Which just goes to show how difficult writen communication can be, and how easy it is to misunderstand someone's meaning.

Well that is clear now! Thanks.

In which case I think there is good evidence that, other things being equal, the person with early training can potentially reach a higher standard than the adult beginner. That is a different thing than being more likely to reach a high standard.

I believe that the assumption is correct, and such evidence as there is (mainly from brain research) supports it ....

But ... it is not important! Few people, child prodigies, non-stop career musicians, adult "returners", or adult beginners, ever reach their potential, or even get close. The standard that an adult beginner can reach is still very, very high. Most fail because they don't do the right things, or they don't make the necessary effort, or both. My revelation has been the effectiveness of those two things. The truth, so far as developing talents goes, is that I have been very stupid for a very long time.

Other important limiting factors are low expectations (of yourself, of you by others) and the efforts of society to drag back into the fold anyone that is different or exceptional in any way. So another factor that has helped me enormously is that my circle of friends now comprises mainly musicians, or like-minded adults with similar ambitions, and a bl**dy-minded attitude.

Perhaps there are some people who - after giving it a fair shot, lack some indefinable extra something over and and above correct study and hard work. The thing that we call "talent". But I've never met any. Those that give up, discouraged, are those that thought it would be easy!


Which is what we all wanted to hear!

Best wishes
Tom

That's a rather inspiring post, Tom. Thanks.
Well, I have the bl**dy-minded attitude at least!

I was rubbish at playing the piano when I was a child. I hardly practised, it took me two years at least to get to Grade 1, I scaped Grade 3 with a mark of 101. As an adult I practise much more, listen to what my teacher tells me to do, and enjoy playing. I think I play much better now than when I was a child, because I have the motivation to do it.

My son, on the other hand, actually practises (although not as much as he should) and has got to Grade 2 level in a year and four months. I think he has a far better understanding than I do of music and a far better ear, so I think that even if I had practised more as a child, I wouldn't have had the talent to do well.

I think that hard work does get you a long way, but I'm afraid that I do think that there is such a thing as natural ability and talent!

Everyone's different and has different strengths and weaknesses.

It certainly is. Mrs. Pushpull is always saying how much she enjoys Tom's posts and this one has just inspired me to type up a precis of all my musical experience to date. It's far too long and dull to share but the upshot is that I feel all the bits and bobs I've learned over the years are worthwhile and will help me in my current adventure into the ways of the oboe. My motivation is, for some reason I'm not sure of, far higher than I can recall it being for any musical activity in the past. So I'm sure this adult is in a better position to make good progress than the child was. I'm just waiting for my stamina to catch up at the moment.

On the whole I agree with Kerioboe. So far, I've only had one adult learner who has not progressed at a far higher rate than children starting from the same level (ie. I am not talking about adult learners who are returners to an instrument).

Whereas children of today soon lose interest if they don't receive instant results, most adults will plug on, determined to give it their best shot, even if they aren't particularly naturally talented.

Primrose, I get the feeling you are looking to blame your age for not being further ahead than you are. Everyone progresses at a different rate and there is no reason to believe that you may have covered the ground any quicker had you started at a younger age. Children cannot assimilate huge chunks of technical information, so there is every chance that if you were 8 now, your progress wouldn't still be exactly the same but for a different age related reason.

Not exactly, because that would imply that I'm dissatisfied with my progress so far, which I'm not (except that I've lost time through poor teaching). It's rather that I have until now assumed that I would eventually hit a ceiling which is lower than that which a younger player would hit. When I started, I hoped I might reach Grade 5 one day; I didn't really think it possible that I might reach Grade 8, however hard I practised. But so far I'm doing about as well as I hoped I might.

