Still Becoming?
In July Fingers Dancing will begin posting a series of articles under the title, “Life Is Like A Piano…”
These are the stories of a young boy that loved to play the piano more than any other thing. He loved to spend time at the piano. He imagined that if Armageddon occurred he would be happy to be alone on an island with his piano, by himself, especially if it were a nice grand piano.
When reality made its appearance the boy realized that he would need to have a job to support himself. He was told that if he were a university music professor he would be expected to practice and perform… as part of the job! This sounded too good to be true.
The boy wasn’t sure that he wanted to be a teacher. He wasn’t even sure that performing was necessary for his well-being… but, if that were the rules, he was sure he could abide by said rules.
When his fantasy came true, and he was hired as an Assistant Professor of Music, he had to figure out HOW to teach, and HOW to perform. Memorization had never been his favorite thing, or his greatest talent. The intertwined stories of “Life Is Like A Piano…” tell of his emergence as both a teacher and performer, one skill leading to and enhancing the other. The story of BECOMING!
Now, at the end of 50 years of teaching and performing I am winding down my teaching career. I will have, from this day forward, only one student. I have turned the remaining kiddies loose, to choose a new teacher or have their piano years melt away. The remaining student is an adult that has begun a remarkable transformation into a true musician. I have to see the end of her story.
The title of this essay is Still Becoming because I don’t know if I have finished the process. I do know that I have learned as much from my students as they have learned from me. As I learned to teach, I also learned to perform better. I learned to practice efficiently, and I finally did learn to memorize effectively. Each skill seemed to enhance the other. I know I have had great success with many students. They have learned to decipher musical notation, take their pieces apart and reconstruct them. They have learned to solve their musical and technical problems. They have learned to practice effectively and perform beautifully.
That DOES sound like I have BECOME what I was intended to become all along. However I must wonder if that process would ever be complete. I sometimes wonder if it really happened. The last four young students have never seemed to develop. One of the four I have had for seven years. She was initially a wonderful, engaged student. She was learning beyond the level of her older sister. And then she reached Middle School. That, I have found, is the most dangerous age for student longevity. Friends, hormonal development and other interests sometime grab ahold and piano fades to black.
I have to say that I have had remarkable success getting most of my students through that period. I believe I have had more students begin with me and stay at the piano through high school graduation. I have sometimes felt the luck of the Irish in that regards. But one of my last students was probably never going to graduate from high school still at the piano. We shall see, but I cannot count her as one of my successes.
Two other students have been with me for over four years. They are brothers, two years apart in age. The older student has ADHD. I have worked with students with that challenge before and have had reasonable success teaching them to work around or through their learning styles. I have to say that in his final lesson I did not think I taught him anything. We could say that his last ten lessons were simple repeats of the previous lessons. He is bright, and he seems to like the piano. I could never get him to assert the discipline and process that he would need to succeed.
His brother is more adept at the piano because he sees patterns. He seems to have decent motor skills, and while I work with him in lessons he responds well. His progress is very slow, and his willingness to stick to solving his piano problems is lacking. I have to consider him a partial failure of mine.
The last child was new to piano this year. She is very bright, but I have had little success getting her to see patterns, and execute anything beyond “see a note, play a note…repeat”. That, of course, does not work. I think she could be a good student, but nobody else in the household reads music, and I think she live in a very chaotic environment. I have learned that despite my working with a student on a disciplined process of working at the piano, if I am the only one she sees that expects that attention to detail I will not be able to break through.
Thus… I have to ask myself if I have really BECOME! I do know that at the end of a long and successful career in teaching piano, I feel let down that I have to end this way. I take umbrage in the fact that while I am engaged with my one remaining adult, seeing the amazing progress she has made, and is making, I feel like a brilliant pedagogue. It still is one of the most wonderful feelings to get through to a student, and see them, independently, work through their musical and technical problems, develop practice methods that work for them, and see the joy on their faces when they realize their accomplishments.
I intend to be gentle with myself, and I hope that you begin to enjoy reading the stories of “Life Is Like A Piano…” in July. Expect those essays to appear on Thursdays beginning in the middle of the month.
Do you know a pianist or a music teacher that might enjoy Fingers Dancing? Please feel free to SHARE this with them. I have a large number of articles describing my two journeys, as a pianist, and as a piano teacher that have merged, enhanced each other, and made my life very full.