Change Your Mind, Change Your Piano Lessons

What YOU can Do to Create Faster, Better, and More Enjoyable Lessons

Once you've found a good piano teacher, someone you trust, someone who understands you and your needs, then almost all the rest depends on YOU. The piano student is mainly in charge, for the simple reason that most of your learning occurs during your regular piano practice. Sure, your instructor can tell you what to practice and how to best practice it, but only you can follow those directions. Learning to play piano is something you do without the teacher present. Thus, anything that helps you do that would also make your lessons faster, better, and more enjoyable – right?

First off, It's possible that your ideas and considerations and self-imposed limitations might just be keeping you from being the pianist you'd really like to be. It's not what people usually call "talent" that often slows or stops a person, but their own "flinch" and fear at various aspects of piano practicing, and performing. "No so!" you say. "I simply don't have the TIME to become the pianist I'd like to be." My friend, even this is based on your attitudes, in this case, the fact that you've decided that other matters take precedence over your allocation of time. Can you see the truth that, even if you've made the sanest of decisions, it's still your DECISION? You could decide to spend more time practicing your piano !

Yes, this essay is about changing your mind to improve to improve your piano lessons. I'm going to list some specific changes you can make, if appropriate.

Don't be a person who will only be happy when they can finally play as well as they would like

Talk about a set-up for unhappiness! Adults learning to play the piano sometimes come loaded with ideas of what constitutes "good playing" which they have picked up from professional pianists. However, most aspiring pianists are hobbyists and in no way willing to devote years to perfecting the pianistic craft. Yet, amateurs often feel all sorry for themselves because their playing sounds like amateur playing and only professional skills will make them happy. Hobby, Hobby, HOBBY ! I can't say it enough. Enjoy your hobby for what it is. Maybe you aren't Mozart or Liberace or Jerry Lee Lewis or George Winston. Who cares? You can still enjoy making music at the piano

Don't be afraid of your piano teacher

Adults may have had some seriously bad experiences with past piano teachers - even teachers in general. They come to piano lessons with fear which doesn't help. Some piano students can get so afraid that they simply can't play. I once had a student so "on edge" that they played poorly and then ran out of my studio, never to be heard from again! If your teacher is scary, dour, less than positive, this just makes any fears you have worse. A teacher should be friendly, patient, and businesslike. Find one that is.

These are just two examples of self-defeating attitudes. There are others but one huge one deserves mention.

Realize fully that playing the piano is a PHYSICAL skill that results in MUSIC

You SAY you know this? Well, maybe, but week after week some of my adult students demonstrate that they don't really understand the concept. And, not understanding, they go about practicing all wrong, wasting much time and creating much frustration for themselves.

What happens when someone "plays the piano?"

1. They usually look at symbols (sheet music) that instruct them what to DO.

2. They then manipulate the levers of a complex machine using their fingers.

3. If these manipulation occur accurately, with the precise movements of the fingers, hands and arms, then notes are produced by the machine which the manipulator considers to be music.

4. A positive emotional reaction occurs, making the manipulator want to indulge in further manipulation.

A student once told me that thinking of it this way takes the fun out of it. Really? Do you watch "Dancing With the Stars?" Do you admire the moves of Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Mark McGuire? What's not fun about being physical? Dexterity is a reward in itself, all in addition to the joy of music. And the feeling of rhythm coursing through the body? Ahhhh! Somehow piano students often miss the point of actually PLAYING the piano - which is that you have to PLAY it. It's NOT just about the music, but about MAKING the music. And if you don't enjoy learning how to quickly and efficiently MAKE it, then you are actually a consumer of music, not a producer.

How to Work with Popular Sheet Music

Learn to cope with the differences between popular sheet music and your piano lesson books.

I suspect many, if not most, of you pianists and piano students have had the unpleasant experience of bringing home your brand new piano sheet music and then having trouble playing it well. Possibly it made you wonder if you had missed something in your piano lessons. Maybe your teacher missed some part of your instruction - or worse, maybe you are missing some talent. Today I have a positive message for you all - it's NOT your talent. It's your knowledge, which can be fixed.

There are a number of critical differences between the music in your piano lesson books and pieces of popular sheet music. It is these differences which are causing your troubles and once you know how to handle them, your troubles should end.