"I'm trying to find out, from people who know more about it than I do, whether it's right to assume (as I believe most people do) that people who learned music as children stand a better chance of achieving a high standard than people who start in adulthood." (Primrose)


I haven't got the quotes thing worked out properly yet....
Speaking as one of the adults who learned several instruments as a child, I do feel that the whole learning experience is very different as an adult.
After a very long gap and starting a completely different instrument I conclude that if I had been able able to work then in the constructive way I do now, I might have got a lot further, but if I relied now upon the methods I had as a child (ie play rather than practice, avoid scales, skim through stuff on sight reading skills, and sweat a bit for exams) I definitely would not have progressed as far as I have in the last three years.

All that muscle memory stuff does seem to come more easily to children, and the fact that we want to encourage and facilitate their achievements helps as well - I agree with the other people elsewhere who have complained that their practice time is seen as a bit of an indulgence!

It probably depends on the instrument to some extent, and what is meant by "a high standard" - if it takes maybe 10-15 years to achieve a professional standard with the violin for instance, and you start at over 40, astonishing the world stage at 55 is probably less likely than if you started at 6...

N

I agree with this. Even if you could afford lessons with them, many top class teachers simply don't want to know. Many of them categorically state they won't take on a beginners/adult learners/musically able or advanced student on another instrument.

I appreciate that many of them lead busy lives with performing and masterclass activities, but those who also teach privately usually only take on very advanced students. They've taught at such a high level for so long, they end up thinking a beginner or intermediate level player is simply too much trouble which is very narrow minded in my opinion.

But isn't there a difference between the sort of teacher that every aspiring professional wants to study with, and the sort of teacher who is just very good at helping amateurs reach the highest level of which they are capable? For example, you (AmandaL) recently mentioned the importance of structure in teaching. You don't have to be Vengerov to think out exactly what your pupils ought to be doing, and in what order, rather than just busking it from one lesson to the next. But even that kind of teacher isn't easy to find. Unless you live within travelling distance of SW London, obviously...

I see Stephen Brivati has just posted some advice for new teachers on violinist.com which seems relevant to this.

Coming to this thread rather late! Like I have to music......

The tone of the original article is annoying. It's written in a style better suited to a wildlife documentary - complete with David Attenborough voice-over - and with choice phrases that really get my back up.

There are several points I would challenge:

"Children can often have far-reaching targets for their musical progress: perhaps to pass as many grades as possible or even to be famous!"
I don't know of many kids who, on embarking on their musical journey, think from the outset that they will be grade X by age Y - let alone famous! All too often it's the parents that pile the pressure on kids to take one grade after another. Some adults relish the challenge that graded exams provide. And some are happy to just play for pleasure.

"A key difference between children and adult students is that adults are not used to being in a learning situation".
Life itself is a constant learning process - and there are many jobs in which professional development is actively encouraged. If anything, an adult is more likely to be attentive and assimilate information more easily than a child of primary school age.

"Shifting to a more student-centred lesson would mean encouraging or allowing students to discuss their problems and asking students what they want to work on."
With young kids, teachers do need to take a lead. But surely the purpose of teaching is to encourage independent thought/actions and insight so shouldn't this be happening anyhow? What's the point of teaching if it is all teacher-centred?

"Adults are more likely to cling mentally to the score than children. Often our younger students frustrate us because they memorise their music.......Furthermore, adults are less confident of the reliability of their memory......."
Outrageous!!!! Makes us adult learners sound positively geriatric!!!! A huge generalisation and back to the old sight-reading vs memorisation discussion. I memorise and so do a lot of other adults. Similarly there are kids that sight-read and can't memorise.

The article makes the assumption that all adults learners are the same - we are not. We come from all walks of life, have different experiences and different aspirations. Teenagers, once exams kick in, face the same challenges as adults, namely less practice time, TIME being the key, I think, to how fast an adult learner is able to progress.

When you've had a busy day at work, there's a shed-load things to sort in the house and the kids are playing up, it's hard to focus, especially with the higher grades that require that little bit of extra effort.

It does annoy me when a teacher complains that an adult is not committed because they haven't practised. It's not for want of trying! The fact that we still bother to come to lessons should be a sign of commitment - after all we pay for the lessons. All we ask is your support and guidance. And if our progress is slow - so be it. As long as we're enjoying ourselves, does that really matter?

