Hi all,

I previously wrote about a student having trouble with his grade 4 pieces and there still isn't any breakthrough yet. But recently, I found myself overstaying the duration of his lesson longer and longer each time in order to cover what I have planned for the lesson. Sometimes, I don't even manage to cover what I planned for him.

On the average, his 1 hour lesson has stretched all the way to 1.5 hours. At first, I was wondering if I lacked time discipline so I started to observe how we spent time in class. After 4 lessons, I realized that I was sort of practising with him in class. We usually start with scales first and it can take up to 30 minutes (which is way too long..!)to do scales because he requires several tries with my prompting before he gets it right. With the pieces, I can only do 2 pieces each week with him because I spend most of the time dividing the pieces up into segments of 4 bars each to practise together with him.

My student says he practises and I try to make his practice at home as structured as possible by giving checklists and writing out full, detailed instructions (e.g. bar 1-10, both hands, slurs and phrasing etc.) But the standard of his playing tells me otherwise. There is usually very little improvement and at times, the decline of the standard of playing is so great that I have to "practise" with him 4 bars by 4 bars during the lesson to get it back where it was during the previous lesson. It has gotten to the point now that I am comtemplating "practice sessions" twice a week so that my work doesn't get undone over the week.

I'm exasperated because I feel I'm doing it all wrong! I feel that during a lesson, the practice should be done by the student himself with the teacher offering points to fine-tune or to teach new things. What should I do now? This is the first time I'm experiencing this. Will really be grateful for any advice regarding this

It sounds as though the pieces he is on are too difficult at the moment.
This may be purely down to lack of practice at home or just that he's not ready yet.
If it's a practice issue but he does still want to do the exam (did he want to in the first place?) then maybe telling him that unless the situation improves (give him a time limit) you think it will be best to leave this for now and come back to it when he is prepared to put in the work.
After you've gone over a section do you point out to him that this is how he needs to be working at home?
Maybe just a list of issues is not enough.... I often make sure that they realise what we've just done in the lesson (like going over a bar or 2 in different ways maybe) and get them to observe how much improvement a small thing has made in a short time.
Have you tried getting him to keep a practice diary?
Are his parents aware that he is not putting in enough of the right sort of practice in between lessons?

Two things occur to me about what is written above: first, might there be too much of your time invested in writing everything down for him in such painstaking detail. What I almost always find is that the pupils rarely look systematically at what I've written in the notebook. Best advice is to practise everything as soon as possible after the lesson on his own at home so that the techniques, lessons learnt can be built upon and remembered. This is vastly preferable to putting in lots of hours just before the following week's lesson, when the momentum and the memory will have largely dissipated.

Besides, it's your time that may be being squandered. And presumably no financial remuneration to compensate. That's all well and good if you see fruits for your labour, but quite another matter when the standard is retrogressing. I reckon that this individual needs less mollycoddling and a more business like approach to practice.

LR

Your case does seem a bit extreme but I must say that I have never felt that teaching was just a matter of showing students what to do, giving them practice instructions and expecting them to come back to the next lesson with it done. The learning process is a lot more complicated than that.

I actually expect to have to act as a “répètiteur” during lessons, for at least some of the time. This is particularly so with young learners – you don’t say how old your student is. I don’t really think the lesson is just for fine tuning and teaching new things. It might be nice if it were but I don’t think I have ever had any lessons like that.

Like sbhoa I suspect the work might be too difficult for the student.

To learn something the student first has to perceive and understand it intellectually. In instrumental learning this then has to come out through the fingers, involving all sorts of neurological processes.
And even when the spirit is willing the fingers often aren’t.

Is it possible to go back to something simpler, focussing on limited aims, and “practise” along with the student so that little by little what you want to achieve falls into place? It can be quite fun. Perhaps you could then observe in detail what the difficulties are and work at them one at a time. Perhaps be a little bit more analytical in approach and simply accept that repeating things with one’s teacher (sometimes ad infinitum) can be positive.

You don't say how old he is but an hour's lesson seems a long time for a grade 4 student to stay concentrated for.

I reckon, in general half an hour up to Grade 1, three quarters of an hour for Grades 2 and 3 and from then on an hour. But a lot does depend on individual students, and on their available practice time at home.

