I had a new student, a 9 year old boy, start lessons 4 weeks ago. He is obviously natually talented and he makes a real effort to take on board everything I say. Every week his mum writes a note about how much he is enjoying his lessons. He is racing through the first book. Today he even got two songs perfect first try that most students spend a couple of weeks on.

It's such a breath of fresh air to have a lovely, keen young student who enjoys playing (and practicing!) with lovely parents. It makes me remember why I am a piano teacher! I feel like I could sit there for hours with him...most students just fill me with frustration from obvious lack of practice and having to repeat myself over and over so i'm ready to boot them out the door the second their 30, 45, or 60 minutes is up.

I have two other students who are very dedicated and lovely to teach as well and I really look forward to their lessons. I think this boy's natural ability just makes it all the more exciting.

I thought it would be nice, rather than just sharing our horror stories (of which I have MANY!), to share our positive teaching stories; of those nice, talented, non-frustrating students who are so hard to come by!

It does make all the difference to a teaching day, doesn't it, when you have a student like that? I can imagine how thrilled you must be. I have a few students who started like that and have continued to do really well - one little girl, in particular, who has recently done Grade 1 and just seems to be a natural. Her parents are amazed and delighted and have just bought her a piano as a joint birthday/Christmas present.
Thanks for sharing your delight!

Well said - it's great to share the pluses as well as the minuses, isn't it?

I have a little boy who started earlier this term aged almost 7, and who was reading almost fluently on five treble notes within a couple of lessons on the stave. His mum commented that she didn't know how he did it - he just carried on exploring his book almost without help. He is enthusiastic and a joy to teach - long may it continue.

Yes I've a girl like this - comes back the next lesson having done all that I've asked and tried out other things as well! It's a good feeling.

I am teaching a 7-year-old girl who arrives for her lesson, plonks herself down at the piano and plays through (from memory) the tunes I have set her to learn the week before, without even getting out her books or taking off her coat! It really does make all the difference to the teaching week.



But boys like this are much rarer!

I have two girls learning sax who make me really enjoy teaching. The first has been learning just over a year and is now working towards her grade 3..she takes on board everything I suggest, not afraid of saying if she doesn't understand something, and is generally very postive in every lesson. The other girl has been learning for two months and is now deciding whether to work for Grade 2 or challenge herself a bit more by going for Grade 3 (she finished her tutor book in 3 weeks!). The parents of both are also extremely supportive and often ask to sit in on lessons so they can hear their child playing. I really look forward to their lessons

I agree - the positive stories make it all worth while.

I have one littel girl who's been learning for just over a year, and is going to skip grade 1 and do grade 2 this year, who is a joy - each weeks she's 'mastered' whatever's been set (unless it's something she really doesn't like and who wants a robot anyhow ?) and is full of joie de vivre (she is French, in fact). She get's so excited when you show her something new that appeals - when i showed her very early on how to 'roll' a chord at the end of a baby jazz piece it was as though she'd been plugged in the electric socket !

Similarly, I absolutely love those who come and excitedly can't wait to show you the 'new' piece they've 'composed' or picked out that week. Some are really impressive. (Often they haven't really practised their pieces very much but they've certainly been playing).

I also have a slighlty older girl who started lessons late September who, each week, shows me the new pieces that she's played that we've never played before - she has a method book but I also buy all my pupils The Joy of First Year Piano -it's instead of a free lesson - and we learn some and I set one little easy one per week for them to learn by themselves (sort of independent sight-reading). She, however, tackles three or four in one sitting, and with no trouble. It's really encouraging.

Frankly, most of them are a joy (most of the time . . .)

I have 2 little boys, both of whom are really promising, work hard, have original ideas about things, argue with me about their music.... they are an absolute joy. I have to remind myself that they came to me by recommendation via some of my least engaging pupils, so I have them to thank....