Any suggestions to increase (my) teacher's expections of me - he knows that I practise, but as I am unwilling to do exams, I seem to be covering a lot of material, but to what I consider to be a too low standard. I have given him my aims and objectives in written form, maybe that will work.....

I'm trying to get a bit more of the picture here, BachPensioner. Could you describe in what way you are less than satisfied with your pieces when you have learnt them? Are there aspects that you feel you need more help with?

Do you feel simply that your teacher moves on too quickly, and that you spend too short a time on each of your pieces, when you would like to take longer to polish them to a higher standard?

Do you have too many pieces on the go at any one time? As a teacher I am always keen to maintain plenty of variety, and avoid a student's getting bored (eg with only one piece on the go) - on the other hand I have found some pupils (not necessarily adults) who actually prefer to work on only one at a time.

Sorry to ask so many questions! - however not doing exams shouldn't be a problem at all.

Like MaggieMay I am not too sure what you mean but "too low a standard" but the fact that you don't do exams shouldn't be a problem - I don't do exams either as I live in France.

I am also a bit puzzled as to why you had to write your aims and objectives down. Does this mean your teacher doesn't listen to what you say? My teacher is usually explicit about what a particular piece (or more usually these days particular passages within the piece) will help me develop. Obviously he identifies points that I need to work on but quite often I turn up to a lesson saying "When I was practising *this* was causing me lots of problems" and he has never refused to help me improve what I have identified as a problem (even if it was not the initial technical point he had intended to work on). I also have some say as to when we decide to move on to another piece.

Out of curiosity what are your aims and objectives?

Thanks for the questions, maggiemay and kerioboe. Writing my aims and objectives was a little bit of a joke but with a serious intention - it was partly to say that I recognised my own learning needs eg. my timing is not very good, and I am working on it but because I am told to count, count, count and then to free up a piece - which is 'don't count' one of my objectives was
to learn how to count and how not to count (NB I am 62!)
My overall aim is to play the Bach's 48 P&F in WTC by the time I am 90 (I do not pretend to be able to do a berfaceno act!). I do not want to start them (even the accessible ones) until I have improved my technique. So another objective is to learn pieces in all the keys before I start the 48 and I listed the ones I have not done so Teacher could identify what I would do over the coming months - which he has done. Having just heard Angela Hewitt play the 48 in Glasgow (absolutely wonderful) I am perhaps feeling a little discouraged.

"Do you feel simply that your teacher moves on too quickly, and that you spend too short a time on each of your pieces, when you would like to take longer to polish them to a higher standard? " Yes, maggiemay - this is part of it. When I had piano lessons at school, the pattern was that I would start a new piece each term - long pieces, such as Mozart's sonata in F K392 (incidentlally the music cost 2/6!!) and Beethoven's Appassionata, would never finish them but what I could play was better than just accuracy. I have been having lessons now for 2 years, practise a minimum of 1 hour a day frequently 2-3 hours. So I have made progress - more than I did as a teenager. In my first year I 'did' 17 pieces, some Burgmuller and Czerny, but all the rest Bach - inventions, some preludes and one 2 part fugue. I was delighted that I had completed all of these - all shorter than the sonatas of old, but I got to the end. Yes, we did move on regularly but I discovered that I could not keep my level of playing up - ie as soon as I started a new piece, the last two faded until the effort to restore them was almost as much as the original level of work. When I discussed the issue of polishing to a higher standard with Teacher - he said (quite fairly) that there had to be some compromises becuase of the my age and stage. I felt indignant but when he pointed out that my speed was limited I had to agree - and yes I am working at that as well.
I have a good relationship with my teacher and of course the lessons are nothing like when I was young. I do feel that I need to be pushed. If Teacher was asked he would probably say that as I am a highly motivated adult who is pushing herself.

"Do you have too many pieces on the go at any one time? " I don't think I do - I usually have one major Bach piece (right now Prelude 3 in E minor BWV932 - I am finding it really difficult, some of the fingering taxing and it took about 4 weeks to 'get' it in my head before I could really work on it), Mendelssohn Songs without words, Op 19 no 4 to learn pedalling; and two Czerny exercises.

