Piano Blog

Is Your Child a Genius? Does it Matter?

Before reading further, please know this: I try to be positive. I think its important that children learn to trust their judgement, think for themselves, and feel good about who they are.

Not many parents tell their children that they're dumber than everyone else. Obviously, this would be abusive and disturbing.

A lot of parents tell their children that they're smarter than everyone else.

What happens when they learn they are not?

Instead of teaching our children (implicitly) to focus on where they are in relationship to everyone else, why don't we teach them to challenge themselves and enjoy the process? 

Go ahead, tell your child they are special. . . they are. But why make their genius the center of their thinking? It might make the parents feel better, but do the children care? Believe it or not, a truly happy child doesn't go around all day thinking "I'm a genius". He might implicitly think "I'm capable of handling the world", but more immediately he's probably thinking/feeling "this is fun, this is challenging, I'm enjoying learning about this."

Ironically, if your child is smart enough to deserve praise, he's certainly smart enough to see through saccharine pseudo-praise. Praise clear thinking, self-discipline, and hard work - tell your child they are a good person because they think for themselves and work hard, regardless of the outcome. Then lay off and let them enjoy life.

The Thing About Piano Competitions Is . . .

Piano competitions can be a real pain in the ass. Not just for the competitors, which is obvious, but for teachers as well.

Placing well often this means playing a piece somewhat conservatively at, say, 80% of a student's technical capacity. But improving can often mean practicing something at 90%, or even 110% capacity. (Within reason of course.)

Don't get me wrong I'm not against competitions. My more competitive students still enter them. But this "competition is everything" mindset some people have can wear thin; especially when it comes at the expense of real musical growth.

Developing musicians around the age of 13-18 need space to grow. They need to experiment, try out things, find their voice, and push up against pieces that might be a bit above their head both musically and technically. The fact is, this doesn't always lend itself well to polish and precision.

I'm not one of those people who is against competition per se, or anti-sports or anything else. But sports is sport and music is art. Art is a deeply personal thing, and the budding artist is finding himself through his practice. What are we teaching children when they work like hell on music they love, and then made to feel like failures because this or that judge was in a bad mood? 

Long story short. Go and compete, but keep the big picture in mind. End of rant.

The Truth about Classical Music

Last night was spent with some musician friends of mine and might have involved too much alcohol. 

But rather than just complain about my sad, sad, state, here's an interesting question: Why is there an aura of snobbishness surrounding classical music? We all know this exists, but my experience has been that it is completely at odds with reality.

In truth, many classical musicians have extremely "colorful", borderline hedonistic, personalities. And quite a bit of classical music itself expresses extreme and profound emotions: love, grief, heartbreak, triumph, etc. 

I realize that a lot of classical music should be taken seriously, and has to be listened to closely. I just don't get why it's so often considered snobbish and highbrow, or so often discussed with a sort of saccharine tone.

Thoughts?

Piano Teacher Bogeyman

I was at a housewarming party this evening. Somewhat introverted by nature, this was the first social gathering I'd been at in a few weeks where all of the other people were complete strangers. So it was a healthy reminder of someone's reaction when they find out I'm a piano teacher. This reaction has three stages: 

First: "Wow that's cool, how interesting."

Next "I took lessons as a kid, but didn't have much talent."

Finally: "My teacher was mean, made me feel worthless and cry. I was forced into lessons and it was traumatic, and now I'm scarred for life because of piano teachers like you."

OK maybe people don't go that far with the last part, but you'd be surprised how close this is to the truth. 

So first of all I'm going to be extra positive and nice in my teaching tomorrow. (I think I'm a pretty nice teacher in the first place...right students?) 

But this story also points to a common predicament: Children often don't come to enjoy the piano until they're in their teens. The problem is, if they haven't been practicing consistently for years at this point, it's too late for them to reach their full potential. Parents and teachers run into this problem all the time. I have my own thoughts on it, which I'll detail in the next post, but I'm curious to hear your take as well.

Piano For Adult Beginners - Tips on Getting it Right

When you teach long enough, you start to see trends. You can't miss it. There are certain things some adult beginners do, a way they approach the piano, that makes them more successful. 

