see if I can develope an interest or not.
So no, I don't really need to reassess my own learning.
My way has worked for me through 12 years of schooling, university, professional life and it works for me and my piano teacher. There are very few "must do this way" things in this world really, there are almost always alternative ways.
I think it's one type of mental laziness to not look for them and just suffer in silence and wait for an opportunity to quit. But that's just me. Everyone should teach in the way they feel comfortable, but it would be good to understand that there are other ways that work for different individuals. You have students who quit and you put all the blame in them because they would not get motivated by all your efforts.
What if they had a different kind of teacher and did not quit? I am not saying you should change your ways, but it is a bit close minded to say that other people should change theirs just because you feel your way is the only right one.
That should be no reason for you not to be able to explain yourself.Then explain yourself, it has nothing to do with fitting my "worldview" as you put it.This still doesn't prevent you from explaining yourself.What old ideas?Throughout my post I highlighted assisting my student through processes and disapproved of learning in total isolation.What is a teacher dictated disciplined approach?Also? Who else confused it? You clearly didn't understand the use of the word efficient.Semantics.Then explain yourself clearly, your posts say do it your own way is best, don't listen to a teacher it's not always the best.Good for you but the majority of mainstream society benefit from a more disciplined approach to their studies. If you think doing everything your own way is best good for you! It however is not adding anything or taking anything away from what I've already written.They realize what work they need to put in that's why they quit. They don't feel a failure so your speculation is useless. Those that quit don't do piano with other teachers.Outin you are going to find the majority of society respects a disciplined approach to work. You might have your marginalised perspective but there is no use you shaking your puny fists at the mainstream.
Which society? Are you sure it will be the same when your present young students are grown up? Is it the majority that develope things in society? We would probably still be in caves if the majority's views were always respected...
I'd say at this point the effort needed to make you understand is not really worth my time, because I do not think you really want to.
Beginners: When a beginner gets proper guidance, that is also a set-up for the future, for everything. This guidance includes skills such as physical playing ("technique" incl. how to sit at a comfortable height and distance), reading, listening and hearing yourself and others. It also includes practice approach: how to go at a piece in stages and parts, how to divide up your time. "Do piece A, then scale X - repeating each measure 5X" is not a practice instruction.Following from this: If you are getting the skills and know how to practice, you will get somewhere, and that is motivating. If you are lost, bulldozing your way through with great effort with iffy results, if any, that is not motivating. It also can lead to what looks like "laziness". Of course there are also bad attitudes, students who don't want to study piano - I'm leaving that aside.
A word about the "talented beginner" - there is a danger. This student may grasp things so fast that he might miss some fundamental things which nobody will notice, but will give him problems later on. He may learn not to work hard, because he doesn't have to, and later that can be a problem when the music gets more complicated.
Advanced students: This gets complicated, imho. Does a given student play well simply because he is "talented", or is it because he is also well taught?
And if a student has weaknesses in his playing - or if he doesn't know how to work on music because of poor teaching - will he lose all chances of ever getting anywhere since the quality of his playing is evidence of how he was taught? Or should he get a chance at being taught what he is missing? How about the student with natural talent, where things were skipped so that now there are holes? (I have conversed with a handful of professional musicians who that happened to, and they had to scramble).
We have attitude and training at opposite ends of the spectrum, and they intermesh. A student with a poor attitude, who is truly lazy, or does not want to learn to play the piano and thus resists or ignores instruction, will also not get the training since he's ignoring it. But a student who has poor training, or who is missing a skill that the teacher hasn't caught on to, may become lazy and appear to have a bad attitude because nothing has ever worked.
That's it, many beginners get to know the tools used to learn effectively, of course what tools they learn to use well depends on them individually you can't just treat everyone exactly the same.
As a private tutor we can spend time treating each student individually unlike the classroom situation. We can certainly motivate them to do more work if the tools they have to do the work is sharpened.
I can find this problem with talented young kids who think everything is easy, they knowingly ignore things they don't get and focus on what they can. I call it "musical immaturity" where they just want to get the notes played well but are not interested in fine tuning things whether it is musical or in the way that they practice. They don't care if it takes them many repetitions to solve it and neglect practice routines that would make things more efficient.
I use to tutor maths and would notice students sometimes saying they totally understand a concept or way to solve a problem but then when I tested them to apply that knowledge on their own they made mistakes. You can "think" you know something but have not enough experience applying it to "know" that for a fact.
