Adult Piano Students Have Two Main Problems

They are, in no special order:

1. Chronological, and
2. Psychological.

Let's deal with chronology first. Here's my essay on the subject from my book How to WIN at Piano Lessons: Successful Piano Instruction Strategies for Non-Mozarts.

****Start of Essay*****

Adult Students: It's Not Too Late!

Many adults would like to play the piano. I am thankful for this fact every time I go to the bank, for most of my income comes from adult students! These are folks who ignored the "conventional wisdom" that says you must start piano as a child if you want to succeed. They are adults who are successful enough at their piano training that they pay me good money, week after week. This leads one to wonder how much truth there is in the "conventional wisdom" and how it originated.

The origins of this "earlier is better" concept are obvious. I am convinced that a survey of concert pianists would reveal that 100% began their studies at very young ages. The complexity and difficulty of performing the world's most advanced piano music allows nothing less than a life lived for the piano right from the start.

More recently, findings in brain research point to a window of opportunity in preschool children when music is most easily learned. Lending credence to this is the Japanese Suzuki Method of violin instruction in which 3 years olds play cut-down violins at an astonishing level of skill. Piano companies have been very diligent in promoting these findings for reasons that should be obvious.

Thus, history and modern research come together and create in the mind of the average person that it is necessary to start piano at a very early age...AND that those who miss their chance are unlikely to be successful at later ages.

Luckily, this is not the case. Adults can, and should, take up the piano. Plus, there is such as a thing as beginning piano too young. Let me explain.

The first thing to consider is that the vast majority of the humans who take piano are NOT prodigies, nor will they become professional pianists, let alone concert pianists. Thus, observations made and conclusions reached concerning the extremely small group who do follow "The Life of the Piano" have little bearing for the rest of us.

Secondly, research into early life music learning and appreciation is NOT research into how well various age groups do in learning the piano. Despite the impression the piano manufacturers give, studies about music learning and appreciation are NOT studies about success at learning to play a particular instrument. It's hardly scientific to state that they are. It is, however, good for business!

I have conducted my own study over the course of 18 years of teaching piano. Included in this study are approximately 1000 children, the youngest 5, plus an equal number of adults, the oldest 83. Although a scientist would want to design the study a bit more strictly by teaching every student exactly the same materials, I doubt that their results would differ hugely from mine.

My study tells me that most children learn piano much more slowly than most adults. It also tells me that the older child generally learns faster than the younger child. Why? Well, stop and think about it for a moment. Think about a child's mind and body, especially that of a very young child. What is their attention span? What is their familiarity with the learning process? How big are their hands? How well do their eyes track over a line of printed symbols? How easily discouraged are they? How well do they conceptualize? How much music have they been exposed to? How well can they control their bodies?

Now there are, indeed, "gifted children" who pick things up rapidly. The gifts they have often consist of a better emotional state, better control of their bodies, and higher intelligence that allows them to apply themselves more successfully to whatever they do, not just the piano. They may also come from a musical home where exposure to music and its delights is part of life. And there is most definitely a "musical intelligence" in each person which helps determine success and learning rate. These things are a real recipe for success in piano.

The average child, however, will always lag behind the average adult. Adults bring many skills to the table, mental, emotional, and physical, not the least of which is the knowledge that perseverance will be rewarded. This is a piece of knowledge no 6 year old has lived long enough to gain.

What, then, are the special problems faced by adults, if any?

The main problem, that problem most likely to defeat an adult, is nothing more than TIME. Time to practice each day, despite a 1000 other things to do, time to continue lessons long enough to get somewhere. If that problem is solved, the vast majority of adults will succeed in learning to play.

I do occasionally encounter adults who retain some childish character traits and these do not help. Also, age sometimes brings arthritis and difficulty hearing. These can be so bad that playing is just not possible.

Also, adults must be willing to re-experience having parts of their body not follow their orders. Playing piano requires some very complex motions, many of which are made with fingers not normally used for anything complex. The wrist, elbows, arms, and actually the entire body must be carefully trained. Adults are sometimes dismayed to find their bodies disobeying and being clumsy, something children live with each day. Adults must be tolerant of this factor and all will work out.

So take heart you adult piano students! You should do fine if you will only make the time in your life for piano.

******End of Essay******

By the way, if you are a piano student (and aren't we all?) who wants more music from fewer hours of practice with less frustration, I suggest you obtain a copy of my book. As far as I can determine, there is nothing like it out there. It could save you hundreds by reducing the time you need to take lessons.
http://danstarr.com/pages/books.html

The second problem is psychological, and guess what? I'm going to write about it NEXT week. This accomplishes two things. For me, it gives me a week to write a brand new essay. For you, it gives you a week to dwell on the subject. Dwelling is good, for I have to tell you that self-examination is going to be necessary for any student that has this particular "syndrome."