My real complaint (and it is about me and not my teacher but it perhaps a real adult learner issue) is that I cannot play anything - I can only practise! I do love the process of practising but I want sometimes to be able to just play something through and enjoy that.

Thank you for the questions - they helped me to think through what I am really trying to express as a very enthusiastic returner who perhaps is going through a patch of discouragement. Any suggestions or comments would be very welcome. I have had a lot of help from forum posts.

I don't know how much help this is as it is not the same instrument. What I tend to do is have one "big" piece which I work on for months (so this year I have worked on a complete sonata by Bach and another by Saint-Saens and am currently working on one by Vivaldi but won't have finished it by the end of the year as next week is my last lesson) and at the same time have a succession of "little" pieces (Bach cantatas, studies etc. and this year I bought a cor anglais so spent some time both in lessons and at home playing that as well). Because the "little" pieces are shorter (stamina is still a problem for me) and technically easier, I can (as you put it) "play through them" and enjoy them after a couple of weeks. I wouldn't say that any of the sonatas have really been finished as "whole sontas", although in each one there has always been at least one movement that I have been happy with and could have played in public if I had wanted to. The other movements I have left with the intention of coming back to in a couple of years' time.

I think you are right when you say that it is hard to have several pieces which are at the limit of your technical abiity on the go at once and that if you don't play them regularly you have the impression that you have forgotten them. What I think does help, though, is to go back and play things that you learnt a year or more ago. Recenly I was struggling with one particular half-bar and asked my teacher what I could do. He suggested a study which I learnt about two years ago and which I had found really hard-going. I remember saying to him with dismay that I really didn't see how re-learning a whole study which I found very hard was going to help me improve half a bar given the amount of time I would need to get the study back under my fingers. He insisted that I at least try and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the study was really quite easy and this time round did just fall under my fingers.

How do you divide up your practice time? Do you normally spend some of it on "old" pieces?

If you spend a bit of each practice session playing through some of your old pieces, it might help to stop them from fading. You could play them on a sort of rota so that each gets played often enough to keep it more or less under your fingers. You might find that once you move on from a piece you need to play it through a couple of times a week at first, but then after a while that it stays OK with just a weekly playthrough and later maybe even fortnightly or monthly.

T.

I am curious why you are not starting the WTC yet Bachpensioner? Despite what you say about your technique from everything else you are playing it sounds as if you are capable - even if it does mean starting on the easier pieces.

You will probably disagree with me but if the WTC is your real ambition, your big goal. Why not start now? Your technique will improve whilst you learn them and perhaps part of your frustration is that your present repertoire feels like one very long dress rehearsal till you get stuck in with what you want to learn most of all.

By the way Looney Tunes I agree a lot with what you are saying about the original article. The ABRSM can be guilty of it too. I seem to recall some very patronising comments in "These Music Exams" about adults being perhaps better suited to a performance assessment.

I haven't started the WTC just yet because I feel that I cannot play well enough. As an example, I learnt invention no 10 two years ago and got it to a state I was quite pleased with - but without attempting the trills which I knew to be beyond me. A year ago I returned to it - in order to play with trills. But by then I had developed a more critical ear (which is good) and was much less pleased with what I was playing and the trills could only be described as elephantine. Although I have done much more work on trills since then and have moved from being elephantine to a heavy footed gazelle, I am left with the feelign that I have spoilt no 10 - which I don't want to do with WTC!

I agree. If you want to play the 48 get stuck in now. If you wait till you are good enough you might wait forever. Accept that you aren't ever going to play them flawlessly. No-one does, not even Angela Hewitt. If you wrok carefully and conscientiously there is no reason why should "spoil" any of them. So long as you learn a good fingering and play in time (not necessarily at performance speed) it is hard to "ruin" a piece for the future. Besides - there is no better way to improve your skill at the keyboard than studying Bach.

