Are Teachers Able/expected To Demonstrate Well?, My teacher can't play my exam pieces Options

[andante_in_c]

I occasionally find myself teaching Grade 8 pieces I can't play to performance standard (yet!), but I can usually work through them enough to be reasonably confident in teaching them. I think the hardest one I've taught in this category is the first movement of the Martinu Sonata, and I spent a couple of sessions on it with my own teacher whilst I was teaching it to my Grade 8 student.

I am set for an interesting August this year, as the syllabus change for 2008 means I will have to learn some new Grade 6-8 repertoire for September. Teaching in a Sixth Form college almost guarantees me students who will need to get started learning pieces from the new syllabus as soon as they start back in September. I'll have a frantic 3-4 weeks ordering and learning them if it's like the last time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[KixMusic]

When I was a kid my teacher never used to demonstrate when I got to the higher grades. In fact she never even used to bring an instrument to my lessons. When I was starting out she would say "your doing it wrong, it goes like this" and then play it but never actually tell me what was wrong.

I generally do demonstrate to my students and have found teaching this last couple of terms really hard as I have been restricted in my playing as I was waiting for surgery. Sometimes it is vital to back up an explanation with a demonstration. I can't wait to start doing so again.

[organ_dummy]

Hello Paulara,

I asked similar questions on this forum last spring.

Now that I have changed teacher and have experienced the differences, I am convinced of the importance of a teacher being able to demonstrate well. A competent teacher should be able to demonstrate the less advanced pieces their entirety and selected passages in the more advanced pieces.

My previous teacher was good with error detection, but he was not good at identifying the cause of a problem or providing possible solutions. As he had not studied most of the pieces that I was working on and had very poor sight reading skills, he was unable to demonstrate, not even a short passage. Because he could not play the pieces himself, he was also unable to identify faulty fingering and pedalling, and other incorrect physical motion. His favourite advice was to tell me to practise only a few bars at a time, slowly and with the metronome on, so that I could refine my physical motion. Sometimes I had no idea which of my physical motion needed refinement, even after doing a lot of slow practice. I felt like I had to interpret my teacher's verbal descriptions and translated them to actual sounds completely on my own. I was not always successful with that. More often than not, I would make changes that were unneccessary while the original problems remained or worsened. My lessons were quite stressful and unproductive at times as my teacher would tell me to repeat something over and over again without telling me or showing me *how* to fix something. There were times when I asked him to demonstrate, but he would simply refuse to.

My previous teacher would make comments such as "your sixteenth notes need more articulation" or "there are too many wrong notes in the pedal." In response to the same problems, my current teacher would say instead "you need to pay more attention to the release" or "you need to prepare your feet in advance and not let them wander around on the pedalboard." He would then demonstrate a short passage, if need be. I get to hear and see what I should be doing. Consequently, what used to take weeks to fix can now be fixed in a week or two. I save a lot of time, energy and money.

Furthermore, as my current teacher has a much wider knowledge of the repertoire and plays most of the pieces that I am working on, he is able to offer insightful comments on interpretation. By comparison, my previous teacher tends to be very pedantic.

[Roseau]

I had never really thought about this having always had teachers who have demonstrated things to me. At the end of last year I brought in an oboe piece (Donizetti "Solo for Oboe"which I since discovered is on a Grade 7 list) and told my teacher I wanted to work on it over the summer. It had never really occurred to me that he wouldn't know it - I bought it because I had heard it on a CD and liked it - but he had neither seen it nor heard it before. I didn't expect him to play it for me (after all I knew what it sounded like) but he did. Something which surprised me a little at the time was how carefully he looked at it before he started playing. (Having grown up with exam sight-reading tests with 30 seconds to look at things which don't really encourage you to take your time). He also managed to talk intelligently about it while doing so, (so I didn't have the impression that I was standing there waiting) making comparisons with a Donizetti piece for cor anglais which he did know, pointing out a few bars that he thought I might find tricky and suggesting how I could practise them. He played a couple of bars, checked with me that the tempo was right, and then played the whole thing with very little difference from the CD recording which I must have listened to hundreds of times. I must admit that I was very impressed, not only by his ability to sight-read something to performance standard but also by the way he was able to talk through his own mental preparation time.

