I’ve been teaching piano, music theory and harmony for 30 years and love every moment of it. Throughout my career as a music educator I’ve taught probably more than a thousand students. Some of my students won international competitions and some just learnt how to love and appreciate music. But regardless of their abilities every student faced the similar challenges and my task as a music teacher has always been to help them deal with these challenges. And I found that some methods and approaches work better than others. I would like to share some of my findings with you. I hope that every parent who helps its child to learn music or music teachers who are just starting their career would find my experience helpful. It is not a book or methodic – I just want to be able to scribble down some thoughts and interesting examples after a day of teaching – it is just what a name suggests – a BLOG. Please treat it this way.

Tanya Schwartzman

One of the common problems with students learning piano is that the student does not know how to use all the width of a keyboard. They have to become comfortable playing in between the black keys. They need to understand that doing this is not an exception and playing on the white keys close to the edge is not a rule. Playing next to the middle line of a keyboard is the most convenient and prevents jerky movements, awkward appearance and hectic tempos. I found that metaphor that uses real world example helps student a lot not only to understand the problem but also to deal with it. For this particular case “Lane changing” metaphor gives a student easily understandable description of the problem. Imagine you are driving a car. If you stay in one lane and change lanes only when it is necessary – either to pass a car or take an exit – your drive is smooth, steady and you are in control. If you are changing lanes all the time your drive is haphazard and dangerous – an accident is more likely to happen. So, try to be a good driver and stay in a lane.

Memorizing a musical piece is another challenge that all musicians face. But for children sometimes it seems that they can never remember it no matter how many times they practice. They don’t see that they are making any progress. A good encouragement to a student in support of its effort is to explain how human memory works. One of the stories I use goes like this: Let’s imagine that you are filling an hourglass which is opened from the top. You pour some sand in it and sand drains down to the bottom part where it is hard to reach. If you keep filling the hourglass with sand then at some point the bottom part will be full and the sand will stay at the upper part where you can easily reach it. Human memory is like this hourglass – when you practice you gradually filling up long-term memory – the bottom part of an hourglass. And when it is filled – you can easily recall information you want. So, when at home after a lesson it looks like you have forgotten everything, remember - you’ve already put some sand in the bottom part so keep pouring sand – keep practicing and every practice brings you closer to memorization of this beautiful piece and ovation at the recital.

Every teacher has a lot of funny stories to tell about his or her teaching experience. I do too. Fun is a part of the reward for choosing such a difficult occupation. I personally like cute wise-cracks the most and children never stop to produce them in abundance. Here are some recent pearls from my collection:

Tanya: When you skip a key from “F” what do you get?
Talia, 6 years old: A nice sound.

10 years old Luke is playing “August” from “Seasons” by Tchaikovsky.
Tanya: Please, terrace-like dynamics here …
Luke: Terrorist dynamics? Really?
I drew him a picture of a “terrace-like dynamics”.

Luke: Why can’t you simply say that it is a stock market?

Roy, 12 years old starts to play “Military March” by Schubert.
Tanya: Wait, trio begins in major.
Roy: Not any more.
Tanya: What will you do to warm-up before recital?
Adrienne, 9 years old: I’ll put on a warm jacket.

I’ve always asked my students to reflect on the role of music in their life. And I’ve heard so many beautiful, deep and poetic stories! And nevertheless, every new reflection does not cease to surprise and amaze me. Here is one of such reflections, written by Katie Freeman, student of one of our instructors Olga Kurland:

“Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.” – Ludwig van Beethoven

Without even thinking about it, we use music to create desired moods – to make us happy, to enjoy movements and dance, to energize, to bring back powerful memories, and to help us relax and focus. Music is a powerful tool for our personal expression within our daily lives. It helps “set the scene” for many important experiences. Music, one of the joys of life, can be one of the joys of learning as well. All throughout our lives, our experiences create perceptions of out own worth and music acts as a primary source for theses experiences and subsequent revelations. Through music, people encounter a sense of personhood and respect for themselves and others. Therefore, involvement in music for people of all ages, including myself, is part of their personal valuation of self-worth.

Imagine you are flying a big plane with four engines. The engines are steadily humming and you feel comfortable and confident. And now imagine that one or two engines started to stutter. Though you know that you can still fly on the remaining engines you become nervous and jittery and your flight will reflect it.

Your performance is like this plane – it uses four memories – emotional, visual, motor, and audio to fly confidently through a musical piece. If one of these memories is giving up you will lose confidence and your performance will definitely reflect it. That’s why it is so important to practice all memories in preparation for a performance.

I always feel disappointed when a student stops taking music lessons. I always question myself – “What have I done wrong?” For me, music is a constant source of joy and delight and I can’t imagine that anybody would willingly deprive himself or herself of this pleasure. I truly believe that every well-rounded human being should know and understand music and music should be an integral part of children’s education, like geography. Besides proven benefits for mind and body, music education opens a new dimension of spiritual universe. And many parents think the same way. I recently had an enlightening conversation with the mother of one of our students. She told me that after four years of music lessons her daughter’s music abilities just exploded. Her daughter has made a tremendous progress; she has started to enjoy music immensely and has blossomed as a performer. And the mother was very proud of her own perseverance and her daughter’s success and wanted to share her feelings with me.

But sometimes parents, especially the ones who can play an instrument themselves, have unrealistic expectations about the progress of their children. They don’t remember their own progress, quickly become impatient, start to think that the child does not practice enough and withdraw their children from music program. They don’t understand that in the beginning the child learns even how to practice! And each lesson teaches the child something new, develops child’s memory, coordination and motor skills. Every child is different, has its own pace of learning and abilities. Some practice a lot, learn ten pieces a year and compete in international competitions. Some don’t practice much, learn only two pieces a year and perform at school recitals. Does it mean that the second child should stop his or her music education? Of course not! It is like in sports - not everyone is a champion but everyone benefits from physical exercise. And music as important for child’s spiritual health as sport for his or her physical wellbeing.

So, if your child likes to come to the music lessons, but in your opinion he or she does not practice enough and the progress is not as good as you would like it to be, ask yourself – “Will my child be better off without music education?”

This entry turned out to be a long one – it is a hot topic with me.