The piece of music you have on your piano music rack is just too hard

If you have just begun learning piano, chances are you will not be able to easily master much of any popular sheet music. It's not a lack of talent, it's a lack of training. Adult students possess vast musical knowledge from a lifetime of intense listening. Unfortunately, this exposure to music does nothing to give you the ability to manipulate the piano keys properly. This "gap" between the head and the hands can be painful and frustrating, and sometimes leads the beginning piano student to attempt to perform familiar music that is just too hard for their level of skill. If there is any one point in piano lessons where patience is needed, it is here. Keep at your lessons. Get better, and unless you have a deep affection for very hard classical or jazz, you WILL be able to play what you want - in due time.

There are, however, some ways to cut down this time.

“Easy Piano” Arrangements are easier

Many arrangers make their living helping adult piano students play favorite music by putting many of favorites in sheet music “collections” labeled “Easy Piano.” All have the words “Easy Piano” right on the cover. Please note, however, that “easy” is a relative term and even an easy arrangement might be hard work for a beginner. Also, each arranger and even each publishing house has a bit different idea of what skills are “easy.” If you find a specific person who does easy piano arrangements that work for you, stick with that arranger.

Popular song arrangements are usually easier than classical piano

The reason for this is that popular songs are written to be singable, and the human voice has a limited range. Classical piano music is limited only by the possibilities of the piano. This tends to make classical piano more difficult than popular song arrangements, especially easy piano arrangements. Naturally, there are exceptions but this is generally true.

However, a couple things about popular sheet music can cause the piano student enormous, perhaps unsolvable trouble.

Popular sheet music usually has no pedal instructions and limited or no fingering instructions

If you are used to just following the orders on the page and there no orders are available - well, you'll have trouble. This is a very, very good reason to insist that your instructor help you understand how to make up your own orders, at least as far as pedaling and fingering are concerned. You should know how to pedal any piece. Also, you should know enough about fingering that you can devise a fingering that works for you. A good piano instructor knows that the student must be made independent of written directions in pedaling and fingering.

You will probably have to do some arranging yourself, since nobody is actually singing the music

With a song, a very large portion of the music is the words and their meanings. When you play a piano arrangement of the song, you might find yourself playing each verse over and over and the music becoming monotonous because the lyrics are missing. The solution is to decide to only play so many verses, so many choruses, etc. Say the song has four verses (each with different lyrics) and three choruses (each with the same lyrics.) You, as a pianist, might just limit your rendition to two verses and two choruses.

No one will be there to play it so you know how it “goes”

Way too many pianists fooled their teachers into giving them the timing of the music by ear. Upon request of the student, the foolish teacher played the tune enough times so the student memorized the timing and then just repeated what they had heard. This might have succeeded in earning the praise of parents but did nothing to help make a pianist who can learn songs on their own. The solution is to make sure you know how to COUNT your music yourself and are fully willing to do so. This is one skill that every pianist who wants to play for a lifetime must have.

You can see that the key is to insist that your piano instructor ensures you have the skills you will need to play popular sheet music on your own. You must become an INDEPENDENT learner.

Refreshing your repertoire

How to get your songs back quickly, easily, and enjoyably

You used to play "Stella by Starlight" all the time, but life has interfered for several months and you only now are getting back to the piano. What would be more natural than to pull out the sheet music and play your old favorite? Only something sad happens: you start to play and immediately start to make mistakes. Worse, you get to the middle section and you can't honestly play it at all. Horrors ! You've forgotten your old fave!

It happens to us all, even the truly great professionals. Unless we continually play our own "repertoire" we forget it, to greater or lesser degree. We need to refresh that repertoire, and any ideas or methods that would speed up the process would be very useful indeed. I am going to give you a quick and successful method, right after I've explained 3 things to you shouldn't be doing if you want to refresh your repertoire quickly, successfully, and enjoyably.

1. Don't spend time worrying about your memory.

Every human being forgets their repertoire and you are no exception. It's not a sign of creeping senility. The greatest pianists of all time played over their pieces incessantly. The fact is that humans forget things and considering that a piece of music has hundreds, if not thousands of notes, each with its unique fingering, duration, volume, etc., the real surprise that we could even play the thing in the first place. Accept that you're only a human pianist, not an ipod !

2. Don't confuse refreshing your repertoire and practicing a new piece.

Practice is what you do to learn the music in the first place. Refreshing is what you do to get it back. Different goals, and thus the means of accomplishing the goals are different, too. Let me restate this - "practice" is intense effort to learn the music and correct errors, while "refreshment" is finding ways of getting that learning back. Most complaints about slow refreshment of repertoire boil down to a person using the techniques of practicing instead of the techniques of refreshment.

