I was teaching an 8 year old boy this week, he's normally quite OK, he's bright and quite musical too but has real problems co-ordinating his fingers and maintaining a good hand position, also he plays everything ff. He was playing Rock a bye baby, from Me and my Piano 2, and I suggested that to make it more like a lullaby, he tried to play more smoothly and quietly. His response, "I'M NOT A SMOOTH BOY AND I DON'T LIKE PLAYING QUIETLY" I was rather taken aback and didn't quite know how to respond, as I've been teaching him a year and he hasn't been rude to me before. Actually I found it quite amusing as it shows the boy has some spirit. Maybe I need to think of some other strategies for teaching him?

Try telling him that it's your piano and that you like to keep it for a little bit longer if he doesn't mind. Don't tolerate that sort of attitude - it's likely only to get worse. If it's a once off then maybe not much needs to be said; you are the one who knows him and can guage his mood and the situation.

LR

I must say that doesn't come across as particularly rude to me, depending of course on the tone of his voice, his expression and the exact context. In a sense he was simply saying he prefers to play loudly than quietly which isn't in itself disrespectful - he just said what he feels. He's only 8, so probably not really got the hang of social niceties yet!

If he's normally polite and there haven't been any problems before I wouldn't take too much notice of it unless you find this is the beginning of a change in his behaviour.

Kids often repeat what they've been told. e.g. one of the reasons we now have to label the behaviour not the child is because a child can often view themselves as "naughty" if they've been told that often enough.

Maybe this child has been told he's not a smooth child or that he's too noisy a lot.

Are you sure he has no hearing issues. If he doesn't realise how loud he's being it would be difficult to change it. I was always told that I talked too loud/shouted. I still do to some extent but it took me many years to realise this and why. As a child my ears always got blocked when I had a cold. I thought this was just normal and never said anything. It's only as an adult I realise how this affected me. I can actually lipread quite well (even though now there's nothing wrong with my hearing) so I know at school I relied on this quite a lot at these times.

You could try a compromise and get him to play ff, but staccato? For starters, that is, if the point of the exercise is to achieve contrasts rather than just getting him to play more quietly per se.

There's a good piece (in a minor key and quite masculine-sounding) in the current TG Initial book at the minute (no change of hand position, so it's not difficult at this stage) which I think is called "In the Desert", and souinds like camels coming closer and going into the distance, giving the opportunity to use a range of dynamics. This type of thing could be fun.

It does depend on the tone of voice - which we can't tell here - but I don't think his comment sounds particularly rude either!

I've been trying not to respond to this but it's been bothering me. I hope you didn't mean that my post had no validity!!!! Because I could give examples of similar circumstances where children in my clases have been thought "rude" shouting out, ignoring instructions, inappropriate comments and behaviour and it's turned out to be hearing difficulties.

I've also had children acting out because that's their "role" if you like. It's much easier to mess about because that's what's expected of you than break the mould you've been cast in.

Another cause of unexpected changes in behaviour is if something's going on elsewhere in a child's life so they "act out" in unrelated situations.

It may be none of these and your suggestion of recording is (IMO) a good one. However, please don't just dismiss my comments because to your mind they are unlikely. Unlikely doesn't mean impossible. I was only suggesting that the OP consider wider issues as well as the specific one posted about.

(I may not be a private music teacher, but I know about children of this age, being a qualified primary school teacher, having taught children between the ages of 7 and 11. - Incidently puberty starts to hit around 9 or 10 and the hormones involved can in themselves change a child's personality)

For what it's worth I interpreted 'ignoring this comment' to mean ignoring the comment from the student in the OP. Basically I read it as 'putting this student's comment aside, have you tried recording....'

Lucid

This is the sort of thing my 9 year-old daughter says to me (but not to her teacher).

What works with her is to ask her to imagine that someone (or something) else is playing. She loves animals so it nearly always ends up being an animal - in this case it could be a mouse. Often quite spontaneously she will play a "contrasting" animal to "feel" (her word not mine) the different ways of playing something. So in this case she would probably be an elephant and a mouse and possibly play it down in the low octaves for a growly bear. The advantage of being an animal is that it is the animal which is playing quietly and your pupil can carry on being a boy who doesn't like playing quietly.

Another thing I do with her is to make up words to sing along to the pieces and these also help her to play more expressively (although on occasion they have been too funny and she has collapsed into giggles). So in this case you could have one version where the baby gets dropped on the floor and one where the baby gets rocked to sleep.

Ah, Could well be. If that's the case, then it's my misinterpretation and I'm sorry.

No problems I'm glad I clarified though.

I was teaching in a school a few weeks ago, and one of the kids (aged about 9) suddenly said: 'your bag, it looks a bit sad, really...'

My bag is/was a nice black leather bag but it's got a bit old and I tend to keep it full of stuff so it's all bulgy - but -I did feel a bit hurt on behalf of the poor old bag.

I'm all bulgy too because I eat too much

Sad Bulgy Old Bag x

wouldn't that be handy? nice little extra income ... !

did you reply, "no, it just finished eating the last smart-alec pupil i had"?