Generally speaking the Preludes are easier than the fugues (there are exception that need some virtuosity). Some of them are no more difficult than the Two-part inventions (whereas several of the Three-part inventions rank in difficulty with many of the fugues in the 48 - it is just a technicality that they are not actually fugues).

There is no law that says you have to learn every Fugue with its Prelude, so you could get a gentle start with a selection of Preludes.

Instead of having the rather large and nebulous goal of "play all the 48 before I am 90" why not break the goal into smaller and more immediately realizable sub-goals? First I'd prioritize - make a shortlist of the Preludes and Fugues you especially like. Say a dozen or so. Then pick one of the easier ones from that list and get working on it with a deadline like - to be able to play it right through slowly, but otherwise perfectly in 3 months time.

Three months 90 - days. Say 60 to master the notes and fingering, and 30 to connect the short sections you've learnt into a coherent piece and and get it fluent. A typical 2-page prelude and two page fugue is 50-100 bars altogether. So we are talking about mastering ONE OR TWO BARS per day. At that rate you'd to learn four of the shorter preludes and fugues in a year. Today I memorized 10 bars of a three part fugue and about the same amount of a Scarlatti sonata so I am sure that you can fit ONE BAR in alongside anything else you happen to be working on!

Even at that rate you'd reach your goal in 12 years - but of course as you learn more of them and get into the style, and improve as a pianist you'll be able to learn them much faster.

You say you are working on the Prelude of No 3 in E from book 1. I have to say that would not be one of my early choices. It is musially quite simple, but to get the effect it has to played quite fast. It is a bit of a virtuoso display piece. Other Preludes from book to leave for later are Nos 5, 6, 15, and 21. It is a shame about 5 and 6 because the fugues that go with them are amongst the easiest.

If you don't already know it then No 2 in Cm from book 1 is not a bad one to start with. The fugue is bolder and clearer in texture than many, and has only three voices. Nos 11 and 13 are other possibilities, or even No 22, which is in 5 voices, but can be taken quite slowly (But please don't murder it like Glenn Gould did).

Thanks Tom - I appreciate your reply and indeed always enjoy your posts. I possibly caused some confusion in saying that I am learning a Prelude in E minor - it is in the litte keyboard book - it is not one of the 48

I am intrigued with the couple of bars a day idea - do you do this cold, ie without having done any preliminary work on the piece? My approach is to work out fingering for all the piece first, then to spend a week or so hands separately, then start putting together - at which stage I will work equally though all the bars. What are the advantages of your system?

You don't need to work out fingering for the whole piece before you get started on it. Just finger the 8 or so bars that you intend to start with. Besides if you try to do the whole thing ahead of time you'll only have to change a lot of it later when you find that it doesn't work!

You can start cold or warm up with something you already know. Makes no difference. Naturally at some point you review what you have already learned.

It shouldn't be necessary to do everything hands separate. If you go slowly enough most things are possible hands together from the start. Separate hands work is only needed when you encounter especially tricky passages or new techniques.

Cheers
Tom

I started the violin as a child (at 7) and didn't do grade 5 till I was in my teens. Started piano aged ten and STILL have not done grade 5! On the contrary, friend of mine started piano in his early 20s and did grade 8 within a year.

I think that, particularly with small children and excepting a small minority of prodigies, most children have quite a way to go before they start "racing through exams".

The main different IMO between an adult and a child learner is how they learn, more than how fast - same with languages; I know people who grew up speaking two languages or who started their second language at an early age and yes, children absorb language like sponges and it's "easy" for them. But do they learn quicker?

I started Russian at the age of 19 with zero prior knowledge - in fact I'd never even learned a language with cases - and by the end of my degree was reasonably fluent. It's easy to say "I'd've been better if I'd've started earlier", but out of my year the very best results all came from the ab initio group (as opposed to post A Level) and the only person whose marks were well below average had done Russian A Level - someone who'd been learning the language for 7 years longer than the ab initio group had. And while my Russian at 22 wasn't equivalent to a 22 year old Russian's, it was a lot better than a 4 year old Russian's

There are things which affect learning as we get older - for musicians it's often trying to make our aging bodies do what we want them to do. But I don't think it's as simple as "children learn faster/better" - they learn differently.