[adagiok5]

I always demonstrate pieces to my pupils. I have 40 pupils. I personally would feel if I could not play the pieces myself I would not have such a thorough understanding of problems involved in playing them and how to get round such problems. It involves a lot of work on my part to go through all the music. The only thing perhaps I do not play so well are none exam pieces. But when it comes to the exam syllabus I do know the peices very well and I think thats how it should be. After all once you know the syllabus there should not be any excuse not to demonstrate as the syllabus now lasts for three years its just a case of swotting up when the new one comes out..

[sarah-flute]

I wouldn't necessarily expect a teacher to play all the pieces on the syllabus to performance standard just like that, but I would expect them to be able to 1) give a general idea of a piece 2) know how to help the student overcome technical or musical difficulties 3) be able to demonstrate something well if the student needed them to (with 2 and 3 possibly requiring the teacher to go and do a bit of work or research, but I would expect them to be capable of it even if it wasn't instant) - some teachers can teach without that but I think those who can teach excellently on an instrument that they cannot demonstrate are liable to be exceptions rather than the rule.

I wouldn't try and teach a piece that I couldn't do that with... I wouldn't consider it fair on the student to try and teach a piece that I couldn't help them out with as necessary if they came unstuck. I may only find that out through experience I guess, but if I found myself teaching to a student and unable to give them the technical advice they needed, or demonstrate sections of pieces well enough to help them out where necessary, I would consider it was time to either do some serious work so that I WAS able, or help the student find another teacher. I don't think that a teacher NECESSARILY has to be accomplished miles beyond the student in that specific instrument (though I think the ideal should be someone who is a very good player), especially when the student has got to a level where technique is reasonably sound and established, but they should have the knowhow to help that student get better, or what is the point of them paying me for lessons?

[Col]

My teacher hardly ever demonstrates to me - I don't expect it (she's 96, see another topic elsewhere) but when she was a spring chicken in her 80s she didn't demonstrate. In fact I would be put off having to get up from the piano to allow her to play it through. I think the trick of a really good teacher is how they convey the message to of what they want to hear from you.
Let's face it, at grade 8 you don't need to be taught any of the technicalities, you are being taught how to practice. And if sight reading is a problem, remember the only way to learn sight reading is to sight read.

[sarah-flute]

I don't expect that all teachers will necessarily demonstrate a lot - I would just expect them to be able to reasonably well if necessary. The first is a matter of teaching style of teacher/learning style of student/level of lesson/where in the learning process the piece is, etc. The second is a matter of being able to play well enough to convey something to the student that isn't getting across any other way.

My piano teacher plays a lot less in my lessons these days as my ability and confidence sight-reading on the piano has grown, and generally he only demonstrates snippets to show what he means BUT if I need him to he can demonstrate anything I need at my level - not always with me standing up and him taking over the piano, sometimes he demonstrates in a different octave, sometimes he will play one hand of the piano piece so I can practise the other and hear how it fits together - etc. My flute teacher hardly ever played in lessons as I recall (it's been a while) but again she very capable of doing so if necessary, and I learn a lot just from hearing her play - it gives me something to strive for apart from anything else! I don't play a lot in the flute lessons that I give, but I'm more than equal to doing so if it helps my student, and I can demonstrate the things that I want her to do (say on tone production or similar) so that she knows what she is trying for.

I would tend to agree that at a higher level demonstrations of entire pieces aren't generally necessary (& if pieces are long, could end up being a waste of lesson time). And as I said, I wouldn't expect a teacher to necessarily sight-read everything perfectly first time. I would expect them to be able to give me some idea of a piece if necessary, and to demonstrate/be able to give help with difficulties in smaller sections if necessary (not necessarily off the top of their heads if the pieces wasn't one they knew inside out, and dependent on the level).

[andante_in_c]

I like to give students as much choice as possible, and therefore need to demonstrate or at the least have recordings of syllabus pieces. The flute syllabus is rather more extensive than the piano syllabus, and requires (currently) significant expenditure to own a reasonable number of pieces on each list.