I'm convinced that success at the piano has a lot less to do with intelligence than people believe.  In fact, for several reasons, intelligent people have a tendency to develop incorrect habits at the piano. The reason is that 1) they become over-analytical, and try to let analysis handle things that their "ear" ought to, and 2) they try to handle too much information at once, instead of using repetition to make one aspect of playing automatic before moving onto another. 

So, success at the piano, to a large extent, is determined by getting the process correct. It has much more to do with developing good habits than it does with intelligence.

Having said that, here are some points to keep in mind:

Successful Piano Students are *ear oriented*

    Successful students want to know how something sounds. They get as clear a picture as possible of what they are trying to do at the piano in terms of sound, and then work to create that.

    Unsuccessful students try to do the reverse. They will analyze what is happening in terms of note names and intervals and try to move their fingers accordingly, without first asking themselves how a certain thing ought to sound.

Successful Piano Students automatize

    Successful students have a policy of making things as easy as possible. They do this by repeating things until they are automatic. In doing this, they free up mental energy for other playing tasks. 

    Unsuccessful students try to handle everything at once. For instance, they will try to play a piece of music before they are comfortable naming the notes of the keyboard or reading music. They then wonder why its so hard to think about the notes, the letter names, hand placement, AND read music all at the same time. Often they feel like they are not smart enough, when in reality they simply haven't taken the time to automatize the basic elements of piano playing.

Successful Piano Students look for Patterns and Harmonies

    Successful students immediately look for patterns and harmonies. They do a lot of scale practice, and especially tons chord practice, so that they get a sense of the fundamental layout of the keyboard.

    Unsuccessful students rush to learn music before understanding building blocks. For them every line of music is a new thing, unrelated to chords or scales they ought to be familiar with. This makes them feel extremely disoriented, and creates an extremely slow learning process.

Successful Piano Students Understand Before Playing

    Successful students want to understand a section before playing it. They want to be in control of their actions to get a desired response.

    Unsuccessful students take action haphazardly and hope for the best.

Successful Piano Students understand hierarchy

    Successful students understand that piano is learned as a  step-by-step process. They build their abilities one step at a time.

    Unsuccessful students dive in without worrying about fundamentals. This is fun for a while, but they quickly burn out once improvement slows down.

Successful Piano Students learn to focus on problem areas

    Successful students develop a knack for identifying problem areas, correcting them, and learning them through repetition. When a successful student encounters a problem, he or she works out a solution and repeats that area calmly and endlessly to make it more automatic.

    Unsuccessful students usually start from the beginning of a piece every time and muddle through the areas that give them trouble. Instead of using problem areas as learning opportunities, they associate them with tension and unclear thinking.

Successful Piano Students look for the big picture

    After practicing a small section, the successful student will go back and put it in context by repeating a larger surrounding section. More importantly, the successful student ties the physical *playing* of a problem area with how that area *sounds*.

    Unsuccessful students might go as far as practicing a problem area, but then they won't tie that in with the larger picture and sound of the piece.

Successful Piano Students *practice*

    Successful students practice every day. For them piano is a long term, step- by-step project.

    Unsuccessful students practice randomly and in spurts. Because of this they always feel rushed and try to handle too much at once. 

If the above outline seems a bit general, don't worry. The next couple posts will be devoted to more hands-on practical applications of the above that you can use in your own practice!

Thinking Ahead

 A couple posts ago, I discussed the need for chunking, especially if your playing has a "stop-start" quality to it. Being able to chunk is also essential in the process of thinking ahead, since it frees up mental resources to consider what's next. This process is like driving a car; you can't just focus on what's directly in front of you, but rather you have to divide your mental energy between what you're doing (controlling the car) and what's coming up. On the other hand, if you focus too far in front of you, you won't have enough mental energy left to focus on what's coming up or on controlling the car itself. Its an issue of mental resources and timing.  

The same applies to playing music. You have to focus just a bit in front of what you're doing, but not so far in front that you spread yourself too thin. This requires that you're able to put at least some of what you're currently playing on "auto-pilot". Just like like you can't think about every single detail of how to steer while driving, you can't focus 100 percent of your mental energy on one passage at the expense of what lies ahead. 

