Putting the Feet Right: An Introduction To A Holistic Pedagogy

           This is a rather lengthy topic that is near and dear to my heart. So as not to make it one long and unreadable post, I have divided it into several smaller sections. Hopefully, this will help me to represent a multi-faceted approach to piano pedagogy. For anyone who follows this series through to conclusion, I want to encourage you to try these unconventional ideas out. Give them time to mature in your students. I invite you to join me in my journey to becoming a “process-oriented” teacher.

            One of my favorite books to read as a child was C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. For those of you who recall this book, in the chapter where Aslan, Lucy, and Susan are in the witch’s castle, Aslan is restoring all of the creatures whom the witch had turned to stone. One of these creatures is a giant. Aslan simply breathes on this giant’s feet and remarks, “Once the feet are put right, the rest of him will follow.” Whenever I think about this topic of a pedagogy based on the person as a whole, this quote pops into my head. Of course, I would modify it to say that once the body is set right, the technique and musical artistry will follow.

            I have had several people openly laugh to my face when I have discussed the idea of “musician wellness”. They seem to have the impression that such a term implies a prioritization of “feeling good” over making artistic music happen. Let me assure there is nothing further from the case. Musician wellness is the total mental, emotional, and physical well-being of the musician. Unfortunately, we teachers do not control a large portion of this in our students’ lives. This is where living as an example is very important. Taking care of our bodies through healthy eating habits and moderate exercise. Taking care of our mental health by surrounding ourselves with positive influences; not just people who make us feel good about ourselves, but people who make us genuinely better people. Our students learn so much just by observing us in the 30-60 minutes a week that they see us.

            We begin with the body because it is the house for all of the physical, emotional, and mental processes that occur. If this house is falling apart, these processes cannot happen at their maximum potential. And if these processes are happening below maximum potential, then music cannot be produced with ease or full artistic potential. Some causes of operating on such a level include: 1) misalignment of any part of the skeletal structure, but especially back/neck and forearm/wrist/hand; 2) an excess of muscular tension; and 3) specific to the piano (or other instrument), generally inefficient technique and poor use.

            We begin this journey by seeking out multiple disciplines which focus on bringing the body into realized maximum working potential. We must keep in mind that we are humans, and therefore will never have “perfectly” functioning body. There will be certain days, or times of days, that will be better or worse than others. And it is because of these "down" days that it is especially important to have the knowledge of how to "reset" ourselves physically and mentally, so that we are able to function our best for the given day.

            One of the most obvious solutions, so obvious that we will not spend a great deal of time discussing it, is to rethink our practice strategies and methods, based on incorporation of the other disciplines which will be discussed in detail in the following posts for this series. One skill which students need to learn is that of score study; not just analysis for the sake of memorizing, but seeking out the true musical meaning behind each note. I am always telling my students that there are not unimportant notes: only important ones, more important ones, and most important ones!

            Another strategy which is important to teach our students is the power of the pause. Our students seem to have an idea that a 30 minute practice session must involve notes sounding from the beginning to the end of the session. They must be taught not to mindlessly repeat and drill, but to stop and analyze: “What went right, and how do I make it happen again? What went wrong, and what do I need to do to make it right?” A simple 10-15 second break in which the student thinks through what just happened is invaluable.

            We must not teach our students to “build up endurance”. Mrs. Dorothy Taubman, whose work will be discussed in great detail in two weeks, used to say, “Endurance is a repulsive word. It’s abhorrent. How are you supposed to interpret music when you are simultaneously trying to endure it?” Remind your students to give the body and mind frequent (if short) breaks. In this same vein, students should practice with the intent of making music happen. Students are often so focused on getting the correct notes, fingerings, and rhythms that by the time they accomplish these, they have no desire to make music (see this post on how to make both happen faster).

            We must remember that often the solution for which we are looking is to not sit at the piano. We must be willing to explore options outside of what we find familiar. We have to research the outside disciplines which we find. Most importantly, we must have patience with ourselves and with our students. What I am going to suggest will, in many cases, call teachers to both relearn how to play and how to teach. And that relearning takes time.

            As I conclude this introduction to the series, I want to challenge piano teachers and students alike to test their musical experience by asking a question which uses the words of one of my favorite authors, Madeleine Bruser, in her book, The Art of Practicing. Are your practice and musical experience “the overflow of joy and vibrant curiosity from a healthy and fulfilling life”?

Practicing Smart: A Staircase

            This post is a prequel of sorts to a series of posts that is going to start next week. This series will hopefully be beneficial to all who read it. One thing with which I must preface this whole blog is that I am what I call a “process-oriented” teacher, not what I would call a “goal-oriented” teacher. In other words, I do not teach students for performance evaluations, competitions, or recitals. While I think these things are extremely important, I am far more interested in the means whereby I help a student achieve their performance goals, than in the goals themselves.