One of my present Grade 4 students could only be fitted in for threequarters of an hour until this last term when she asked again for an hour and I was able to give her the extra time. However, I wouldn't really want to go to an hour and a quarter with her. On the other hand another Grade 4 girl has asked for an hour and a quarter because she is a weekly boarder and has no facilities to practise at school. It all depends.

I sympathise vivace85.

I have two different "types" of students. I have a student who hardly practices at home - consequently she is a 'bad' sight reader and we have to practice in the lesson. Out of an hour we spend about 30 minutes "practicing". It is a downward path. The thing is, we might do this in the lesson but when she goes home, she'll forget what she has done. The 30 minutes is spent showing her how easy it is (she does work the notes out reasonably quickly, these pieces are definitely at her standard) showing her where it is repeated show she'll see how much she can do for so little work, me playing it to her so she gets excited about it etc. However, she'll leave my lesson with it half done, and come back and its worse. Consequently, she has only managed to crack 3 pieces in about 4-5 months.

I have another student who practices regularly - very good sight reader, gets exicted about pieces, goes home after the lesson and immediately practices, so his mum says.

However, the one who doesn't practice is always very precise with timing and rhythms, but also very expressive, the one who does practice lacks expression and is very flimsy about rhythm.

I can tell you I'd prefer the student who doesn't practice because the end result is always so pleasing and she does play so beautifully. She could be so great, but she'll be slow in getting there!

For the student who doesn't practice, I've given her a specific schedule. This schedule is simply:

Two scales/arpeggios a week
One piece from dozen a day
One study from hanon
One piece
Something from improve/perfect your sight reading

15 minutes minimum is spent on the piece and 15 minutes is given to the other things.
It may not seem a lot, but she copes with it, and all these things target everything that should be targeted: technical work, pieces and sight reading.

I spoke to my student, and she said she'd cope better with just one piece a week, and I have been strict saying that the piece should be cracked notes wise in 2 weeks (longer for longer pieces).

If you cant cover everything in an hour, then I think you may be giving your student too much. I only seem to run over when exams/festivals are around the corner. With scales I feel maybe you should restrict it to 2-4 scales a week, and maybe 2-3 of them should be similar fingering so that fingering is grasped.

To do with pieces, I know that its frustrating when they dont learn the pieces, it seems like the most important thing. From speaking with my own student, she has said to me that if she has more than one piece to learn, she feels like she has to "skim" over the pieces to fit everything in, so she feels she doesn't have enough time to really grasp the pieces. This is why we had to cut it down to one piece a week. However, the way I see it is, with the dozen a day, hanon and sight reading, she is actually learning 4 pieces a week! Each "piece" targets something different!

The 30 minutes is spent showing her how easy it is (she does work the notes out reasonably quickly, these pieces are definitely at her standard) showing her where it is repeated show she'll see how much she can do for so little work, me playing it to her so she gets excited about it etc. However, she'll leave my lesson with it half done, and come back and its worse. Consequently, she has only managed to crack 3 pieces in about 4-5 months.

This sounds a bit like one of my pupils, who has not yet completed a piece this year !
I pointed out last week how long we have been working on current stuff. He has passed grades 1 and 2 and is currently learning from one of the Martha Meir books. He's always been quite a slow worker, and several times over the months we have moved to an easier book because he was making heavy weather of pieces he was attempting. He 's 12 and had lessons for nearly 5 years.

Most weeks it is as though he has found practising too much, and he comes along to have his hand held and to have me sort out what he couldn't get his head round at home. I don't relish this kind of "reactive" teaching and although most pupils need it now and again, as a regular thing it bothers me - I don't think it's how it's meant to be. In fact his current pieces are coming on quite well now - just a few corners to sort out - and one of them is three pages long - but almost five months ! I would have left them aside as taking too long, as we've done in the past - but we have a concert coming up and in the interest of having something to play we are sticking with them.

I sympathise too. I wonder if there are some pupils who just can't get their head round effective practising at home for whatever reason ? Your "lesson-stretching" rang bells with me, vivace85, because although I make a point of not overrunning more than about 5 minutes with this child, we almost never get through what I plan for the lesson. Week after week I find myself deleting / postponing things on my notes we've not had time for .