.... but generally if things are brought to conscious attention they tend to improve a lot better and less erratically.
However I am also (and probably much more) interested in the rate at which my students learn as that is the bottle neck of their output. If you can expand that bottle neck you increase what they can achieve in their lifetime, very very valuable in my mind. Improving rate of learning is extremely important for so many different reasons, just being able to play harder and harder pieces no matter how long it takes is not the best way to approach music from my experience.
Sometimes what a student is missing cannot be resolved immediately and steps to improvement need to be made. Some teachers merely have a 0 1 type attitude, you either play it right or wrong, increments towards improvement are not considered.
This is a difficult issue to talk about because there are some students I teach who I let do some things wrong things because trying to correct it immediately will slow their progress so far down and make everything so mentally exhausting that they would feel stressed out.
From my professional experience if you are guiding the student carefully you can let them do things not completely correct and form their method over time, this gives their natural understanding time to absorb the concept then the teacher can go back and work over things that are not improving and question what is restricting the student personally.
I work with my students own hands and minds and form that based on what they have often making small improvements. Often yes you can make abrupt changes to what they are doing because they are thinking about it all wrong and when you show them the correct way it is obvious they have missed it so they make the immediate change, but sometimes the solution can be quite difficult for them to naturally understand and they require time to absorb it naturally and sometimes in many stages. The key word is "natural" because all technique should be a natural effort not something that is constantly consciously observed. If you are playing something that requires you to consciously be aware of a lot then chances are you will make mistakes and feel exhausted by the end of it all. There is a balance needed to be struck up between consciously being aware of things you must improve and what you do naturally with little conscious effort while trying to improve ones playing, you can certainly train a student to deal with more at once but too much and nothing is observed, too little and you can play wrong for too long.
In my late teens I played at a very high level, not too much lower than what I do now. But my reading skills was really terrible and my rate of learning pieces suffered badly because of this. I hated sight reading until it came to a critical point where I no longer could resist it (I started teaching students who read much better than me and many would bring pieces I couldn't play by sight.)
A teachers duty is to find issues that are restricting their students and guide them through the process. None of my teacher I had explained how to get better at reading they knew I was a weak reader but because I played all the works set fine they saw no problem with it, in fact some were impressed with my memorization skills. But this is not right in my mind, you need to as a teacher deal with your students weaknesses not just massage their strengths.
What about time? I don't think 30 min cuts it if they're doing an awesome job.
Yes, lesson time. 30 min once a week seems ok for a "normal, average" student. If the kid does well, they would work on harder pieces, maybe more pieces, maybe other areas in music. It takes more lesson time.
But there are teachers who don't give tools and simply give their students more advanced music along higher grade levels, and/or they don't teach how to practice.
What I am seeing is that possibly a talented student for whom things come easily in the beginning may have never learned to work on things strategically, and so literally doesn't know this exists. That this can be a trap.
I tutored math at around the gr. 7 - 9 level, and often I found that the underlying problem had to do with basic concepts..... They had been taught to pass tests and memorize things. When we went back to actual fundamental concepts at that level, suddenly the gr. 9 problem cleared itself up like magic. Unlike the students you tutored, these kids didn't think they totally understood everything: they thought they understood nothing and that they were hopelessly stupid. They weren't!
Some years ago I studied for a brief period with a teacher who believed that every beginning step had to be perfect, and if you learned it imperfectly, you were doomed to carry that imperfection in your playing forever afterward. As a whole, I eventually rejected it. Some things I keep. If every time I sit down at the piano I make sure I'm at a good height and distance, and start in a relaxed balanced manner, this becomes a habit that will be there for me as a default. But for other things: babies learn by having things gradually come into focus. They move from imperfection to perfection. The kid that stumbles around, aptly called a "toddler", and can't pronounced words to save his life, saying "want apple" - that kid may become a ballerina, an orator, or opera singer. He did not start with "perfection"!I like this whole paragraph.Yes, that would be a "missing skill" which a teacher might not catch on to if the student is talented in many other ways. In your example, there was a particular time that you needed this skill and took steps to get it.Absolutely!
This seems to have turned into a focus on discipline...
I don't see a timid, fearful, docile student who learns his or her self-control at the discipline of music and study by coercion as anything more than a little robot, lacking in important values, and, arguably, having developed a respect which is not worthy of the name.