Accompaniment (again, different question) Options

[Pixie*Porsche]

I do lots and lots of accompaniment for my pupils but find it really hard to listen to them as much as I need to and play the piano at the same time.

It often goes like this - we set off together, pupil makes a couple of mistakes, I start listening hard to what they are doing and lose concentration on the piano!

My accompaniment is absolutely fine in the exam and the 2 or 3 "dress rehearsals" we do in the lead up to the exam as there aren't so many mistakes being made and I know the pupil knows the piece well, so I concentrate on playing.

Any tips? Am I perhaps introducing the accompaniment too early? Though my teacher used to accompany me from the first day a piece was introduced and never really pointed out mistakes. I don't want to be accused of spoon feeding but I feel it is my duty as a teacher to point out mistakes being made and help to correct them.

[BadStrad]

Perhaps you're trying to hold too much information in short term memory at one time. So two thoughts:-
1 - work on smaller sections of the pieces, maybe after one full run through. If you're trying to hear all the mistakes throughout the piece you'll overload your mental buffer and lose your thread. So concentrate on a chunk of the music at a time.
2 - How familiar are you with the pieces you're playing? The less mental effort you have to exert on your playing, the more you have for focussing on the pupil. So do you need to memorise the pieces?

I think it does, to a great extent, just come down to practice makes perfect.

Sorry if I'm telling you stuff you already know/have tried.

[Alicia Ocean]

I like my pupils to be able to play their pieces unaccompanied. I then introduce the accompaniment in terms of any intro, or if we start together we can practice that, and then any piano solos so the pupil knows when to come back in, and the end, whether it ends together, or with a piano solo bit.

I can't listen critically while playing the piano, and so I don't try to. If the timing or notes are wrong then that's obvious, but the tone and articulation needs to be heard separately. I also like to make recordings that we can listen to afterwards. I think it's useful to have the pupil comment on where things need improving rather then me.

[sbhoa]

My teacher is a very competent accompanist but she doesn't accompany all the time in lessons.
Like Alicia Ocean she expects that I can play without the accompaniment (I'm allowed to shorten long bars of rests but have to make the entry 'in time' by counting one or two bars). When she does accompany and something is not quite right she stops and we work on that without the piano.
Though I'm expected to be aware of the accompaniment it's not necessarily an major feature in lessons.
I don't use the piano a tremendous amount when teaching clarinet either. Most of the work is done without the accompaniment.

I've recently started having a regular session with an accompanist so we now do even less work with the piano in lessons.

[Scooby Doo]

Obviously it is important for the pupil to be able to play with a 'live' accompanist, but perhaps you could usefully spend some of the lesson time letting them play with a backing track so that you can concentrate on listening to their performance (perhaps aided by some 'slowing down' software if you have it to adjust the speed). You might want to record your own accompaniment at different speeds as well.

I don't think that one person can adequately accompany and pick up on all the nuances of another person's performance - who knows what your pupil is doing while you are peering at your score - you do need to be able to stand back at least some of the time and take in the whole effect.

Having said all that, it is definitely a huge advantage for your pupils that you are able to accompany them regularly in lessons.

[sbhoa]

I don't think that one person can adequately accompany and pick up on all the nuances of another person's performance - who knows what your pupil is doing while you are peering at your score - you do need to be able to stand back at least some of the time and take in the whole effect.

My accompanist certainly can and my teacher doesn't miss much when she knows the piano part.

[Roseau]

My teacher is a very competent accompanist but she doesn't accompany all the time in lessons.

My teacher is the same. He usually accompanies me the first time I play through a piece so that I have an idea of how the whole thing sounds and then won't accompany me again until he thinks the piece is almost finished.

As a child my violin teacher used to accompany me all the time and one of the consequences was that I hated playing without the piano as I felt too exposed and wasn't used to the sound of just my violin.

[silverfoxx]

I do lots and lots of accompaniment for my pupils but find it really hard to listen to them as much as I need to and play the piano at the same time.

It often goes like this - we set off together, pupil makes a couple of mistakes, I start listening hard to what they are doing and lose concentration on the piano!

My accompaniment is absolutely fine in the exam and the 2 or 3 "dress rehearsals" we do in the lead up to the exam as there aren't so many mistakes being made and I know the pupil knows the piece well, so I concentrate on playing.

Any tips? Am I perhaps introducing the accompaniment too early? Though my teacher used to accompany me from the first day a piece was introduced and never really pointed out mistakes. I don't want to be accused of spoon feeding but I feel it is my duty as a teacher to point out mistakes being made and help to correct them.

Have you tried recording your accompaniments to your computer and then to CD?

The lesson will be so much easier for you if you can stop , start, repeat and concentrate on any particular area of your pupils playing youmay want to. They get to see and hear exactly what you have been banging on about and they will start to make good improvement in no time.

There's lots of legally free software (freeware) out there to allow you to do this. Try this one.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/beta_windows

Hope his Helps (HTH)

No charge (The best things in life are free)

Silverfoxx

[kenm]

It often goes like this - we set off together, pupil makes a couple of mistakes, I start listening hard to what they are doing and lose concentration on the piano!

Any tips?

Simplify the accompaniment and keep going.

I also like to make recordings that we can listen to afterwards. I think it's useful to have the pupil comment on where things need improving rather then me.

I think that's a very good idea. Amongst other things, the pupil will hear aspects of the ensemble that s/he didn't hear when playing, so will learn about one of the trickier aspects of ensemble playing