I've been asked to teach a 9 year old boy. His mother told me that he's into rock music and asked her if he could learn the electric guitar, but she told him she wants him to try the piano first. I agreed to give it a go, but i'm conscious that it could be difficult. I am definitely not for parents pushing their children to learn an instrument they're not interested in. Has anyone got any advice for students who have been forced to learn? Do you ever have any success? I always have a friendly, fun relationship with my pupils, so I don't want to look like the baddie, or for him to hate lessons, but at the same time, it's not reasonable to tell him i'm aware that he doesn't want to learn, and say something about him not needing to continue lessons if he doesn't want to. I will probably tell his mother that i will do the best, but after a month or so, if he's not enjoying his lessons, i don't think i should be taking any more money off her for lessons.

What do you think?

Yes, you have success sometimes. Strangely though I had forgotten about the successes before reading your post. I have had quite a few students who have come to me and not liked piano, but parents have been making them, so we've found the right music for them, and most importantly had fun. They are just students now, don't really think about their initial reluctance.

The one I thought about straight away is the little s** that tells me he hates piano every single lesson. I hate teaching him, but his mother is insistent. He's also talented, Grade 6-7 at 12. The reason I say 6-7 btw is because he's failed his theory 3 times, he has left the exam room bang on the 40 or 45 minutes each time, and from his mark sheet you can tell he left quesitons out...drives me mad and after 3 years I don't know if I will ever be able to change his mind.

My advice would be to not concentrate on daily practise, but choose pieces that he will want to play. I always recommend the ministeps books for beginners, they're short pieces and lots of them so you can give "ticks" for pieces every week so children see progress (it's not a fast moving book, there are normally 4 tunes on each new note, but combining them with different fingers in the other hand - if the child enjoys this and is learning quickly, they can move through at a pace still). Maybe once you have settled in to some music reading and technique you could get some improvisation going as well.

Yes, I agree with David. I wouldn't do it for longer than, say, half a term. The last thing I want to do is put someone off my subject.

Children generally have no idea what learning an instrument is like, and it's possible that he will find he enjoys it. But I would resist parental pushing beyond a few weeks if he doesn't show some interest.

I was contacted last week by a mother who wanted me to take on her 9 year old grade 3 daughter. As I'm full at the moment, we talked round a few points, to try to assess the picture, and whether I would keep the child in line for a space. One question I asked was "does she enjoy her practice?".

The answer was an immediate "not really - but I make sure she does it".

At least that's honest. But I am undecided at the moment what to do about this one. Mum did say the child liked playing by ear - so it sounds as though she's not totally anti.

I think your one month "trial" sounds a good idea, if you want to give the boy a chance. You might start him on Microjazz, which has some slightly funky duet parts and is a bit less classically based than some books.

There is usually something that can be done to generate some interest in playing the piano, especially with little ones of nine. If he loves rock music point out to him just how many rock bands have keyboard players and that it is often the keyboard players who write the band's songs. If he has a keyboard at home as well as a piano he can have a lot of fun playing his piano work with it set to a suitable rock sound such as an overdrive guitar or a rock organ. Maybe not ideal for the listeners but it will get him playing and having fun. If you can teach him some simple jazzy bass lines to play by rote after he has learnt his way around the keyboard he will have done something that most of his friends cannot do and may enjoy showing it off to them. If I can plug the opposition yet again for a moment, , London College have a lovely Jazz Piano Handbook full of ideas to use after he has learnt a few basics. Work with him and don't try to change his mind overnight. Good luck. With the right approach he may well think that you are the coolest teacher out.

ive come across quite a number of students who are obviously being forced into learning the piano by their parents..

however, i have never actually told the parents of those kids who are uninterested and does not make much progress due to lack of practice.. because i don't know how.. anyone got any idea how i can put the message across to the parents without actually sounding too harsh?

I just mention that they don't seem to be enjoying it and/or putting in enough practice to make progress then suggest that they might want to think about/discuss with the child whether they really want to continue.

that sounds good is it worth getting if you already have the ABRSM, jazz from scratch book?

Well worth getting! It contains ideas fro improvisation, technical work and pieces etc up to grade five. It is a good book.

