Best ever

[lagin]

I know this topic may get some really sarcastic responses, but seriously, what's the best or most encouraging thing your piano teacher has ever said to you?

[lostinidlewonder]

"You should learn to read the notes and stop doing things by ear"
"You should really start looking at the notes Ben"
"LOOK AT THE NOTES!"
"HERE HERE LOOK!!!" *hits page*
"Learn to read the %&!!@#$ notes!"

sorta got worse and worse lol

[Floristan]

"It takes courage to be a pianist."

and

"That measure was beautiful."

and, grabbing my wrist with two fingers and moving it up and down as I slowly played...

"Supple wrist!  Let go of your death grip on the keys!"

[goose]

"Bend zuh kneeees..." No, wait, that was my ski instructor. Which forum am I in again?

[goose]

Actually, I think this is a great topic, Lagin. And nothing wrong with a bit of humor. Lostinidlewonder brightened my day 

My teacher's best encouragement? "Ah, that...sounded professional."

OK, in time-honored movie-poster fashion, I left out some key words.
Once more, in full this time: "Ah, that measure almost sounded professional." But it was still encouraging.

Other memorable technical advice (and most helpful to me):

"Let the wrist 'breathe'. Its movements are like breathing in and out. Gently up and down. Then there's no tension."

"To develop good touch, practise first slowly and firmly, right down into the key bed."

"When voices move parallel in one hand [like octaves] either the top or bottom note is a melodic line and should be brought out. They're rarely equal."

[stormx]

I once asked him how was my progress compared with others. He then told me:

"well, you are not the worst"

[thierry13]

"Now, you just deeply touched me, but i keeped my tears for a better moment "

(after the last note of the revolutionary etude)"you have a lot of talent" ( that finished the lesson and she left)

"you play it better than some people who played for a lot more time than you"

Some recent stuff she said that I could remember 

[m1469]

Hmmm... well, I have been thinking ever since the beginning of this thread about this subject.  I would have to say that, overall the most encouraging words my main former teacher gave me were those which he was supposedly passing on from others.  Really, comments straight from him with regard to my playing were quite scarce, to the point that I really don't recall anything momentous.

Many things he said to me were really very cryptic, it could be either insult or compliment and would drive me nutty trying to figure out which one it was so eventually I would just give up.  This taught me to not think too much about a lot of things he said, unfortunately or fortunately, as the case may be.

What was most encouraging (as well as discouraging at times) really for me was, things that he would do.  In this realm there were some very momentous occasions.  For example, my very first accompanying job was ridiculously nerve-racking for me.  I was accompanying a vocalist who was not very confident herself and we were in a workshop-style setting where I was intimidated by almost everyone in there.  Well, I got more and more nervous in this case and got to where I could hardly play.  My teacher came up quietly and stood right beside me...  words cannot begin to explain what that did for me at the time.

Also, he would say little things in a room full of people which were somehow related to me and our work together, but nobody else could know.  It would draw me in and negate my feelings of invisibility.

One time after he learned that I was low on monies and therefore struggling with being able to buy necessities, he secretly slipped money into one of my notebooks to help me along in paying bills and what not (I did repay this). 

The list of things like this is quite long actually and I am a little teary-eyed now.  Thanks for bringing this up and helping me to be conscious again of these things.

m1469

[Glissando]

Actually, the most encouraging thing ever said to me regarding piano wasn't from one of my teachers.
My favorite from a former teacher is this:
"you are obviously an artistic player"

"Bend zuh kneeees..." No, wait, that was my ski instructor. Which forum am I in again?

rotfl that sounds like my tennis coach.

[lagin]

m1469, I like your little subtitle, "Out of all the voices in the world why is it important for me to have one?"  Do you know the anser to that?  I do

[pianonut]

does that sound good to you? (pedalling mushy)

you can learn from great teachers many double entendre's such as this one.  then your students won't know if it is an insult or encouragement unless you decide to explain.

[steinwayguy]

Wow, I have so many, mostly funny, some serious-

"Now could you play that a bit more... perfectly?"

"Whaaaaat???"

"Now I could just ask you to leave, but I'm not going to."

"You're such a virtuoso!!"

"Oh, you've just got such great chops."

"My what fingers!"

"I prescribe to the notion of Charles Ives- that 'to be human is to be genius'"


Said these to other students-

"Now all you need to do is learn it" (after a performance from memory in master class)

"Boo."

"Now after all that noise."

"You just bang the hell out of that, you know."

"You know, it's funny. One just has study that damn score!"

the best one of all:

"I mean, you're fucked up. (great deal of laughter). What? It's said these days; I've heard it said!"

