What happens when students just can’t memorize (I’m one of them; I just don’t have the capacity for memorization)? Do we give up on them as musicians, or is there another way?

We are all gifted in different ways, with different capacities for various skills. In my opinion, it’s more valuable to be able to sight-read with ease than memorize with ease. But that’s probably because I can sight-read well, but have great difficulty memorizing. One of my students and I have this debate frequently because he is…shall we say…significantly lacking in the sight-reading department, but he can memorize effortlessly and play dozens of songs off the top of his head. Naturally, he thinks that memorization is a more desirable skill than sight-reading. Too bad for him that I’m the teacher, so I win the debate by nature of that fact.

Anyway…my personal philosophy is to never have such a narrow view of what a music education has to look like that it doesn’t leave room for students who have a desire and/or talent to learn, but may not possess the capacity for certain things – like memorization. Along those same lines, unless my students are playing in a competition or festival that requires memorization, I leave it up to them whether they want to perform from memory or with the printed music in front of them. Some play better from memory; some enjoy the challenge of working a piece up to that level; others prefer the security of playing with the book. I’d rather have them play beautifully while looking at the printed music than have a disastrous experience just because I required memorization and they couldn’t handle the pressure.

I guess for me, memorization just isn’t that big of a deal. But I’d be interested to know what others think. Do you require memorization? What if you have a student who just can’t seem to memorize? Is that okay with you?

Remember, if you have a question you’d like to contribute to next week’s Monday Mailbag, leave it in the comments below or send me an e-mail sometime this week with Monday Mailbag in the subject line!

Wow! Have you seen this video clip about British musical savant Derek Paravicini by Lesley Stahl, of CBS’ 60 Minutes? Talk about inspirational! In addition to watching and hearing from Derek and his parents, I really love listening to his teacher and seeing how he approached working with someone like Derek. (I think the book, In the Key of Genius, by his teacher, Adam Ocklelford, would be fascinating!) I am reminded of the importance of looking at each student as an individual, with unique God-given talents.

Yes, it’s essential to have structure and lesson plans and some sort of a framework to work within as a teacher. But it’s equally essential to know when it’s okay to throw all that out the window and just teach to the needs of the individual student. Most of us will never have a Derek Paravicini in our studios, but each of us have students with unreached potential walking through our door week after week. We just need eyes to see beyond the current challenges and frustrations and cast a vision for the future…because you never know where it will lead!

How “strict” are you about your students playing popular music from films, radio, etc. as notated? The piano arrangements are never really identical to the song the student knows, and they naturally play the rhythm they know. Lately I’ve been going through the notated rhythms with them correctly and then giving them permission to play like they know the song, so they realize that what they’re playing is not what’s written in the music. What’s your approach?

Please don’t call the rhythm police on me for this, but I usually let them play it however they think it should sound rhythmically. For those who are interested in playing familiar pop music like this, I often just have them figure it out by ear anyway, so that eliminates the discrepancy between how they think it should sound and how it is notated. For those who do go off of the printed music, though, I let them use it sort of as a loose framework for the piece, but then let them go as much by ear as they want.

My philosophy has shifted over the years as I’ve come to realize the importance of teaching music as sound, not as notes printed on a page. The printed page is just someone’s best attempt to represent visually a sound that they like and want others to be able to reproduce. Some music lends itself more to precise notation; other music…not so much. I will caveat this answer, though, by saying that my approach does depend also on three significant factors:

1. The student’s personality (do they want to learn things precisely, or do they enjoy just being able to play a familiar song without me nitpicking every detail?).

2. The purpose of learning the piece (will it be played in a public forum, or with a group of some sort where it would be important for the student to be playing it exactly as written?).

3. The learning value of the particular piece (is there some element with which the student especially struggles, and that I could capitalize on their interest in the piece to motivate them to strengthen that weakness?).

How about everyone else? Do you make students learn pop music exactly as written? Or do you give some leeway in this area?

Remember, if you have a question you’d like to contribute to next week’s Monday Mailbag, leave it in the comments below or send me an e-mail sometime this week with Monday Mailbag in the subject line!