3. Don't try to refresh music you never really learned in the first place.

Sometimes you try to "get back" a piece that you never really had. Maybe you could play the first few bars pretty well but struggled through the rest. In this case, you need to be applying the techniques of quality practice to eliminate the struggle. That, however, is a separate series of essays. The whole point here is that you will waste your time trying to bring back something you never really had.

WHAT TO DO INSTEAD !

1. Write up a list of the music you want to refresh. Keep the list to a reasonable length.

2. Gather up the sheet music and put it together in a separate folder so you can go from piece to piece.

3. Each day, play through each piece no more than twice.

4. If your hands make a mistake, stop and replay that area at the most a couple times, then move on.

You can expect day by day progress in remembering the music. "Remembering" - that's the key idea here. You already know the piece, but that memory, whether we mean your memory of WHAT to do or your hands' "memory" of HOW to do it, is still there and only needs to be recalled. Your action of playing each piece over and over is simply you reminding you, both psychologically and physiologically, of the "what" and "how" of the music.

It's important for this approach to work to remember that you are trying to improve a bit at a time. Ask yourself this at the end of each session, "Did I play my pieces better than I did last session?" NOT, "Is the music as good as it used to be?" See the difference? It's a matter of making the correct comparisons. If things are improving steadily, then quit worrying, since the trend is in the right direction - just keep doing what is producing the improvement and enjoy the process as it unfolds.

Also, note that if your renditions do NOT improve using this approach, likely the music was NOT well practiced in the first place, and you can't recall what you never really knew. This is a very different situation and you need to return to using good practice techniques. I cover these in detail in my ebook How to WIN at Piano Lessons: Successful Strategies for Non-Mozarts" which is available directly from me. Cost is $25, likely the best $25 you'll spend on learning piano, since I offer up the most successful actions I've learned from 22 years of teaching adult students just like you. Email me directly for more info: danstarrorg@yahoo.com

Learning Piano: What Works, What Doesn't

I've been online, examining what is there, and I realize that I need to comment on the vast array of free lessons, videos, paid services, etc. designed for the Internet user. From this understanding, I have become aware that I've NEVER commented on the usefulness of any methodologies for learning the piano, despite having written two books and kept this weekly blog for the past few years. It's high time I did, from my perspective as a teacher of adult learners, an author, and a professional performer with several decades of real-world experience. Thus, this essay, which may prove controversial, since it will, likely, step on some toes. Note that I'm not naming names - if you want names (or my take on specific methods) email me separately.

Let me start this essay by saying that I am a disciple of what works. Theories of education, methodologies followed blindly, elaborate systems of study, mean little or nothing to me except as they accomplish goals. Additionally, any accomplishment should be real, not just in mind, and efforts to improve the system or method should be in the direction of getting goals accomplished more efficiently. "Goals" are the crux of the matter, and because they are, to determine "workability" you would first have to both state those goals clearly AND name WHOSE goals are we interested in making into reality. After 22 YEARS of asking adult piano students what their goals are and then working with those adults to make sure those goals do become a reality, I feel about 100% certain in stating succinctly THE goal of adult piano learners:

To enjoy playing on the piano music each adult enjoys.

DUH, you say, no surprise there. You would be wrong. The vast majority of the piano teaching world seems to revolve around the idea of teaching the student to enjoy the music that the piano teacher enjoys. Don't believe me? Do the same survey online I've just completed and see what conclusions you come to. Then simply ask 10 of your friends who had piano lessons as children why they quit.

The reason for this strangeness is children and the fact that the piano teaching world is still wrapped up in teaching the piano to children. Why would this be a problem for the adult who wants piano skill?

Consider for a minute this idea of teaching the child to enjoy the music the teacher presents. It makes sense in the case of the child. Children are almost always musically UNaware. Thus, the job of the piano instructor is much, much more than simply teaching how to play the piano. Instructors must teach the subject of MUSIC at the same time as teach the "instrument training" necessary to play it. The adult student needs no education in music. Adult piano learners have been listening carefully to music and enjoying its details and nuances all their lives. Now, what they wish to do is learn how to replicate the music they love on the piano and not spend a lifetime (that they no longer have) learning to do it. THIS is the source of workability in piano systems and methods - or the lack of it - for the adult piano student. Teaching an adult as if he/she were a child is not only unnecessary, it seldom works.