....Yeah, you all probably can anticipate what I'm gonna say, since I've been chipping away at it in this Blog for months. But I'm nothing if not stubborn! So until next week....

Dan Starr
Piano/Keyboard Instruction and Instruction Manuals
Beautiful Piano/Keyboard CDs
www.danstarr.com
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Pianists and Piano Students Have Much to be Thankful For

I'll leave it to you readers to give thanks for the greatest blessings in life: family, friends, health, love, etc. It did occur to me this Thanksgiving Day 2007 that we pianists have much to be thankful for in terms of music and our instrument.

1. Music: What a wonderful thing music is! It is the universal art form. All humans participate in their own way. Music has such incredible power to shape our moods, as well as provide an outlet for creativity. But I really don't have spell this out to any pianist, do I?

2. The Piano: The world's most popular instrument, other than the human voice (a special category of instrument.) What would our lives be like without the piano? I, for one, do not wish to know.

3. The Electronic Keyboard: The wave of the future, despite the sneers of silly traditionalists. The electronic keyboard, with its ability to produce a huge variety of sounds, has brought the joy of playing music to folks that never would have done so had only the piano been available. Kids, who are often free of musical prejudices, have been introduced to music through the sounds of the portable keyboard and digital piano - and how can THAT be bad?

4. The Internet: The people's way of communicating music and musical ideas. It connects us all and makes us a single species in a way that has never existed before. For all its growing pains, the World Wide Web will be the salvation of music. Sorry, purists, but your elitist positions will not survive it. Nor will the corrupt, greed driven music industry.

5. Ourselves: None of the above would have ever happened without PEOPLE. We are a wonderful thing in this world, despite our bad tendencies. If you don't think this is true, I would suggest that you don't read history and thus don't see the advancement of humanity as the centuries unfold. We have a long, long way to still go, but we DO evolve. One evidence I see of our basic nobility is that humans all over the world prefer harmony in music to discord. The chaotic, the discordant, these things are rejected by the vast majority of humanity. And since music reflects human nature, this is a truly positive comment on that very nature.

Thus, give Thanks this Thanksgiving for all these things, whatever else you are thankful for.

Walk, Don't Run

You say that you're frustrated? You say you have problems with the left hand? You say your fingers sometimes get twisted up into pretzels? You say you play so much better at home?

Well then....WALK, DON'T RUN !

WALK the fingers through their paces. Give yourself the time to make sure that you hit the right notes, with the right fingers, and with the right length. Can't do that with both hands and still get everything right? Well, then, WALK one hand at a time, until each hand has the hang of it. Then try to put the hands together - at a WALK, please!

It makes sense, doesn't it? If you can't RUN through your piece, maybe you can WALK through it. Later, when you get better and your hands totally have it, you can RUN.

"But," some piano students whine, "I know the music is supposed to go much faster."

I've got news for you - your hands don't give a damn how fast the music is "supposed" to go. They can do only what they can do and wishing they could do more at a faster pace is just that - wishing. Recognize that it's your hands that play the piano by physically pressing the keys down. You can't think or emote those keys down!

So give your hands a break. Cut them some slack. Give them a chance to try a new piece of music slowly. As they learn it, you can then ask them to speed it up a bit. Then a bit more. Finally, they will be able to execute every single motion at full speed with competence.

And the way you got there?

WALK - DON'T RUN !

Dan Starr
Piano/Keyboard Instruction and Instruction Manuals
Beautiful Piano/Keyboard CDs
www.danstarr.com

"Doin' What Comes Naturally" Ain't So Hot...

...at least when it comes to your hands. This is a short post about practicing piano successfully and thus somewhat dry, unless, that is, you'd like to learn more music in a shorter time with less frustration.

The secret is that it's your HANDS that play the piano. Music and the love for it and the desire to play all live inside YOU, the awareness. But it's the fingers that push the keys (at your request) and all the desire in the world won't get them to do that properly without proper training.

We forget this is a physical skill, as physical as any sport (think of figure skating), handicrafts (knitting comes to mind) or office skills (like touch-typing or running an adding machine.) Your hands simply don't know how to play piano "naturally." Natural for them would be to sit in your lap, obeying the Law of Gravity instead of the Art of Making Music.

At this point I am going to repost something I wrote back in February.

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Hand are Stupid (and Lazy!)

Now hear this...YOU are not your hands.

This is a good thing, because your hands are stupid and lazy. No account. Deficient in many ways.

Hey, if they were smart they'd learn the things we want them to as quickly as we conceive of those things. One pass through a new piece, a new exercise, a new scale, and the job would be done. Like clicking on "Save" and storing the document or file to your hard drive. Pretty much right now.

But no.