Another teacher recently sent me an e-mail asking if I have a listening worksheet that I use with my students. Well, yes…and no. I have a listening worksheet that I used to use with my students. Does that count? I dug through my files and uploaded this free Music Listening Worksheet in case anyone else is interested in using it with their students. I developed it for use with one of my practice incentives several years ago where students could earn extra points for turning in a completed sheet.

Now that I think about it, I should do something like this again, because my students really got into it and probably listened to more music that year than any other! Actually, I’m tossing around the idea of doing a listening/music appreciation-themed incentive next year, and if I do, I’ll probably pull this out and incorporate it into the theme. It’s so important for students to be exposed to music of a high caliber, but this is an area that I often overlook in my emphasis on learning to play the piano. This was reaffirmed to me a couple weeks ago when I did our Super Fun Listening Activity and so many of my students exclaimed about how fun it was or asked if they could just do that for their whole lesson. It’s so inspiring to hear good, beautiful music; somehow I think this should be a regular part of our lessons as music teachers…I would welcome any thoughts or ideas on this topic!

Do you ever have a student come to their lesson and say that they couldn’t practice an assigned piece because they couldn’t figure out what note to start on? Or do they play timidly and explain that they aren’t sure if they are playing with the correct rhythm? Here’s what NOT to do. Don’t point to the beginning of the piece, say, “Oh, that’s an A!” and move the student’s hand to the correct spot on the keyboard. Don’t listen to the first few measures and say, “You’ve almost got it – just make sure you hold the half note for the full two beats.” These sound like decent responses, but they handicap the student’s ability to learn on his own, and increase his sense of dependence on the teacher to solve problems for him.

It will definitely take more time, but I prefer to walk a student through finding the solution for himself. For example, here’s how I handled a student with the rhythm issue described above: “Alright, you’re not sure if you’re playing it correctly and think that the rhythm might be wrong. That’s excellent! Not that you’re playing the rhythm wrong, but that you’re aware that there’s a problem. After all, the first step to fixing problems is knowing that there is one. Now, instead of me just telling you whether it’s right or wrong, let’s imagine that I’m not here and you had to figure it out on your own. What are some ways that you could determine if the rhythm is right or wrong?”

Then I let him give me as many ideas as he could think of. The final step is to have him put some of those ideas to the test and then tell me what he discovers. If he discovers that he was playing the rhythm incorrectly, then we move into a discussion of how to practice effectively to correct the problem. Not only will he likely be successful correcting the problem during the week, but he has also learned a problem-solving strategy that can be used on any future piece of music with a similar issue. Lastly, it provides a common vocabulary of sorts for the future, because if he plays a piece for me and I observe that there is a rhythmic inaccuracy, all I have to say is, “In measure 14, the rhythm is incorrect. Can you determine the error and fix it?” Instead of a glazed-over look, accompanied with a complete lack of understanding as to how to fix the problem, he can go right to work and probably fix it pretty quickly.

For one of my group classes a while back, I wanted to highlight various ways that students can solve problems on their own, so I grouped them in pairs and gave each pair a white board and marker. The I presented each pair with one of the following problems and instructed them to write down as many ways that they could think of to solve the problem. Here’s a list I put together ahead of time to offer suggestions if necessary, but the students did a great job coming up with solutions on their own.

• Don’t know what note to start on
  • Use landmark notes
  • Look at a piece of music you’ve already learned
  • Compare the starting note to flashcards and find the matching one to see what the note name is
• Don’t know what sharps or flats are in the scale
  • Use a scale you do know to figure out the pattern
  • Use the circle of 5ths to figure out how many sharps or flats it should have
  • Play a scale you know, then listen to the sound and play the new one so that it sounds the same
• Don’t know what fingering to use
  • Try alternate fingers and see which one seems to work the most naturally
  • Use scale, chord,  or arpeggio fingerings that fit the pattern
• Don’t know if the rhythm is correct
  • Write in the counts
  • Tap and count it out loud
  • Use a metronome
  • Find a professional recording and listen to it
• Don’t know what a term in the music means
  • Look it up in a music dictionary
  • Look it up on the Internet

This is obviously not an exhaustive list, so I’d love to have some additional input! What would you add to the list? How do you help your students learn to identify and find solutions for their problems?