So what does NOT work? There seem to be two non-working approaches being presented at the moment. One system is too hard, takes too long, and often doesn't lead to the music the adult wishes to play. The other method represents an over-reaction to the first and promises everything with virtually no effort (except to pay the "teacher.") Somewhere in the middle is a "sweet spot" where proper effort pays off big for the adult learner. This is the spot I (and my students) believe I hit and which I have been describing in this Blog for the last few years.

The first, the harder system, is based, as I've said, on the teaching of children and in many cases is appropriate to them but not to adults. I got my first inkling of this right at the start of my career. I was teaching in a music store at the time and did some counter work when I didn't have students. One night a gentleman came in to look for adult oriented sheet music. He was an MD, a surgeon, from one of our best local hospitals. He had just come from his first piano lesson and was rather upset. His teacher had given him his first piano book. It was entitled "Teaching Little Fingers to Play." You can just imagine his reaction!

During the next two decades, I've heard countless similar stories from adults. I recall a few which stand out as examples:

• The retired lady who wanted to play gospel music. She took six months of lessons from a relative who gave her nothing but scale work. No gospel.
• The businessman who also got six months of scales before quitting and coming to me. In a few years, he was playing Billy Joel at the Billy Joel level, one of the best students I've ever had.
• The doctor who had years of formal classical training yet had never written a song, never learned to use chords, never arranged a pop piece. Yet, very soon, she was doing all of the above and in a variety of styles. A very competent pianist who confided that she had never even thought she could do these things, but was happily surprised that she could.

I have heard literally hundreds of stories of failures brought on by stuffy, stodgy, teaching systems, utilized by people who are not particularly creative themselves, and utterly unable to inspire even children. Perhaps you, yourself, had such a teacher. If so, it's no wonder you have doubts and reservations about your own abilities.

The final proof I have to offer you of the abject failure of this "system" ("philosophy" or whatever you wish to call it) is the lack of players in this society. Yes, technological advances have made it easier and easier to simply be a consumer of music. However, the desire to be a producer remains as high as ever. Why aren't there more music makers? I believe the answer is that becoming a producer has been made way too difficult, thus discouraging even children from doing what comes naturally. And why? Simply put, the core of the system is a fixation on the teaching of classical music at a professional level, something almost no one really either wants or can achieve. Enough failure and the average person decides playing the piano is not for them.

For confirmation, I turn to one of the great masters, the composer Robert Schumann who said one of the wisest things I've ever heard, "Strive to play easy pieces well and beautifully. It is better than to render difficult pieces only indifferently well." Such a goal is completely in accord with the goal of almost all adult students and can be achieved by almost all of them without devoting most of one's time and efforts to the piano. In other words, even with classical music, you might not be able to succeed at Beethoven's sonatas but you certainly can learn "Fur Elise" - that is, unless your instructor gives you the impression that such a thing is not worth doing.

Which brings us to the pendulum swing now in vogue, which is also NON workable. That approach is to offer every skill and enjoyment that frustrated piano student wants with little to no effort. You can find this all over the Internet these days, with "teachers" making ridiculous claims about their successes at teaching thousands with their "revolutionary" new methods. This method is false and results in failure. I'd like to describe why so those who have hopefully taken up these "new" approaches and still been unable to learn are encouraged that they were not to blame for their troubles. As these "new" approaches form the new thing, I'd like to deconstruct them extensively. As boring as the "Child/Classical" teaching approach is, at least it works if continued. This "new" approach doesn't even do that. Let me tell you why.

First, how "new" is this? Consider these quotes, taken from my extensive collection of sheet music, with punctuation from the original source:

"Shows how to supply a full, "swing" bass to ANY piece of piano music, thus enabling ANYONE to play at sight ALL the latest Popular Songs in professional style"

"Every lesson follows in order, teaches you "How to Play" in the shortest possible time the most modern arrangements of popular songs. You will learn in a short time how to improvise, harmonize, fill-in, to do breaks, runs, blues, etc in the same manner as is generally employed by the best modern professional orchestras or radio artists today."

"...is a marvel in the field of instruction...no other book like it. It's the greatest contribution to the advancement of modern piano playing ever published."

Wow. And double wow. You'd think with all these advancements that everybody who wanted to play piano would now play. But...here are the dates on these claims, in the same order as the claims: 1913, 1932, 1936. I rest my case. No revolution occurred for some strange reason. So much for both "newness" and the validity of these past approaches.

Another claim is that you (yes, YOU!!!!!) will be able to do anything a professional pianist can do, easily, in almost no real time. I love this claim, as it's so smug and smarmy. In addition to being highly insulting to professional pianists who apparently missed out and foolishly worked like dogs to perfect their craft, this "something for nothing" pitch insults YOU, and assumes you are immature enough to think it just might work. What's next? Brain surgery for dummies? Rocket science for rest of us? C'mon.