[anda]

"wow, you memorized the whole piece! now, you do realize it's in f dur, not in c..." 

(hey, i was in 2nd grade, and i did realize it sounded bizarre, but i double checked- and those were the notes )

[anda]

for real: the best compliment my teacher would pay any of his students was "that's not bad! not bad at all! now, a few minor details...". i still dream abut the day when i'll play something and he won't say anything about "minor details"...

[galonia]

"That was really good - so lively, I wanted to get up and dance" - from my very strict and perfectionist slave-driver of a teacher!!!

One year, I played a Sculthorpe piece (I think it was Sculthorpe, anyway, it was something 20th C) for Warren Thomson, and when I finished, he paused, then flipped through my music, then put it on the stand and pointed and said, "You missed THAT accent"  That was his only comment about my performance.

[chopinisque]

"X has finished the piece faster and plays better." X being a much younger girl.  I felt sooo encouraged.

"That was a better than last week."  That was the best compliment she has ever given me after four years... sigh...

[jas]

When I finished playing a Chopin nocturne she had tears in her eyes. Mildly embarrassing at the time, but I recognised the compliment.
Of course, this is assuming that the tears weren't in recognition of the fact that that was 6 minutes of her life that she wasn't getting back...

Jas

[m1469]

m1469, I like your little subtitle, "Out of all the voices in the world why is it important for me to have one?"  Do you know the anser to that?  I do

(hmmmm... well, this is a serious question to me right now, but you make me giggle a little (I thought about starting one of those silly threads about it, like... "why bother?" heh, but, then I decided not to)  the only answer I can come up with is... 'because I have something to say' but I don't know if I believe that or not)

[key of c]

That was much better!

You've almost got it nailed!

[lagin]

She's almost got what nailed, key of c?  Do you know the answer too?

[robertp]

In no particular order:

"You did a lot of work."

"You have a beautiful touch."

And, OT but too good to omit, on how to practice some hanon:

"Be bored."

%%robert

[yamaha]

I once asked him how was my progress compared with others. He then told me:

"well, you are not the worst"

LOL!! 

[marialice]

My first teacher used to give me lots and lots of compliments, but somehow they didn't mean as much to me as the things my second teacher said. He wasn't so generous with compliments, had much higher standards. Some things I remember:

"I'm surprised. It's better than I expected"

"That sounds so dull and boring. You can do much better" (it may not seem like it, but it was meant positively)

"You will get there in the long run, you are conscientious" (I had to look up the word conscientious when I came home, spent the 2-hr journey home pondering what it meant)

"Don't go for a professional career in music. You have so many other talents, don't let the professional music world waste your love for music"

"If it is difficult, you are doing something wrong"
This one especially helped me, in many other areas as well.

[rshillen]

"It takes courage to be a pianist."

and

"That measure was beautiful."

and, grabbing my wrist with two fingers and moving it up and down as I slowly played...

"Supple wrist!  Let go of your death grip on the keys!"

I've had this very same experience. I have always had stiff joints and fingers and my teacher was forever gently teasing my wrist up and down when I was playing in order to get me to loosen up and relax. Eventually I started to play with an intermitent but slight up and down or rotary movement of my wrist just to prove to her and me that my wrist was supple.
Unfortunately many years later when I went to a new teacher she very soon told me to stop moving my wrist about!.
Shows you just can't please everyone!

[lfischer]

"What was that?" After i massacred some Chopin 

"Come on, the notes! They're right here!" (hits the pages energetically)

Two that i will always remember though:

"You know, I thought you'd never make it let alone steal the show." After I performed in a little concert as an item amongst many performers. I had been so nervous before and I was so pleased that I had won his approval.

"How did you DO that?!" When I played some Rach for him without cheating the chords.

This is one that wasn't from a teacher, it was from my interviewer at Cambridge when he got me to do some score reading at the piano for him,

"My God, boy! You've got hands like bloody dinner plates!"

I think I lost a bit too much time laughing in the interview.... 

[apion]

"My God, man, you're the incarnation and personification of Brahms himself!"

"It's as though Liszt himself were seated at the piano bench"

"Please excuse me while I fetch a box of Kleenex ...... I'm just so moved"

"Rachmaninov would be very proud of your execution and technique"

"There's nothing more I can teach you ......"

[lagin]

You played with real spark.  Your on your way to being a great performer.
She said other nice things too, but this was my favorite because it's a dream I never dared to dream until she said that.  I always thought I was too old, or not confident enough on stage, and would spend my life teaching in a studio.  Not that that would be bad either