One thing that I’ve realized that I do frequently with my students that keeps my enthusiasm for teaching fresh is visualize them  in the future. I imagine that Landon is no longer a 9-year old boy with hard-to-control fingers, but a mature 19-year old who sits at his family’s piano accompanying hymns while his family sings along. And 7-year old Holly is more than just a precocious little sight-reader flying through her books; in my mind she is a 17-year old graduate, playing a beautiful rendition of Chopin at her graduation.  And so on.

When I view my students in this light, it makes me care more about the sound that they create. It makes me want to put in the extra time and energy to make sure that they can do more than translate notes on a page to sound; I want them to hear the beauty in what they are playing. It makes me willing to work week after week on the same technique until they master it, knowing that it will serve them well whatever their musical future may hold. It makes me excited to see them not only saying the “right” answers, but actually grasping the concepts that I am teaching, for then they can transfer them to all learning.

Every piece along the way contributes to the whole, but it is in stepping back and looking at the whole that I find the energy and motivation to focus relentlessly on the pieces.

Have you ever wondered why a student can successfully correct a problem at the lesson when you point it out to them, but then return the following week having reverted to the incorrect way of playing it? I actually started to understand the fundamental issue involved in this phenomenon as a result of taking lessons myself. I would return home from a lesson and begin practicing a piece, only to stare blankly at a particular section knowing that my teacher had addressed something that needed to be corrected, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was! It wasn’t that I didn’t want to fix the problem, or wasn’t willing to put in the time and work to do so; it was that I hadn’t fully grasped what the problem was in the first place.

In order to remedy this teaching disconnect, I think we have to approach it with a fundamental principle in mind:

Music is sound, not what’s printed on the page. When a teacher recognizes that a student is playing something incorrectly, it is because it doesn’t sound right. Either the student is not accurately playing what is represented on the printed music (primarily the technical elements), or the student is playing in a way that is inconsistent with what the teacher wants the piece to sound like (primarily the artistic elements).

Obviously, unless they just doesn’t care, the student is unaware that the sound they are emitting is incongruous with what it should be. So ultimately, as a teacher, what I want to do is help my student hear the errors and be aware of what needs to be fixed so that they can implement an appropriate practice strategy during the week. As I am often wont to tell my students, “Once you hear the mistake, I’m not concerned; I know you can fix it during the week.” But if they have not fully grasped what exactly it was that sounded wrong, the chances of it coming back fixed the following week are pretty slim!

In an effort to apply this understanding and teach my students more effectively, here are three practical approaches that I take:

1. Relate to something the student is already playing correctly. For example, if there are two staccato notes in a row and the student is playing the first one staccato, but is holding the second one (why is this so common?!), instead of pointing to the book and telling the student that both should be played staccato, I ask them to make the sound of the second staccato note match the sound of the first staccato note. Firstly, this places the responsibility on them to listen for and determine whether they are playing it correctly. Secondly, it develops more acute listening skills and forces them to hear the sound of what they are playing. I use the same approach if a student is inadvertently altering the tempo between different sections of the piece. Instead of saying, “You’re playing too slowly at measure 22. You need to play the same tempo,” I say something like, “Play the eighth notes in the left hand at measure 4; now go over to measure 22 and see if you can match the sound and speed of the eighth notes so that they sound the same as measure 4. Does that sound different than how you played it the first time?”

2. Play two examples for the student – one as an imitation of how they are playing it, and another as a representation of the way it should be played. I have the student identify which example sounded like the correct one. Usually they get this right. Then I have them try to play a good example. If they do well, I’ll have them give the bad example again, followed once more by the good one so that I can ascertain whether they have truly grasped the problem and how to fix it. If on their second attempt they still play it incorrectly, I play it back to them again and contrast it with a properly played example. The goal is always for them to hear the difference and then be able to relate it to what they are seeing on the page and how they are executing it.

3. Audio or video record the student playing the piece and have them give a critique of it – did they like the way it sounded? do they want to re-record and try to improve it? Sometimes before I play it back, I ask the student to watch/listen for three specific things that they would like to do better if we do a second recording. It’s always insightful to see what they come up with!

Do you all have any other suggestions or ideas of approaches you use to help the students “tune in” to the sound of their playing?