I have already written a post on common practice mistakes, with some solutions offered. What I hope to do with this post is offer more of a detailed practice plan and not so much a troubleshooting guide, so please forgive any repetitions from before. I think most piano teachers spend time showing their students exactly how to practice only to have the student completely ignore their guidelines. And once upon a time, that would upset me. However, my students all know that it is their prerogative to practice as they choose, or not practice at all, and I will not get mad. They also know if I am not 100% satisfied with a piece, we will not move forward. We will spend as many weeks necessary treating the lesson as another practice session, until they get it. This is something which tends cause a tremendous amount of stress within my “goal-oriented” colleagues.

That being said, most of my students (including those who don’t practice as much as I’d like) move forward at about a “normal rate”, through their music. This is because of the work that we accomplish in their lessons. I recall a mentor once telling a story of something said to her, the gist of it being that a student could go from week to week without practicing and as long as they are attending their lessons, and the teacher is doing their job, the student will make progress. Of course, what this story didn’t mention was that the progress could be extremely slow. Progress is progress, though!  I think in the moment that I heard her tell that story I changed my outlook on lessons. I began to ask myself, “How can I help this student in such a way that even if they don’t touch a piano between lessons, they can come back next week better than they were today?”

This plan can be used by the teacher and student in the lesson, as well as by the student at home.

Step 1: Divide the music into sections, by phrase, usually about 4 measures in length. Make sure to end each section on a beat, and never the division or subdivision of a beat. This is important for students in the development of continuity and flow between phrases.

Step 2: Starting with the first section, work out the coordination of the correct notes with the correct fingerings, without rhythm. One way to ensure that the student is ignoring the rhythm is to tell them to play each note as though it is a whole note. Make sure that the weight of the arm picks up and drops by rotation to a point of balance on the fingertips on the keys. Check that the fingers are in their natural curved state, not curled (“pulled”) inwards or collapsed (“pushed”) outwards. Ask the student to listen to the quality of the sound they are creating. They should be creating solid, beautiful tones, in the mp-mf dynamic range, regardless of written dynamic.

Step 3: Once the notes and fingerings are comfortable, add the rhythm. Go slowly enough that the student can listen for the quality in their sound and continue to be aware of the physical traits discussed in Step 2.

Step 4: Begin working on articulations and pedaling. Again, the student should still be paying attention to the details of the previous steps.

Step 5: Add dynamics and phrase shaping, if they aren’t already beginning to happen. Students must listen especially closely here. Each note/ chord must be voiced appropriately but it must also be planned musically in terms of both the preceding and succeeding notes. This may also require some attention to physical choreography in terms of the arm moving in/out, up/down, and side to side. If the student is playing with both physical freedom and good musicality, there is no need to address the choreography with them.  

Step 6: Repeat Steps 2-5 with all other sections. For a PDF checklist with these steps click here.

One of my teachers often said that trying to play a piece with musicality before you can play with technical accuracy is like trying to hang beautiful pictures on crumbling walls. I mostly agree with her. In my vocabulary, “technique” and “musicality” are deeply intertwined, and one should not be developed without the other. This means of practicing allows the student to experience both technical fluency and musical artistry rather quickly.

Neither the technique nor musical artistry will develop to their fullest potential if they are trapped in a body riddled with tension. Next week’s post will begin the discussion of how the body and mind can be liberated to allow our students to truly blossom as musicians. As they learn to develop their ears (see this post), the rest of their body will learn how to create the sounds that their ears are learning to desire. 

Teaching by Ear

One word which comes up so often when I am working with my students is “listen”. I think as a society that we are all great at hearing, but rather terrible at listening. We must start encouraging our students to do two types of listening: 1) listening to great musicians playing great music and 2) listening to themselves, both when practicing and performing.

Students have enough trouble listening to themselves for technical errors, such as wrong notes, rhythms, etc. It falls on the teacher to develop that sort of ear-training from the beginning. We also must develop a way of teaching students to listen for the musical integrity of their playing. Students can often hear these things when we draw their attention to them. And as all things, if we make them focus on it for long enough, it will simply become a habit.

Rather than going straight to telling a student what they did “wrong” or need to fix, I ask my students to tell me what was well-done and what needs improvement. I often get responses like “Dynamics”, “Fix pedaling”, etc.; things which they have grown accustomed to hearing me or previous teachers say. I then have to follow-up my question and ask, “Which dynamics need improving?” or “Where does your pedaling need cleaned up?” This makes doubly sure that the student isn’t just spouting what they think I want to hear.

In the same way, they must learn to listen for the musical integrity of their playing. I find the answer to the simple question of “What were you trying to do with your phrasing here?” points to the biggest problem, because that answer is often “I don’t know” or “I didn’t think about it.” If we have trained them in how we can shape phrases and we know they can do it, then drawing attention to the need for it often does the trick. They can’t just program it in once and go back into “auto-pilot” mode. They must think about it every time they sit down to play the piece, including in performance.

I remember being the student who knew that if I started thinking during a performance, I would mess up, which usually manifested itself in the form of a memory “slip”. As I started teaching and studying with other teachers, I began to realize the importance of the thought process that goes into music. At this point, you may being thinking, “DUH”, and I assure you that I thought the exact same thing. The reason I didn’t want to think during performances was because I didn’t think during my practice sessions. Once I was comfortable with the mechanics of the piece, and had a pretty solid outline of the dynamics, I would just coast through without thinking. If I had recordings of my playing during those days, it would probably make me cringe to listen to them. I would guess that I would not find an ounce of feeling or meaning in my playing from those days.