I think that to extend a lesson to 11/2 hours is too long for a young pupil - even with teenagers I prefer 3/4 or 1 hour only. He's lost concentration during the extra time.

I don't think you're necessarily doing anything wrong with only covering 2 pieces in 1 lesson; I do this especially at G4 or G5 level, because you can spend quite a time on one piece picking up several areas. However, I do agree with other posters who say not to spend quite so much time writing out lists. Write in pencil on the music itself - with the promise that you will erase it later - so that he doesn't need to look in his book and then relate what you've written to the music. You won't be able to write in detail, but you can ring the notes that are bothersome, or the bar and abbreviate. He should remember what you've said in the lesson.

I think this sounds like possibly not enough practise. Go back to basics on scales, and give a small number - only 1 or 2 per week. If at all possible, speak to parents.

Sorry for the late reponse!

My student is a 10 year old boy.

Like what sbhoa says, I think the grade 4 pieces are hard for him. It is worrying for me and I have to rush because his exams are due in August and he has yet to complete any of his pieces. The "retrogressing" is extremely distressing as well, in my last lesson with him, he couldn't play a relatively simple rhythm of quavers against crotchets. I will never again let a child take an exam because his parents want him to when he is not ready, the stress is too great for the student. I should have just consolidated his knowledge from where his previous teacher left off!

I have also cut down on scales a month back already, just testing on 1-2 scales from each section but we are still taking a long time to get through it.

I have spoken to the mother and the idea I get from our conversations is that she thinks that a crash course during the school holidays will be sufficient which I have advised against. She is concerned but there is very little she can do with her son's packed schedule. He is still going for a school camp next week!

I am thinking if it will be advisable for me to still continue with the exam pieces and hopefully he will be ready by August. Or will it be more advisable to withdraw him and get part of the fees back, stave off the pressure on the student and start the fundamentals right again? I have finished teaching all scales, but he is still refusing to use the correct fingerings despite my incessant nagging. For his pieces, I reckon each piece is only about 50% finished, his sight-reading is about average but his aural is quite sound.

Sorry for the lengthy post, would really appreciate any advice given.

apologies! I actually logged in by another user name which I normally use online but I thought never got validated!

If the exam entry has already gone in it's a bit late to do anything but try to continue unless the parent is willing to forfeit the fee.
Without a medical certificate I don't think there will be any refund.
How much are you expecting of this boy between lessons? Maybe cutting down a little on work set but asking that it be properly addressed each week would help to make the task seem more manageable. Would this fit in the timescale you are working with?
If the scales are played well with consistent fingering it won't matter that it's not the conventional fingering. It's the resulting sound that matters.

This might just have to be a learning experience for you as far as deciding on whether a student is entered for an exam goes. Hopefully you can take time to consolidate and fill in the gaps after the exam pressure is off.

I am having flashbacks! Although in one way it is sad to hear that this is relatively common, its good to know that it happens to other teachers who are more experienced than me!

Maggie if you ever managed to light a fire under that student, please do post it! I am teaching his doppleganger! He never does his practice and puts his head in his hands every time he makes a mistake. I am at a loss as to what to do with him!

Vivace 85, keep in mind that you can only do so much for your student. It sounds like you are making a huge effort...your student needs to meet you half way by practicing at home more. Whatever mark he gets you know you have tried hard. You can work on his weak points in more detail and more slowly after the exam.

Good luck!

Can I just remind you, very gently and very politely, that music is supposed to be fun. It does not sound as if this pupil is having any fun at all in these lessons if he has to struggle with the same material at each lesson to try to reach the standard to scrape through an exam for which he is not ready to take. Let him work at his own level, which is very evidently not at the standard needed for this exam. If he is not ever going to be a serious pianist why press on with scales etc? Have you ever asked him what he would like to play?
Why not forget the exam and let the lad have some short, fun things to play to get his enthusiasm for playing back again and to take off the pressure of the exam work. Music should be enjoyable and I cannot think that an extended lesson of exam cramming is something to look forward to each week. If the parents quibble about the exam fee just remind them that it was a mistake entering him and that by forcing him to continue with the work for it you will be turning him off piano playing for life, and then all of their investment in his lessons will have been wasted.

Hear Hear! Does this lad actually want to take this exam.? By the time I suggest to my pupils they take a music exam they're really excited by the prospect having spent at least two terms learning things they enjoy.