Instead, we are forced to repeat, repeat, repeat any action or musical activity we want to master, going over and over the movements slowly and accurately. Bit by bit, we realize that those nasty body parts are "getting the hang of it" and flowing through the motion more smoothly and naturally. We ask them to increase their speed a bit and with a couple passes through the hands can do this new, higher tempo smoothly as well.

And so it goes, each new movement, motion, and maneuver becomes part of our pianistic "bag of tricks" eventually, long after we, ourselves, understand what we want to do and how we want it done.

THIS is where the patience in piano lessons lies for the adult student. We have to recognize that playing the piano is a PHYSICAL skill which leads to musical satisfaction. We also have to recognize and accept that there is no shortcutting the process of mastering the mechanics of playing. We have to teach those stupid and lazy hands to follow our directions and only repetition will accomplish this.

How many repetitions will any particular "trick" take until it's mastered? There's only one answer which is guaranteed: "More repetitions than you want it to!"

Fortunately, the motions and "tricks" to piano are not infinite and the hands don't stay stupid. Not only do they learn more tricks but they learn them faster. Whew!!!

This is just reality. And it need not become a problem, so long as you recognize three things:

1. There's no cure, no shortcut.
2. Hands are stupid and lazy, and
3. YOU are not your hands and their deficiencies are not YOUR deficiencies. Don't take it personally!

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To cap this off, remember that your hands do NOT naturally play the piano. It's pretty UN-natural for them. You must consciously override their natural tendencies and force them to follow your conscious direction. As time passes, these conscious commands will be picked up and only then be "what comes naturally" to your hands. Be looking for that to occur, little by little. It will happen, I guarantee it. And that is where true enjoyment resides, ease of play, interpretation, etc. More on this in the next post.

Why Do Adults Play Piano and Take Lessons?

I wanted to share the results of two surveys. The first was done with my adult students currently taking lessons, the second with students who had quit taking lessons with me some time back. I'm presenting the results together since they were pretty much identical.

1. Why do you play the piano/keyboard?

A. For my own enjoyment.
B. Just for fun.
C. For relaxation and to relieve stress.

2. Why do you take lessons?

A. To acquire good habits and avoid bad ones.
B. For motivation: to get started and keep going
C. It provides structure, what to study and in what order.

There were, of course, other answers, but the three given above were the top three.

The students answering are professional people, retirees, business owners, etc.

The Evil that is Recitals

Yes, it's true. RECITALS are EVIL. And here's why.

1. Recitals are un-natural. If the purpose of piano lessons is to create pianists who will make music for the enrichment of self, family, and friends, then what is natural about forcing piano students to play for complete strangers in a unusual setting at a time established by the teacher? Seems to me that would be natural to ensure practice at performing as a PROFESSIONAL musician. After all, that's what I do as a "gigging musician."

So how would piano students learn to play for others? Duh. By playing for others. The difference is that the student gets to choose who, what, when, and where. In other words, they will practice performing in exactly the same way they will actually be performing. Completely natural. And don't bother saying that they won't do it. Children are notorious for bugging one and all to hear them play that song that they know so well. I've been a piano teacher too long not to know that. They will play when they get damn good and ready to, so the piano teacher must help them learn well enough so that they feel confident.

2. Recitals steal the student's self-determinism. This is my main complaint. A recital is a way for the teacher to force the issue of sharing music. It's coercion. It truly doesn't help create real musicians, self-directed human beings. Sorry, you music teachers who think these artificial events are somehow assisting your younger students to grow up. Why not do a short survey of your students and see if they are already playing for friends and family? If they are, then your purpose is already fulfilled, isn't it? Unless you have some other purpose in mind....

3. Recitals are often, perhaps most of the time, a sales pitch for the piano teacher. James Bastien, who literally "wrote the book" on being a piano teacher, says in discussing recitals:

"Thus, the first and most important step in advertising is to show what you can produce."

How to Teach Piano Successfully James W. Bastien

My response? If you want parents to know what is happening with their child's lessons, have them sit in on a few and find out. Nope. Recitals are exactly what Mr. Bastien (one of the world's best known authors of piano methods) says they are - advertisements for the teacher to get more students. Nothing wrong with advertising. But there is something wrong with not being HONEST and OPEN in your advertisements and forced, un-natural use of creative human beings to make the teacher more successful.

Recitals are EVIL. It's a bad practice that should go the way of the dodo, that is, extinct.

(Okay, you music teachers - let's hear your justifications and defense of the practice. Prove me wrong. I double-dog dare ya!)

Speed up your Piano Lessons. More music, less frustration, in less time. Buy, Read, and Use my book:
How to WIN at Piano Lessons: Successful Piano Instruction Strategies for Non-Mozarts
http://danstarr.com/pages/books.html