This is so important! There was a thread a while back where someone (Cyrilla?) brought up the subject of never assuming that our students understand anything we tell them.
I thought about that this week when a very talented young girl, who is also very, very shy and so often doesn't say much, listened to me explaining about harmonic minor scales and the 'raised 7th' always being an accidental and never part of the key signature. I was just about to move on, when she looked up at me and said 'I don't get it'. I was so glad she said that and it made me realise (again) that we should always check that what we've said has really been understood.

I agree, and Cyrilla's quite right: never assume. And merely asking if the pupil has understood is as bad as assuming! We need to ask questions which prove that the pupil has understood if they can answer correctly.

I sat and thought about my pupils who are a joy to teach.... and they all have lovely supportive, unpushy mothers! I have a fantatsic 11 year old who loves playing. Her mum is prepared to buy her lots of music and she'll play a variety of stuff. She'll do 'homework' I set doing research about something on the internet..... She'll look things up on You Tube. She listens and takes on board what I'm getting at. She is enthusiastic.

I also have a 6 and 7 year old I enjoy teaching as it's so much fun. They say 'Can we play note pairs again?' as they come in.... and 'Can I learn a new note today?' And 'Can I write some music on the white board?' They are lovely as they know what they like and they tell me!!!!!! I had my first 'performance opportunity' for pupils are parents last Friday and they came in their party dresses and confidently and enthusiastically performed their pieces to the parents.

I had a female student like that, however, she was in her 60s. Now, most of my older students take noticeably longer to learn pieces so when I had this student for the first time, I wasn't expecting to get far. She's on book 3 of the Guitarist's Way now and has only been with me for about 4 months. Compared to my fastest young student who's just got onto book 2 after 6 months, that's really good going I'd say.

I thought of this thread today when I was teaching, so thought I would share a very rare and wonderful thing that I heard today! I taught a student C Major broken chord - she played it once, looked like it was the most exciting thing that ever happened and then kept saying 'I just love it, I really love it. I'm going to play it when I get home' and then when I said - 'why don't you play that pattern starting on a different note' she looked amazed and after playing it said 'that's wicked, I just love it.'

seriously - a broken chord?? I couldn't stop laughing

If you say that this student was an otherwise cynical teenager I'll be serious impressed! Ah, the magic of music...

A lot of my students get like that with C major contrary motion, which I must admit, I thought was pretty darn cool when I started learning!

I have one 7 year old boy who has a thing about D harmonic minor scale

that made me smile!! it's so odd to me that some of them come in asking if they can do their scales before anything else...why???

My daughter (thankfully now has done her Grade 1 and awaiting results), whom I am teaching myself, also seems to have a thing about arpeggios and broken chords, repeating them on every note up and down the piano. She even wrote out a 'competition' between her left and right hand to score them on how few mistakes each hand made whilst doing this (!!!) (she is a bit weird sometimes, but I love her for it!).

I can honestly say that every one of my younger students loves D minor harmonic!! They really like the sound of harmonic minors (they don't feel the same about melodics) and D minor just feels good, doesn't it?
When I ask them to play it, they say 'I love this scale - it's my favourite' and when I ask them to write me a little tune as a theory excercise, they nearly always choose to write it in D minor. (or C major, of course!)

Mine this week was from the father of a teen pupil who told me that when she came back from her last lesson she announced that she wanted a gap year in which to take her diploma in classical singing. She has a good voice and ear too and it will make a great project for both of us. I think that I am very lucky with my pupils who are a dedicated little bunch and work well for most of the year. This has been a long term though and some are really tired and not working quite as hard as usual with school concerts etc looming.

Can you sprinkle some of that magic dust in my daughter's direction?

She can be so frustrating when it comes to learning scales.

Her favourite thing is playing low A on Bari sax, shows her trye sense of humour I suppose, but not much use for Recorder scales.