Exams can be a good motivator, but they're not the be-all-and-end-all of music education.

Thanks everyone for your replies - really appreciate it

I do know that this "exam cramming" is taking out all the fun of piano lessons and I am quite saddened by it too.

When he came to me some time last december, he expressed interest in taking exams and kept asking when he could take his exam and whether he could do as well as he did in the previous grades. So I assumed the child was interested and enrolled him for exams as he seemed receptive to learning for the exams.

I have asked him what he likes to play and he always replies with the first few bars of his grade 3 exams pieces and telling me he did very well for them. I have reminded him very gently that he cannot rest on his laurels and have also tried alternatives such as songs from walt disney to stimulate his interest (I have since stopped the alternatives after observing his difficulty with his pieces).

Usually, I expect the bare minimum from my students. When teaching a new piece, I usually go through 4 bars by 4 bars, or phrase by phrase, so I usually expect my students to know just that particular phrase well before I add on the next one. Most of the time it works well, as it is less intimidating that one full page of music.

But with this particular student of mine, what has happened is that he has let too many phrases accumulate due to insufficient practice and the limited practice with me during class is just not enough.

I have thought through it, I don't think I will withdraw him from the exam as it might hurt his self-esteem? I am just going to let my student progress at his own pace, to cover as much material as he can, even though he may not pass his exams. Will talk to my student and his parents after tomorrow's lesson. I'll just see how it goes!

From an adult learner's perspective, I'd like to say that when I go to a lesson in order to have my hand held about various things it is usually because the piece/pieces that I'm practising are too hard for me. I like to be able to look back at the end of my practice and see that I have made progress, if I haven't then I can begin to feel despondent. I now make sure that I always have an easy piece on the go at the same time as difficult pieces, but a child may not be aware that this is why he finds it difficult to be enthused about his practise.

From an adult learner's perspective, I'd like to say that when I go to a lesson in order to have my hand held about various things it is usually because the piece/pieces that I'm practising are too hard for me.
Yes, I think that is fair comment and would quite often be the case.

However with this particular child, it has always been like this - even when we have decided (several times) that the current piece / book is a bit too difficult and we move to something easier, it doesn't make any difference - we still spend lessons doing mainly remedial work. I know this sounds strange, and my assessment would normally be the same as yours, but this is how it's been for most of the time I've known this pupil. Every so often I feel I'm running out of ideas. The obvious answer might be that he's doing no practice - yet I can never decide if it's that simple.

I find it hard to assess whether there is much interest there or not. Whether he genuinely finds it all very difficult but still quite likes it, or whether he's being made to do it and would rather not. He 's not very communicative and doesn't easily answer questions. We are doing jazzy pieces which seem to be liked more than other styles. There was pressure to take grade 2 when time had elapsed after grade one, but after a term on two of the pieces and abortive attempts at two others we postponed it and waited another year.

pianodub - if I get any flashes of inspiration I will pass them on!

I can't see how a 10 year old student would keep up concentration for an hour, never mind any longer. Even my mind would be drifting.

I would only continue with the exam after talking to the parents and student. I would explain that more, better and consistent practice needs to happen from now, otherwise the pupil will find themselves facing the exam room door and wishing that he had done something about it earlier...... by which time it will be too late.

You shouldn't take your pupil's lack of progress personally - grade 4 at age 10 is still a lot better than many at that age and I can't help wondering just how motivated the child is themselves (rather than being driven on by mum or whoever) . Transfer the responsibility back and explain that while teaching happens in lessons, the LEARNING (ie absorbing it and practicing it until it becomes automatic, just like spellings) needs to happen at home. If you have the time you could OFFER a further half hour (no longer - it's just not productive at that age and will probably just put the child off) supervised practice session on one or more days in the week, at your normal rates, to ensure that the work is being learned as it should.

I'm sorry if this sounds hard but you need to be fair on everybody!

Can I join the club maggiemay? I've just finished with my own very similar student.
Sometimes I seem to have cracked it then it all falls apart again.
Just had the 'we know you can do well when you really try' talk and she's agreed to stick with the piece that had gone backwards again and try to get it better.

Just reading through several of these posts, I wonder whether there are quite a few students out there who, for whatever reason, reach a plateau. Some may never progress from this stage, and some do, but only after absolutely ages.