One thing that I wish I had been able to do more of as a young student is listen to more great pianists play great repertoire. I remember one of the first big pieces of the repertoire that I heard was the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto (played by Eugene List, I believe, though I long since have gotten rid of that cassette). What a rush hearing that!!!! And a realization: there was something to his playing that I didn’t have, besides the obvious lack of virtuosity. The more I’ve listened to my favorite pianists, the more I have grown in my ability to give a performance that has musical integrity. Not that I am trying reproduce a duplicate of someone else’s interpretation. Rather, I am gathering ideas for my own interpretation. I gain these through listening to others play, not only the music on which I am working (in fact, it is less often that I listen to the repertoire that I am learning) but other works by the same composer or composers of the same era.

It may be impossible for us to collectively agree on who the greatest pianists (or other musicians) are, or what is the greatest repertoire for listening; the good news is that we don't have to! It is our responsibility, however, to encourage our students (especially with resources like YouTube) to listen to as many great works as they can. All it takes is a few keystrokes to send them a link to listen to a recording. If they like it, encourage them to purchase it on iTunes or some other platform, so they can legally listen to it as many times as they’d like.

Once they start listening to great music played by great musicians, it gives them an idea of what they ought to listen for in their own playing. Be careful here that the student realizes that you do not have the virtuosic expectations of them, only the musical. It is important for them to realize that they can play their sonatina, invention, or character piece with as much musical integrity as (insert your own favorite musician here) playing the (insert your own favorite work here). Encourage them to listen to multiple pianists playing the same work; this helps them to realize that several different great musicians will have several different interpretations. Encourage them to listen to one pianist playing works of different eras and composer; this helps them to realize that some pianists may more comfortable with one composer or era of music than another composer or era of music.

                There are so many things to take into account as teachers, and they all seem so important. However, I consider this one to be foundational. How do we expect to do our job (train our students to make music) when we have not taught them what music really is? Next week, I will be posting the prequel to a series of posts that will be coming over the next several weeks. Without learning to use their ears, the work outlined in this series will not be of any use to the students. 

Sound-Feel-Sign-Name: Why Reinvent the Wheel?

It has been a year since I launched this blog and about that long since I posted! Life has been crazy and my priorities changed at about this time last year. I am back, though. And writing this blog will hopefully stay high on my list of priorities. Perhaps my ideas aren’t all that unique, but if I can help even one teacher, parent, or student then I will be meeting my goal for this blog.

“Why reinvent the wheel?”

Something that I read recently reminded me to always be aware of how I can do my best to help each student learn to speak and understand the language that is music (see post on this). However, even though I am always trying to find new ways of helping my students succeed, there is one teaching principle which has never failed me. Renowned 20^th century pedagogue, Frances Clark, always emphasized introducing new concepts in this order: Sound-Feel-Sign-Name. Regardless of learning styles, I have found this to be the most effective means of teach new ideas to students. This principle can be used to teach most musical (or not) concepts. And while the order of introductions is set, the way in which you introduce each step should be tailored to the learning needs of the student.

To illustrate, I will use the example of the crescendo/decrescendo. Oftentimes, my students are doing this long before the method books introduce this concept. I insist on learning good phrasing skills from the beginning. So first, I would play whatever little ditty my student is learning, shaping each phrase with a crescendo to the climax and a decrescendo away from it. I would ask the student to tell what they heard me do differently than they did (as an aside: this is, in my opinion, the best form of ear training imaginable). Generally, within the first two attempts, the student is able to tell me that I got louder and then softer. I then would ask them if it happened a little at a time or suddenly. Again, they usually get this correct. I would demonstrate a sudden change in dynamic in contrast to a gradual change.

Next, the student should feel the sensation of dropping their arm weight into the keys faster to get a louder sound and slower to get a softer sound. I recommend practicing this on one note, in quarter note values, with the metronome. Then, work with them in their music to incorporate the growth and diminution of each phrase. Hopefully, without verbally addressing it, you can prevent the issue of playing faster/slower coinciding with a change in dynamic. Teachers must understand this principle: the speed at which the arm weight approaches the point of sound does not necessarily affect the speed of the arm weight moving from note to note. It is all careful choreography. That is information that does not need to be verbally communicated to the student, however, unless you have an older beginner or adult student with an interest in physics!

After they are comfortable with this concept, we begin talking about the symbols that indicate crescendo and decrescendo. I draw the two symbols and ask them which makes sense for getting louder: the one that gets bigger or the one that gets smaller. They generally guess correctly. We add these symbols to whatever they are playing, where in the previous step we already determined they would crescendo and decrescendo.

Finally, we give them a name for the symbols. This is the last and (please don’t hate me for saying it) least important step. What we call something, is far less important than understanding and being able to execute the idea behind the name assigned.

This process of steps may happen in one lesson, or several, depending on the student. What is important for the teacher, the parent, and the student to realize is that each concept takes time to learn and apply, and that not everything will happen quickly. Tremendous patience is needed from all three parties!