I’ve just had a quick read through this thread and it feels like Christmas. Yes, it is nice to share the plus
things. At the moment I too am very lucky. I haven’t got a single pupil who hasn’t got something to like
about him or her and for the moment they are all progressing in some way or another. The fidgitiest is learning to sit still a little longer, the slowest is plodding steadily and the most musical is giving me some real challenges. I don’t suppose it will last for ever but while it does…..whoopee !

I just had a lovely text from a mum whose daughter started lessons in September and has made a very good start.
She came for her lesson on Monday and said would it be alright if Granny came in to listen? I really like it when family members are interested and she was a very nice lady.
The text said 'my mum was so proud of her, she nearly cried'.

I had a teenage boy arrive for his lesson today asking if he could just do scales - because they are "easy"!

I was so pleased with one of my pupils today.

One of her classmates started lessons just over a year ago, and he's quickly gone past her, which I suspect she finds discouraging (they're 9ish). She's a chatty wee thing, but shy, and has had her lessons interrupted by parents illness since she started over two years ago, and while she seems quite happy at her lessons, she never seemed to get the musical 'bug'...

Today she played through her first two tunes, and neither were all that great and I was wondering how the third would be, which was more complicated, and she'd just started learning. First she played right hand, all through, no mistakes, then the left hand, with just one slip, and then the first two lines together, really well. Then we went over the other half of the tune - the third line is the complicated one, and I was waiting for trouble! - and she was careful and correct. I made a fuss of her and told her how well she'd done and how pleased I was, but what really pleased me was as she put her coat on a minute later she turned with a big smile on her face and said:

"I'm so proud of myself!"

Now if I can get her to feel like that every week...!

Bless her! Had a similar moment today - a young lady of 10, who has struggled and struggled to learn the menuet in G that's on the new G3 syllabus, going about it in a really methodical way, so much so that I have been thinking surely she must hate this by now. Suddenly afer I'd played a few of the next bars she grins and says "I love this piece, it's brilliant"

So that's OK then!

D minor was always (and still is) my favourite too!

same here!

right....ok then!! wow. i'm beginning to think it was just me that had terrible repressed experiences with scales.

I've got a 7-year-old who brings me great joy every week. After a shaky start for the first few months she seems to have got the violin bug and now plays in the local orchestra, school orchestra and school string group. I give her a half-hour individual lesson every week. She's developed a lovely technique, practises every day and is really keen to progress. Today I taught her quite a difficult folk piece and she spent most of the lesson trying to get it right (with a few tips from me). She kept saying 'I love this piece!' and I know she'll want to rush home and play it again and again until she can play it perfectly. What a gal!

Well...just finished a lesson with my wonder student and get this.....he actually asked if he could have a longer lesson! I love it! He said it feels like he's only been here for 10 minutes then he's out the door again but he always wants to do more. So I've written a note to his mum asking if we can make it 45mins (instead of 30) when he gets back after christmas.

My term has finished today and in my last lesson a girl who is 11 sang Hush a Bye Mountain and it was so beautiful I was almost crying! Such a lovely end to a long term.

I had such a lovely end to the term yesterday when a 5 year old student (she's my youngest student and absolutely tiny!) came for her lesson and because I wanted to give her something new (she isn't playing Christmas music), I found out an old copy of The Joy of First-Year Piano and asked her to try the first piece, Three-Note Jig.
It's very basic, using only 2 notes in each hand, but it was the way that she tackled it that thrilled me.
To watch a very little one sight reading with great confidence and getting everything right was very exciting for both me and her mum, who sits in.
Just wanted to share it!

I had a lovely day of teaching today so I thought I would revive this old thread to share

I teach at a music school on Mondays and the way it's run is, well...rather relaxed It can be very hard to get parents and students to make a real commitment to music when the school seems so lax about the whole thing! I do my best, but to be honest, over the past few weeks I've been pulling my hair out trying to convince students to practice (and to turn up to lessons!).

