How do you say goodbye?

To be a Tiger mom or not a Tiger mom. How about the part about putting a child's heart first?  I'm sharing some thoughts from the perspective of a parent of a small child, age 4 going on 13, who recently decided to take a break from piano. This is my introspection on the right time to resume lessons.

My post is about having the strength to recognize a child's desire and dislike, having the courage to wait for a better opportunity in the future, and having a heart to understand the child's heart. The first step is just to be patient.

The Symptoms

Maggie has been happily playing her music by heart and I suspected she wasn't doing note reading, but I let it slide until recently.  Her other two classmates are boys her age and they are amazing at piano. The MYC  method truly works well for them, as they were just flying through the pieces and learning new ones ahead of time while Maggie and I were still working on the recital piece from before Christmas. On the plus side, her C major scale in the right hand and left hand are carefully executed. In the fall, the teacher taught them the C-G bridges to go with the tonic, mediant and dominant degrees of the C scale. She loved it! It was sad to see her level of interest and passion change.  Over the summer (6 months ago) she was very enamoured with the A minor scale! Now she sulks through it and I have to resort to bribery.

Then we started note reading on the staff with real notation and things just went downhill from there. She was always looking at my face and my reaction, more so than the notes on the page. I should've just let her look at the hands but I wanted to be sure she was reading. But after pointing out every note, she would wait for me to say the name and look at my face, which was not a smiley face unfortunately, which added to the tension. It got to the point where she would find every excuse not to practise piano.  Occasionally there would be the day where she would take out the "music rhythm bag" and copy out the music on the floor, which was startling! Or we would do the homework pages (though usually it was her younger brother AJ who did the homework part for there).  There were times when tears were shed; my precious tears that is. She had every excuse possible to get out of piano practise. It got to the point where she even would fall asleep at the group lesson (probably a Sunday afternoon scheduling issue).

For my child I poured my heart into, starting piano at age 3 with all the hope for her to be a child prodigy, I knew I couldn't keep this up until age 17 let alone 7. I decided to stop the lessons and perhaps resume at a more appropriate age for her.   I'm not proud that we couldn't finish the second year of piano lessons, that I let her stop in mid-February instead of pushing onwards to the end of June.  But I wanted to end on a good note, and we could say, "Let's have the last lesson, say good bye to your teacher."

Decision Making Steps

Identify the problem - Maggie loses interest and hates piano, loss of motivation to practise
List some solutions - stop lessons, change the teacher, change the method, (can't change the parent!)
Practical steps - Call the teacher and talk in person, be prepared to agree to disagree
Decisions - depending on the studio policy, lessons could be terminated with or without notice, ask for a refund for the remaining months (March to June)

In the end I had a heart to heart talk with her teacher, and we ended on good terms. I had referred many students to her, all doing very well, and I indicated that I would certainly continue to do the same.

After Action Report
It's been a week, Maggie has approached the piano to play her scales on her own once! This happened when it was my turn to practise piano. Perhaps that was the way to motivate her to the piano by hearing me play.  We are still keeping music alive as she still likes singing and directing the Mississippi Hot dog of Suzuki Book 1, looking for the right time to sit down and play it with her, though perhaps we should wait. The obvious question is, why don't I teacher her; well I would rather wait a bit.

Above all Maggie loves singing. She can listen to any song on the radio and start belting out the words in tune; she can improvise the words for any nursery rhyme with alternate lyrics; she teaches AJ her French songs from school and they sing together. I have a first recording of her singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" at 22 months, it's golden. Last summer at age 3.5 she was singing Jana Alayra songs from VBS and acting like an MC leading singspiration.  My husband has considered voice lessons for her or even joining a youth choir. There is talent and heart there, perhaps that is where we could apply it.

  

Teacher Perspectives
As a teacher, when did this happen to me and how did I deal with it.

• A high school student who lost interest and wanted to pursue a new hobby.  The siblings have since joined my studio
• A high school student who had a busy schedule with part time jobs, after school activities, and transportation issues; I recommended a more suitable location for piano lessons at the Long and McQuade Music School run by the music book store near to the high school.
• A 3 year old in my group class wasn't quite ready; she will try private lessons at 3.5 in the spring time.

On the other hand, I also have high school students very committed to competitive sports but still finding the time to schedule lessons, practise piano and excel. That's motivating for me, to see passion in the kids music.

What are the benefits of Piano Exams

When you have something to work for, you work a lot harder. You make a commitment to yourself. You practise because you have set an objective.

I found a Royal Conservatory of Music handout at a piano store that described the benefits of piano exams for the "triangle" of Student, Teacher and Parent.