I had a girl pupil who I struggled with for about 18 months, parent whispering in my ear about grade 1 - me resisting the whispers, and just as she started to make progress (it was as though something had gone click in her head or fingers), parent took her away and sent her for lessons in school. I know it was nothing to do with my teaching because there were other reasons. Then a bit later I was told how well she was getting on with her flute!!!! and i felt like saying that it had just clicked with her on the piano too.

Since then I have had quite a few pupils who "get stuck" at a certain level, and I have decided now to find material that moves along slowly, and to play the waiting game a bit until they mature musically, or "coordinationally" (not a proper word, too early in the morning to think of the proper one ). Fortunately no parent has challenged me yet, but I would be prepared to stick to my guns.

I think some children are like this in everything they do. My elder daughter has never progressed gradually but has always seemed to make no progress for ages and then suddenly leap forward. Even as a baby she made no attempt to crawl, pull herself up or move about in any other way. Then suddenly when she was a year old she got up and walked. Similarly she refused to even pick up a spoon and attempt to feed herself until she was over eighteen months old, when she finally decided to try she did it really well. Going back on topic to music her cello playing was pre-grade 1 for three years. In the space of barely six months she has gone from pre-grade 1 to approx. grade 3.

I think it is absolutely essential to resist parental pressure but it can be an incredibly difficult task. I can never quite make up my mind whether parents push for exams to 'check up' that the teacher is doing a proper job or to 'keep up with the Joneses' at school. I had one parent who moved her child from the state primary school to a private Prep school. As a result the whole personality of the pupil changed and he became quiet and withdrawn in lessons - he was obviously under too much pressure, and it became difficult for him to relate to me or the music. The Mum started to demand that I enter him for one exam after the other and even said that if he only ever got a pass she wouldn't hang the certificate on the wall! (He got 137 for Grade One and then a merit for Grade Two). Needless to say I had to cancel the lessons as I couldn't bear it any longer. He was such a promising pupil and I so wanted the freedom to let him develop in his own time.

A teacher on a course sometime ago suggested 'pupil readiness' has a good term to describe maturity, co-ordination etc.

Do stick to your guns because I have learnt that giving in can only be counter-productive in the long term and can be damaging. If we lose those parents then tough - but I think they respond well if we have a definite plan and appear very organised in our lessons. Or just look them in the eye and say this is how X,Y,Z is going to be and so be it!

Thanks Maggie! All I need to do now (until the inspiration hits ) is hold his Mum off buying the grade 4 book...he massacred his grade three exam last week...(told me that his 'good' pieces fell apart in the exam...to which I was thinking, "that would be be because you didn't know them well enough!!!") Time to learn some rep, practice scales and sightreading properly!!!

Good luck again Vivace...it can turn into a real minefield when trying to find the level between what you know the student should do and what Mummy wants. Sometimes the student gets a bit lost in the mix! Its a tricky one...

Do stick to your guns because I have learnt that giving in can only be counter-productive in the long term and can be damaging. If we lose those parents then tough

Yes - I agree giving in is usually a short-cut to nowhere. Sometimes it's not easy though to stay firm.

I had a very promising child a few years ago who did very well at grades 1 and 2 and then struggled with grade 3. You could see her struggling. We made it, with a very satisfactory "high pass" but it was the first one she'd not scored better than a pass and it was clearly disappointing. The route had been somewhat rocky - although I felt she'd done well in the circumstances.

I felt she had reached some kind of a plateau at this point, and despite various tactics, we didn't really move beyond it. A few months later mum was pressing for grade 4 and I dug my heels in - we had definitely not moved beyond grade 3. This was a child who had several different activities on most days of the week, (about which I'd sometimes worried as I felt there was not time to do everything justice), and I was starting to feel that a certain degree of resentment might be building up in the pupil. The argument was "I know my child - if we start grade 4 she will work". Well - possibly, but one wonders at what cost? and possibly not. Of course as a teacher it's quite hard to argue against "I know my child" - all the same, it was not reason enough to go against my gut feeling regarding what's best.

In the end they gave notice in favour of lessons at school. I'd seen it coming but was not prepared to give in. I don't regret it.

Good for you, Maggie!