There's a simple way to test this autopilot. Take a half-measure or measure of something you're working on, and practice it with complete concentration. Then divert your attention away and see if you can play that section while reading a book, checking the time of a clock, etc. If you're able to divide your attention like this, you'll certainly be able to think/listen ahead to what is coming up. 

It's also interesting to note that if you try doing this with a longer stretch of music (say while reading a book), you'll probably stumble every few seconds--either with the reading or with the playing. With each stumble, you'll have to apply a "jolt" of conscious energy to whatever was lagging to keep things going. So its an interesting example of how the mind is handling information in chunks. Could it be that getting into a flow is also an issue of correctly timing these "jolts" of mental energy?

Art as Spiritual Fuel

 This morning a piece of music charged me with so much emotion that I immediately thought of one of my favorite sections from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead-- where a boy comes upon Howard Roark's architectural masterpiece. 

"Thank you," said the boy. He knew that the steady eyes looking at him understood everything these two words had to cover. Howard Roark inclined his head, in acknowledgment.

Wheeling his bicycle by his side, the boy took the narrow path down the slope of the hill to the valley and the houses below. Roark looked after him. He had never seen the boy before and he would never see him again. He did not know that he had given someone the courage to face a lifetime."

Dealing with the arts (or teaching them) can be stressful. I know that after a day of teaching I'm wiped out. Its good to step back and realize how great it is to be involved with the things that make life worth living. 

Take what you want and pay for it

There's a Rudolf Serkin story where he and a violinist were waiting on a cab to take them to their performance. Instead of waiting, Serkin went back inside for 10 extra minutes of practice. When the cab arrived, the violinist asked, "Will that really make your performance tonight any better?" Serkin replied, "Yes. Ten minutes better." 

This anecdote epitomizes one of my favorite proverbs: "Take what you want and pay for it." I love this Spanish proverb because it addresses so many of life's conflicts. How many problems are caused by being unaware of what it is we really want or being unwilling to pay the price? 

Having values means knowing your priorities and allocating your time and effort accordingly. It means thinking hard about how to gain and keep what you really want in life, instead of just drifting and hoping for the best. The value is what we want and time and energy are the price we pay for it. And since time and energy are limited, we have to find creative ways to employ these resources, as well as make decisions about what gets precedence in our life. We also have to make sure what we want is in line with our long term goals instead of just momentary whim. I think most people, myself often included, sell themselves short by being unaware of how these ends and means align. 

If you want job fulfillment, are you willing to think hard about your long term goals and work towards them? If you want relationship fulfillment, are you willing to put in the time and attention to build something really great; to give someone else that much priority in your life? If you want robust health, are you willing to give up all that junk food and go to the gym regularly? In other words, are you willing to focus and act thoughtfully, instead of going with the flow and settling for mediocrity or worse?  

The Mental Side of Playing the Piano

There's a lot to be said about this subject, but more and more I'm aware of the important mental aspects of piano technique.

For instance, do you find that you constantly stop and start in your playing? This could be because you don't "chunk" enough. Chunking means grouping information so that your mind retrieves it in groups. 

As a simplified example, if you've got a measure with 20 notes in it, you'd have to think and execute 20 separate things to get through the measure. But if you can group those notes into 5 groups of 4, you'd only have to execute 5 commands to get through the measure. Thats a quarter of the mental workload!

A lot of what allows a seasoned pianist to play incredibly complex works is that he's practiced so many different patterns that he's able to chunk almost anything efficiently. 

There are a lot of ways to work on your "chunking abilities" but one of the best is very simple; although it involves quite a bit of self-control and concentration. It is simply this: pause every few notes and think ahead. Can you think through the next few notes as "one" thing instead of several separate notes? If not, can you repeat them until you can? Obviously if the next few notes are part of some chord or repeating pattern this task is easier, but they don't have to be. Any notes can be "chunked" as long as you practice them enough.

This is such a broad subject. I'm sure I'll have more to say on it. Hopefully this makes some sense!

On Teaching

"The power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous." --Gibbon

Every teacher knows how true this is...and  I'm really lucky to be surrounded by these sort of "happy dispositions". I found this quote when reading, of all things, an article by the famous physicist and teacher Richard Feynman.