To Students

• motivation
• commitment to practise
• performance experience
• pride of accomplishment
• high school credits
• certificates and awards
• personal growth

To the Teacher

• an excellent curriculum
• high pedagogical standards
• wide choice of repertoire and study pieces at level
• standardized assessment of student's achievements

To parents

• a balanced course of study
• a high standard of evaluation
• internationally recognized certificates
• valuable experience for the children
• development of self discipline
• objective assessment of child's accomplishment 

Which Piano Teaching Method is best for my child?

CLASSICAL PIANO
I used to feel that kids weren't ready for formal private piano lessons with me until age 7. Because I teach classical and music reading, it can be very hard for kids younger than 6-7 to focus and sit still and manage all the data they have to process to just play piano, the traditional way.  I believe I was strongly influenced by own piano learning experience and my own piano teacher who is a very traditional teacher and established performer herself, from a certain European east block country, who gave me sage advice not to start piano too early for my daughter.

SUZUKI METHOD
However since I learned more about the Suzuki method and how natural it is for a child to play the violin, cello or even piano, they could be ready to learn by age 3-4. The suzuki method is very natural, alot like how a child learns to speak his native mother tongue (or English) by imitation, repetition, exploration and praise. I saw little kids performing in a violin ensemble, age 4-5 playing really beautiful music, like twinkle twinkle little star (and something else too). The kids I saw in Las Vegas in the piano program, needed alittle bit more discipline but maybe piano is harder or something, but the potential is there. I feel that my son AJ (age 3) is ready because he is willing to listen to the music CD, he respects me as a teacher and he listens well to directions how to play a few simple rhythms on the piano. I wanted him to play with purpose, instead of hitting random notes on the piano with a bad hand form. They are not reading the music at this stage, just focusing on perfect tone and all the aspects that create perfect tone in the most natural way.

I also run a Pre-Twinkle Level class called "Musicland Adventure Camp" which is a series of 10 classes for ages 3-5; storytelling, magical characters from Yellowcat's Musicland, games, song and dance. Topics include keyboard geography, right and left hand independent playing, note reading, music listening and writing skills, music performance and beyond. I also use materials from Yellowcat Publishing which uses colours and characters to teach kids the letter names of the keys and pre-reading skills.  Upon completion, students are ready to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star by heart or for beginner’s piano, though it is not a prerequisite.

MUSIC FOR YOUNG CHILDREN
Maggie on the other hand has a different learning style. She's in the Music For Young Children class, Sunshine 2 in the fall with her teacher. I will bring her to class and participate as all the other parents too. There is homework, they have a very structured way of learning music reading from the get go. She likes it alot, but I would still categorize this as the "traditional" learning method. She knows the names of all the notes on the piano; she can play a C scale and A minor scale, she can read the pre-music reading with little characters. Each note on the piano is associated with a character, for example Critter C, Dino D, Edith the Elk, Fireman Fred, Grumpy Grouch, Amy the Anteater, Becky (copyrighted).  Staff reading is much too hard for her right now but there is a kid in her class the same age who is good at it. So it must depend on the child.

Maggie started in the Sunrise class for ages 2.5 with fun music activities, music patterns, listening skills and alot of singing, moving, crafts and homework. There was a long break and we started Sunshine 1 when she was 3.5 in the Fall 2010. The homework assigned with the lesson for the week was the basis of our learning activities at home, for example learning the alphabet, cutting out pictures of things that start with "C"; forte and piano, so that's cutting out pictures of loud sounds and quiet sounds; allegro and adagio, so cutting out pictures of things that move fast fast fast or slow slow slow.

Some folks ask me why I'm not teaching my own daughter. Well, as a matter of fact I am. She is part of the Musicland group class I run in my home studio. However my course runs for 10 lessons probably about once a year because my studio focus is still on private lessons.  Her weekly group lesson runs all school year with the MYC teacher and lasts one hour, however at home I practise with her everyday (more like 5 days out of the week) for a good 20 minutes if you include the extra games, homework, charades, and chatting. She listens in on my teaching sometimes, and we also play piano together just for fun. We play duets where she simply plays a bass note to support the harmonic structure below the melody that I'm playing, or vice versa. I have to mention, by listening she's learned when to "switch notes to make it sound nice". Remember, alot of kids go to public school or private school, but the mom (and dad) at home are models and teachers too.