Well, I've been teaching a little boy who's only just 5 years old and absolutely adorable. He picks things up really well, and he is so excited about every note that sometimes I think he is going to explode (it's gorgeous!) But a week after starting lessons his parents packed the piano away behind other furniture and he couldn't practice for a whole month I had been so worried that we were about to reach the limits of what could be achieved without practice and that his adorable enthusiasm would start to wane.

Today he came racing into the room jumping up and down (ready to explode!) saying that he had practiced on his piano! And it showed! He played four of his pieces perfectly, and the other two were very close as well. He was so pleased with himself (and his stickers!) and couldn't wait to learn some new songs.

I love moments like this. I was so happy

Another persistent non-practicer surprised me today as well. It was just the boost I needed after weeks of really questioning whether I should be teaching there at all.

It's so lovely when things like that happen! I teach one girl who is like a music machine, she goes through pieces at a rate I can hardly believe!

Most of my pupils are good and practise - I gave up most of my pupils when I got a full time job and kept the ones who were taking it seriously and who I enjoyed teaching. I had a great lesson last night with a girl who's doing her grade 4 flute on Friday, expecting her to be a bundle of nerves and forgetting her scales, as she normally is. Instead, she was calm and collected, and all her scales were near enough perfect

Do any of you like the odd experience though of the pupil who doesn't just land all perfections in your laps? The ones who might cost you a bit of effort, but perhaps reward you when they suddenly "get" something you'd struggled to communicate, or who might be dire musicians, but good company, or perhaps those who despite total lack of aptitude, manage to achieve something worthwhile?

Only I was thinking today about the same sort of idea with patients - and actually, I am less impressed with those who ooze niceness at me, and keep careful charts of their symptoms and take all their pills like clockwork, and get far more gratification out of the encounter which starts out really rockily, with a confrontational, angry, and quite possibly also smelly, bloke, and ends up with him leaving, smiling, reassured, and relaxed, or the sullen teenager whom I manage to persuade to tell me what's bugging them (apart from friends and parents, natch), or indeed the one I can hardly bring myself to call in after a horrible consultation last time, who's improved out of all recognition the next time round.....

Sure, when stressed, I'd rather everyone came in wanting more pills for their blood pressure and to collect a form to take to the nurse for their blood tests, but those days don't give me anything like the same sense of achievement....

Yes, and I hope my teachers do too because I know that I can be challenging at times.

Not a teacher or pupil but I'd ne very surprised if anyone was the perfect student. It's nice for the student when they surprise their teacher.

no, my comment was really aimed at the idea that a dream pupil is one who, from the sounds of things, was going to succeed anyway.....and I was putting the counter-idea that perhaps it's more rewarding to get progress from someone more limited?

Absolutely, I love teaching, and that feeling of satisfaction when something finally clicks for someone is fantastic. It gives me a lot of more confidence in myself as a teacher as well because I know I've had to work for that moment using all of my experience and knowledge. I think the important factor though is enthusiasm. It's the enthusiastic students who are the "dream" students...regardless of their natural aptitude. If they enjoy the lesson, they listen, you know that they'll do the work...that's the thing that's wonderful! And when a student like that has worked really hard to make something happen then that's awesome.

Well I reckon I must be a pretty good pupil by that measure; but undoubtedly my GP hates me (every six months for a straightforward "more pills" visit )

Yes!! 2 of my pupils I kept on are not musical, nothing on the piano comes very naturally to them, and their progress is fairly slow. But they are charming wee kids, the parents are so supportive and warm and tell me every week how much they love hearing music played in the house. The kids practise really hard and on the weeks where they do "just get" what I'm talking about, you should see the pride and excitement in their faces. I'm so chuffed that one of these pupils is one of only two of mine who have got distinctions

This week absolutely all of mine so far been that rare and wonderful thing. I don't get many weeks like that. They are not all gifted by any means but this week they are brimming over with enthusiasm. Last week there were dull as ditch water.I blame the weather!