To be honest, the main advantage that I can see of having started music at a relatively early age is that I have benefited from learning as a child - eg soaking up information without thinking about it, seeing music as "play" - and then from learning as an adult - eg being a much more conscientious and thoughtful learning, having more discipline to practise and understanding the whys and wherefores and howtos of practice a great deal more than I did as a child.

I think this is the biggest advantage children have over adults. It's for this reason that they can build up their skills in layers, without one layer neccessarilly having to be perfectly in place before they can start absorbing the next. Adults tend to have a greater need to know exactly why they're doing everything. If we look at it like building up a painting - with a child, an undefined blob can gradually become more defined in all its aspects, but an adult likes to get, say, the outline right, before thinking about the colour. Or am I generalising too much?

I think it is probably true most of the time but a child who does need to "know exactly why they're doing everything" tends to drive adults mad. My younger daughter is like this and won't take anything on trust. A non music-related example (but the one that made me fully realise that this is the way she functions) was when she started school and was learning the alphabet. When told there were vowels and consonnants she was not satisfied with knowing which ones were vowels but insisted on knowing in what they were different from consonnants (and was only fully satisifed when I asked a linguist colleague and gave her an answer which should have been way over the top of her head). Only once she had this explaination could she remember which letters were vowels.

She is also a perfectionist but lacks the long-term vision that an adult has and so becomes very frustrated when she can't play something perfectly straight away (no undefined blobs for her). She can't grasp that if you break things down into manageable chunks and concentrate on one thing at a time it will all come together a bit later on. Her way of practising a piece is therefore to work on one bar at a time and only to move on when that bar is perfect. Her teacher, on the other hand expects her to be like other children and to come back the following week with the whole piece half-right and not the first few bars perfect.

It is possible that your daughter knows better than her teacher here!

Absolutely.
I start to tell my students quite early on that it's better to have half perfect than all half perfect.
It can take a while for it to happen this way though.

Possibly, but how many eight-year-olds do you know who will spend 30 minutes working on one bar? While this may been seen as commendable for an adult it comes across as distinctly odd for an 8 year-old.

Also, as she is not an adult she still says her thought process out loud so there is a lot of yelling of things like "stupid finger why won't you do what I'm telling you." "What do you think you're doing right hand, it's left hand's go first," and (the inevitable) "I'm never going to be able to play this piece before my next lesson."

Sounds like a very intelligent young lady to me. What's the point of saying that some letters are vowels and some are consonants if you can't explain the difference? You might as well say that some are kraspums and some are strognums.

The yelling sounds counter-productive, but the intensely focussed practice is the right thing to do at any age. If it seems odd it is only because most children don't practice the right way. Being "normal" is no great aim. Being good at something is.

I really envy her for this. I've just spent ages on one bar but am having to fight the urge to move on, whereas your daughter has a natural urge to do what is actually the best thing to do.

By definition, doesn't normal = average, in which case, as Mad Tom said, being normal is no great aim.

You are quite right but again, this is where being an adult helps. My daughter is at an age where she wants to be "normal" and to be the "same" as everyone else in her class and suffers from low esteem because her class mates don't see her "different" abilites as somthing enviable. (And it's not just music, she is excellent at drawing, bilingual ... ).

I sympathise with your daughter, kerioboe - I was a bright, talented child, and at that age it did not feel like an advantage at all. She will, I am sure, come to appreciate her gifts and learn that being "normal" is a lot less interesting, but it is tough at her age.

How does this fit?

Those people who surround you
Only want to see you weak enough to crawl
They'll lie for you decide for you
And buy up all your rights and all your wrongs
And they'll try to stop your singing
In the middle of your song
For they do not want you free
And they do not make you strong
But only drag you down
In the hole they're coming from

Janis Ian - From Me to You