I love teaching! This is my first week back to teaching after my summer break and I am loving it! I took a little more time off than usual this summer, so I was afraid my students would be pretty rusty. I have been pleasantly surprised. I think I’m rustier than most of them!

There are a couple of phrases that I’ve found myself using with students this week that have been very helpful:

“Play this like it’s the easiest thing in the world for you.” – I use this when I observe tension in a student’s hand and they are having trouble making transitions from one place to another on the keyboard (i.e. parallel 5ths). Usually this is a result of them feeling like they can’t leave the keys or they might lose their place or hit a wrong note. So I demonstrate with a really relaxed hand and arm motion, floating off the keys, looking away from the piano, etc. and then landing back down in the new key position. Inevitably they find that it’s not as hard to make the transition as they were making it on themselves.

“Drill that section until it feels easy to play.” – Instead of telling them to practice a section a certain number of times, I’ve started using this phrase that requires them to honestly evaluate their playing and progress and puts them in charge of deciding how much practice it needs. They are not focused on counting repetitions, but rather on making progress. So what if they can play it 4 times in a row perfectly? If it still doesn’t feel easy in their hand, they will probably mess it up anyway.

My focus this year is on mastery, so I’m trying not to let my students get away with barely scraping by. I want them to feel comfortable and at-ease when they are playing, not like they are walking on the edge of a cliff and could experience a disastrous slip at any moment. So, for example, if every note of their scale has me on pins and needles wondering if they are going to make it to the end (and please tell me I’m not the only one who hears scales played like this regularly…!), they don’t get to pass it and move on. They have to convince me that they’ve put in the effort and have mastered it in order to progress to the next scale. We’ll see how that plays out this year!

Michael Griffin, developer of the Music Education World website and author of the Music and Keyboard in the Classroom curriculum, has just posted eight episodes of a new Great Pianists on Piano Playing Podcast (scroll to the bottom of the page for the links).

The eight episodes range from 5 to 18 minutes in length and are from a book on conversations with Great Pianists. The book was published in 1917 and is now in the public domain. The episodes include:

Episode 1: Pepito Arriola
Episode 2: Wilhem Bachaus
Episode 3: Harold Bauer
Episode 4: Fanny Bloomfield-Zeisler
Episode 5: Ferrucio Busoni
Episode 6: Leopold Godowsky
Episode 7: Teresa Carreno
Episode 8: Ossip Gabrilowitsch

Thanks to Mr. Griffin for sharing these gems with the rest of us!

In the course of reading the Teacher’s Manual for my review of the Music and Keyboard in the Classroom curriculum, these are some quotes that I found particularly helpful and/or thought-provoking:

“To further shape a music curriculum it is essential to know what we believe, as educators. Otherwise we will be irresolute in the delivery of our curriculum.” (Pg. 9)

“Performing is essential as the primary mode of musical involvement for all students including general music students.” (Pg. 9)

“In the arts, production should lie at the centre of any artistic experience: “verbal knowledge (or “talk” about music) is “an ancillary form of knowledge, not to be taken as a substitute for ‘thinking’ and ‘problem solving’ in the medium itself” (Elliott p. 42, Music Matters).” (Pg. 12)

“It pays to remember that the primary function of evaluation is not to determine grades but to provide accurate constructive feedback to students.” (Pg. 19)

“Music starts as sounds in the head, not signs on paper. But teachers and musicians who have gone through life recreating from notation and devoid of musical creative experiences perpetuate the myth of notational supremacy.” (Pg. 31-32)

“We are all born with wonderful imaginations. Indeed, a child’s playtime largely exists in an imaginary world. Kids love to play, to make up stories and sing their own songs. Unfortunately, much of this creative tendency gets lost when children are required to conform to school bureaucracy. It gets sacrificed for more ‘academic’ pursuits like language, maths and science and gets relegated and related to a faculty with the lowest status in the educational system. However, many self-made successful people were not necessarily successful in the school system. This is because they had their own ideas and wanted to try things their way. New inventions and the solving of problems are dependent on creative thinkers. We need to encourage creativity in our
educational systems.” (Pg. 32)

“With ensemble activities, the students actually need one another’s knowledge and skills. Not all school group work demands this.” (Pg. 34)