YAMAHA MUSIC WONDERLAND
Yamaha on Bank Street also runs a music school, and they have the world famous Yamaha Music Program. These are group classes at various levels starting from Tunes for Twos, something for age 3 and Music Wonderland for ages 4 up, and then a series of graduated level for older kids to continue on.  I called the school though, and they only have keyboard time at the age 4 level.  Although my parents enrolled me in this at age 4 in Calgary, and I still have the tin box with the grand staff and the magnetic music notes for the staff and keyboard and some of the workbooks, I don't remember too much about it.  I  found out about the Yamaha school (again) by  coincidence.  There was an air force colonel (a soccer/ piano mom) who was selling the entire collection of Yamaha music books and workbooks and CDs volumes one to eight for $50 on usedottawa; books that her children used and were done with and she was moving for the next posting.  When she came to deliver the items, we also had a good chat about the music program and about raising a military family etc. I looked through the books, and figured out some of the major components was possibly music appreciation, ensemble playing (playing the chords and notes, following along with the group and the CD accompaniment) plus alot of crafts and fun worksheets.  I would've enrolled my kids but the timing on Saturday morning didn't fit my schedule well. Highly recommended and not to expensive. Fall and Winter start dates.

KODALY METHOD
Kodaly is an excellent music program designed to teach basic musicianship through singing and body movement. It is based on an approach to music education developed by Hungarian Zolton Kodaly in the early 20th century. Kodaly methods are adapted by many music teachers in the school system when teaching music reading and musical language to students from kindergarten to high school.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0001864

Structure of a 30 minute Lesson

This is proposed breakdown of a 30 minute piano lesson

BOW (I'm ready)

Note Reading (5 minutes)
This could include a Music Mind Game activity, pop quiz, writing exercise, or even solfege singing and signing.

Technic (10 minutes)
Working on the basics, the Twinkle variations, the Twinkle theme; five note scales, triads or arppeggios. The time here could be shorter or longer and blended in with the repertoire.

Repertoire (10 minutes)
If the entire piece is not played end to end, the teacher may be choosing select measures of phrases. There could be a practise game board and dice to aid with memory or working out trouble spots.

Review (5 minutes)
Playing a review piece allows the child to play something he knows well and enjoys playing. This also ensures that pieces are always performance ready.

BOW (Thank you).

Musicnotes: Repitition

A quote for clearly defining assignments:


"Repeat it, do it enough times

until it's easy to do it well.

This could 100, 10 or 3 times."

Repition also involves active listening. Self evaluation is an advanced quality. Ask yourself, what is right, what is not right.  How many times were you not right?   Good practise makes permanent good!

Practise Tips

Children are often motivated to practise with repitition, given small tokens of encouragement for their efforts or creating ways to count the number of times to play. Offering rewards such as:

*100 Days of Listening Award
*100 times playing Twinkle Theme Award

Practise Games
1) Roll a dice to see how many to play a certain measure, say 5 times perfect.
2) Bead counter
3) Practise sheet such as the ones found here to indicate what to play next: Pepperoni Pizza Twinkle, Ice Cream Cone Twinkle and so on.

http://www.thepracticeshoppe.com/charts-for-suzuki-pieces-1

Keeping track of the practise at home, for example colouring in the 100 stars and getting a prize for that.

This is taken from Sarah Lyngra of Yellowcat Publishing, her Valentines Day 2011 message.

14 ways to play better by Valentine's Day  

1. Use colored music.
2. Practice Monday.
3. Play in a well lit area.
4. Practice Tuesday.
5. Work on the parts of the pieces you don't know, first.
6. Practice Wednesday.
7. Play music you like.
8. Practice Thursday.
9. Write lyrics for your pieces.
10. Practice Friday.
11. Listen to your piece played by someone else.
12. Practice Saturday.
13. Record and listen to your piece played by yourself.
14. Practice Sunday.

Musicnotes from Teacher Training: Responsibilities

Just taking some time to write down a few notes from the Teacher Training.


How does the child learn the notes in Piano Book 1?
Listening.

Responsibilities of the Student:
* Listen every day
* Play piano every day
* Play above the keys
* Ideas: how about an Award for 100 Consecutive Days of Listening

Responsibilities of the Parent
* Posture and fingering
* Let the child discover, play and practise
* Let the child listen and practise everyday

Responsibilities of the Teacher
* Teach tone and timing (play with the beat)
Quote: How to produce the most beautiful tone with no tension; the most natural way to play the best sound
* Positive correction in manageable steps
* Continue with own personal growth
* Idea: work on how to deliver a one-point lesson

This topic reminds of a Student pledge I found a Suzuki discussion forum posted by a member on the topic of studio policies:

In lieu of a policy document, she created a Tuition Pledge, Attendance Pledge and a Student Pledge; all are signed and returned

Policy language--tuition is due at the first lesson of the month
Pledge language--I agree to pay tuition at the first lesson of the month

Policy language--100% attendance is expected
Pledge language--I will attend all scheduled lessons. In case of
illness I will contact Diane.

The Student Pledge outlines that the student understands what
practicing, listening and attitudes they need to follow. There is
space for them to add their own pledge which oftentimes is quite
endearing to read.