i have a 17 year old piano pupil who has been coming to me for a couple of years now. She sat and passed her Grade 6 at the beginning of this year. She then decided she didn't really want to sit any more exams, which is fair enough. She had highers and things to contend with anyway, and they are more important. She is now at college studying Art, so what with the travelling etc., her spare time is somewhat less. I'm now really struggeling to know what to do with her in lessons. I would like to do things with her that are not too long winded, so she gets bogged down, but at her level it's tricky. She has plenty of material at home, and every so often appears with a new book, which we work through, but beyond this I'm not sure what else I can 'teach' her. I point out things in the pieces she is working on that she could improve on, but she very rarely does anything about it.
Help!

Does she need an aim to achieve? I can understand her not wanting to do an exam but she sounds like the kind of student who needs the aim of an exam or performance to inspire her to perfect pieces - maybe a local festival, or school concert which would just be one piece, rather than the full exam requirements.

It doesn't sound like it is repertoire that you are having a problem with, but if you are looking for suggestions - what kind of things does she enjoy playing, maybe you could explore more popular modern composors like Nymen, who personally does nothing for me but the youngsters seem to like him.

Good luck

She did quite a lot of concerts when she was still at school, and that was something she purely did off her own back. We don't seem to have much in the way of festivals here, but maybe something around Christmas might pop up. I've already forced her to play composers she was uncomfortable with to explore different syles (Bach, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Joplin), and she enjoys Pam Wedgewoods more advanced stuff. The book she brought last week, was a modern composer who's name has completely slipped me for now. He transcribed all his music from his records in to a book, and some of them are quite interesting. A little strange in places, but interesting!

Not a teacher, but how about duets (with you)? I used to enjoy them as a child. We would go through an easy one (couple of grades lower than my ability) in the lesson as sightreading practice and then I had to learn another (more difficult) one as homework for next lesson, which provided some kind of goal. (Maybe it was just me but when I played with someone else I never wanted to be the one to mess it up, and so was motivated to practise more...)

believe it or not, we've played through all my duet books, and even hers. Maybe I need some new material.

How about some Einaudi? It may not be to everyone's taste but young players really seem to enjoy it. Christmas is almost upon us too so perhaps some old fashioned hymn and carol tunes would be useful. Then you could use them to study cadences, simple forms etc.