The CDs which came with the last syllabus included List C, the current ones do not. The Grades 6-8 CDs were only available twelve months into the current syllabus. All this has meant a considerable amount of sight reading/repertoire learning just to give students a reasonable idea of the pieces. It's also much better if they can hear the pieces played with the accompaniment.

Thankfully, the new flute books/CDs should solve most of these problems (for Grades 1-7 at least) as long as they are available for the Autumn term.

[JulieCSM]

Generally the only time I will sit at the piano to play a piece is right at the beginning when we are choosing pieces for exams. I rarely if ever play the entire piece, usually just the first two pages or so, which gives the pupil an idea of what it sounds like and me an idea of its difficulty.

I always explain that this is sightreading for me (unless its something I previously know) and the kids don't expect me to play it note perfect.

But then once the pieces have been chosen I do take time to study them, not to performance standard as I don't have that kind of time, but certainly so I can get an idea of what difficulties lie ahead and so I can demonstrate when necessary.

But I much prefer to teach a piece I have already previously studied to performance level.

[chocolatedog]

I used to teach flute aswell as piano but after returning home after spending 18 months abroad I found I wasn't really finding the time to practise both instruments. So as I wasn't playing the flute much anymore I decided not to teach it anymore as I felt I wouldn't be able to spot problems in my pupils' playing as I was 'out of touch' with the instrument. For myself, I feel it is important to demonstrate for pupils - I wouldn't feel right if I couldn't - but it might be different for another teacher. I think when I'm much much older I probably won't be able to demonstrate anymore, but I'll still know to be able to teach, because I've been there, so to speak. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[sbhoa]

Going back to the first post would teachers generally expect a grade 8 student to have to listen to the music to be able to learn it?
By the time I was past grade 5 my experience is that with something new I might be expected to have a sight read through a section of a new piece in the lesson before going home to start learning it but mostly I wouldn't have things played through for me first.

[sonataform]

Going back to the first post would teachers generally expect a grade 8 student to have to listen to the music to be able to learn it?
By the time I was past grade 5 my experience is that with something new I might be expected to have a sight read through a section of a new piece in the lesson before going home to start learning it but mostly I wouldn't have things played through for me first.

One of mine asked me to sightread the whole flaming Grade 8 book (although I'd played a couple of the pieces before). It was just to get a quick idea of what pieces she was interested in and make a rough choice - it was understood on both sides that she might change her mind later. I was perfectly OK with this.

[andante_in_c]

Going back to the first post would teachers generally expect a grade 8 student to have to listen to the music to be able to learn it?
By the time I was past grade 5 my experience is that with something new I might be expected to have a sight read through a section of a new piece in the lesson before going home to start learning it but mostly I wouldn't have things played through for me first.

Turning the question round, is it reasonable to ask a student just beginning Grade 8 to sight read the pieces, when, as AP pointed out earlier, this isn't a requirement even of LRSM?

Some sections will be readable, certainly, but many not. It rather depends on what the issues are whether listening to the piece helps or not. With a flute piece, it's often the case that the unreadable bits are fast runs or sequences that need lots of breaking down into small chunks and multiple repetitions to get them under the fingers. With very modern pieces, sometimes the rhythms are too syncopated or complex to read easily, and listening would help. With piano pieces often the issue is hearing hands together up-to-speed, which can be helpful when one is at the slow hands-separately-and-trying-to work-out-the-fingering stage.

I would not expect a student to pick a higher level piece without hearing it first. They are likely to have to live with it for a while, after all, and with most Grade 8 pieces costing around £10-£12 each, changing pieces is often not an option.

[carol*piano]

One of mine asked me to sightread the whole flaming Grade 8 book (although I'd played a couple of the pieces before). It was just to get a quick idea of what pieces she was interested in and make a rough choice - it was understood on both sides that she might change her mind later. I was perfectly OK with this.

yep - been there done that...
it's necessary to be able to give a rough idea surely - cheaper than buying the CD! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)