I found myself in exactly the same situation a few years ago - child wanted to play guitar, had no interest in piano, and mum had said that she'd only let him have guitar lessons if he did some piano first - having been told by somebody that this would be a good idea. Whether or not it is, I have no idea, since I know duff all about playing the guitar, but when child was really difficult, I got him to agree to work for me if I could persuade mum to let him pack it in in favour of guitar lessons when he passed Grade 1. So that's what we did! And he WAS really difficult; when my own kids overheard some of the lessons they used to say that I should march him outside and leave him on the doorstep and tell him never to come within ten miles of the house again! So I wasn't sorry to see him go!

I've not really been in this position myself, but if he wants to do electric guitar it rather suggests he wants to go the jazz/pop route. Maybe try Rockschool syllabus, AB or TG Jazz, maybe the usual Wedgwood, Mier et al. Something he wants to play in other words. It is our job as teachers to motivate our pupils, and in my experience we have to do this before we can start imposing what we think they 'should' like playing. Figure out how he learns best ie should you make games out of learning certain things, give points for doing so and so etc. Teaching is a bit like an experiment. Two substances need to mix (in this case teacher and pupil), great if they do, catastrophic if they don't.

...or maybe it's just not "their" instrument...?



...or maybe it's just not "their" instrument...?

Anyone mind if I collect some of these posts together to form an article for my site? I'll credit the posters. I've been in a similar situation myself with a couple of children who didn't want to learn and this has been a useful thread.

RP
www.peripatetics.co.uk

I rather suspect the ABRSM will mind, as they have copyright on what's here.

And as your website seems set up deliberately to compete with this forum, they may well take a dim view.

I thought I'd posted on this thread but I haven't! I must have been thinking of another thread about someone who wanted to play guitar but was made to learn piano first

Maybe an idea would be to PM the author of whichever post you want to use from a thread?

I put a wee forum on my own website (to see what would happen) but it's rubbish...I have one member besides myself I think I'll just take it down and put a link to this one instead

I'm not a professional web site designer though, so maybe you will have more luck!

On the original thread topic... I had always wanted to learn piano, so I can just imagine how confused (and annoyed) I would have been had my mum enrolled me in guitar lessons

I understand why some parents feel getting piano skills is useful, but being a pianist hasn't helped me much in learning the guitar... If anything being a pianist made me more impatient with my guitar, as the notes weren't all laid out in front of me and it all seemed so random! I know it's not really, but I didn't have the patience to find the logic within the strings, so it now gathers dust... It just wasn't for me, and maybe piano isn't for this child if he has his heart set on guitar!

I personally would not wish any contribution of mine to be reproduced if it contained anecdotal material.

Me neither. Sorry. An article saying that 'some teachers have been known to think...' would be okay - I think, anyway - but part of the reason we use usernames here is that we don't want our pupils or their parents recognising themselves on the internet! For that reason, anonymity is quite important for many of us.

Hello all,

No problem at all - I'll write my own article with your comments in mind (no direct quotes). I personally don't see my site as any form of 'competition' - surely we are all here to learn. Teachers use aliases after all and I've deliberately not targeted my site to learners.

The only reason why I set up my site is that these forums are quite general and I felt that more targeted groups would help us teachers. I've seen the same questions posted a number of times in the past and I'm sure that the ABRSM moderators would rather people be directed to a link with past opinions than read endless repetitions of the same arguements. I'm sure that the 3000 posts in this forum aren't all asking unique questions.

I'm sorry that you all feel this way - people from previous posts have welcomed the idea and have gladly contributed. If you'd rather enter into endless discussions on the similar topics then happy typing...

RP

Sorry, and one other thing - you talk about wanting anonymity...these forums aren't exactly private!

Exactly what happened with me too! Also, I like the idea that I just might have led others into losing hours of their time in this forum beside myself!

Methinks there is a difference between anonymity and privacy!

lol! I'm glad in a way as I probably would have got too lazy to moderate everything if it had taken off

I'll stick to what I know!

Fair enough but you're just being pedantic now...

All I know is that most of the help I've had has been from talking to other peris in the corridor at school.

When it comes to advice, I feel that everyone can bring something to the table so I'll happily carry on giving my spare time paraphrasing ideas from us, the experts, for future new teachers. Before - when I searched in google for 'ideas for peripatetics' nothing useful came up but now I believe that's changed for the better.

Happy posting everyone.

RP