In my 22 years of professional teaching, I've taught over 2,000 adults and I have to tell you that the majority were VERY smart, VERY talented people. Doctors, engineers, scientists, accountants, more than half of my students were professional people. Many were business owners who frankly could have bought and sold me, my home, everything I owned many times over before dinner, some out of their petty cash drawer. Capable people. THEY could not learn these "trade secrets of the pros" overnight. So, unless you are the best pianist since Mozart you will have to take more than a few weeks to get good. And the chance you will get as good as someone who has devoted their whole live to the subject is almost non-existent. Sorry, but I couldn't learn YOUR profession overnight, could I, even if I wanted to - plus, you'd always be ahead of me, a late starter.

Besides, that's not really even your goal, is it? Plus, as a sensible adult, you plan on spending some time at the effort. Also, isn't the action of learning part of what makes it interesting and keeps your mind and body sharp?

There's more to decry, but this essay is running way too long as it is and I've made enough points - except for one: playing by ear.

There's more and more of this out there on the Internet. Learn to play by ear. Don't bother learning to read music. Translation: being illiterate is a GOOD thing. Being UNable to communicate via written symbols will somehow make your musical life better. Put that way, you can see how silly the claim is. Yeah, having a good music ear is a good thing. I have one and I value it and use it as necessary. But I ALSO can get the information I need via the written symbol. I have multiple ways of learning what I need to learn. I can tell you that, properly taught, reading music is no big deal to either adults or children. Improperly taught it is a nightmare and if improper teaching has happened to you, no wonder you are looking for a way around that barrier.

The bottom line, then, is this: your goals are just fine and can be achieved, but it will take some work done effectively and for a period of time. There is no free lunch, but you won't have to spend every waking hour to learn lunch, either. There is a middle ground and that's what were are all about here.

Practical Piano Ideas #2

Introduction: One aspect of successfully teaching adult piano is devising new and concise ways of expressing important ideas - ways of "putting things" that students will instantly understand and make their own. As the years go by, I note which phrases or statements seem to work best and these "sayings" or "maxims" are used over and over. In this essay and the next few, I'd like to give you with some of my best "Piano Maxims" (along with a brief explanation) the same way I'd present them during an actual lesson.

Practical Piano Idea #2:

If you are making mistakes, you are practicing too damn fast.

This is an another way to state that old truth "Practice makes perfect IF you are practice playing perfectly." And HOW do you practice perfectly? SLOW DOWN until you can get your hand or hands to do exactly what you tell them to do.

Hands have habits and sometimes these habits are not helpful to our piece of music. Left to themselves, the hands will simply do what they know best - only, in this case, that means hitting a wrong note, using a wrong fingering, making a troublesome motion, etc. You have to retrain your hands to perform the music as you'd like it. Allowing the hands to play at full speed kicks in the bad habit because it's all they have time for. Playing it slow allows you to "override" the hands' tendency towards the bad habit until the new, and appropriate habit, is well established.

You'll know this has occurred when your hands no longer wish to do the wrong thing but prefer to do the right thing. You will perceive it as the task getting easier and not requiring such concentration. At that time, you can ask your hands to do this right thing at a faster pace, then still faster, until you are playing at full speed - this time, however, with the hands doing the RIGHT thing, not the WRONG thing.

I really can't make it any simpler than that. The tough part is actually slowing down. Students don't want to, and some, even when they want to, can't actually do it. It's like they are "locked into" whatever tempo their memory of the song tells them is correct. I say to such students, "That's the PERFORMING tempo you are hearing in your head, and obviously you can't do that physically and correctly yet. You need to use a PRACTICING tempo to get it right in the first place."

The metronome helps enormously. I highly recommend it. First, figure out the tempo at which you can NOT perform the song correctly by timing it on the metronome. Now start over at maybe half that number. Likely this will force the issue on you and you WILL be able to perform it perfectly. Now up the metronome's tempo till you find a point that is a bit of a challenge. Master that through practicing perfectly. Then increase the metronome setting just a little more, and so on, until you are back at full tempo. Easy, and has nothing to do with how you "hear it in your head."

If you don't own a metronome, buy one. If you don't know how to use it, a single lesson with your teacher should solve it all. And your teacher will be very grateful for any good teacher depends on the metronome for problems just like yours.