Hi

Do any teachers have any problems with their pupils looking ahead at the music and it holding them back in their playing of the piano. How do you deal with it?

Thanks

Not sure I understand your question - do you mean looking ahead when reading, which seems to me to be an admirable habit, and one that I would hope to encourage - or looking ahead to the end of the book when they are only at the beginning? (Always tempting, but hardly a major crime.)

Please elucidate!

If you mean playing pieces further on in the book, when they haven't mastered or sometimes even grasped the technique in the one we're dong, then yes I have experienced it!

I have a student in his late 20s/early 30s who does this every lesson! And then he sometimes says "oh, I didn't look at these pieces at all because I was concentrating on this one that looked really exciting, so I can't play the others" - well can you play the one you've been playing all week thats at the back of the book? "no cos it's really really hard!"

I addressed the situation after a few lessons by explaining that whilst we play enjoyable pieces as well, we also play some pieces so he can learn a particular aspect of technique, etc. I told him that he can go on to play harder things if he wants, but I'm not going to listen to the pieces he's chosen by himself until he can play everything that we are working on in the lesson. That means that he has to practice what I've given him, because otherwise he would turn up at the lesson with nothing to play and would go backward - which he did when I first confronted him with this - we spent the entire lessons going over what we had done the last lesson, but which he hadn't even glanced at during the week. The lesson after that, he came and had practiced everything and had made progress, so I said I would listen to the other pieces he'd been practising that I hadn't chosen. Its working so far!

He is my most extreme culprit, but I have others who follow a similar theme and the trick I find is to keep the pieces more varied for them than I usually do. I tend to use a book of pieces that are slightly too easy for them, alongside the "tutor book" (or whatever big/exam piece we're working on). This means that we run through these pieces quite quickly and they feel achievement - which is true, as it helps with their reading skills and as the notes are relatively simple for them, things like dynamics and articulation can be focused on more.

Sorry; I meant looking ahead in the music when reading and playing. Instead the pupils are just playing the notes they are on and not looking ahead to see what is coming next so the music can flow and good sight-reading can develop.

Try letting him look at one short phrase, or just a few notes of the melody, without playing it, and then ask him to play it without looking at the printed music. The same for one or two chords. This may encourage him to understand that he does not need to be looking at the notes on the page while he plays them, but will gradually gain the skill to let his mind take in the next bar ready to play that, again without looking at the notes he is playing. Some teachers think it is necessary to know the letter names as one goes along in order to sight-read. This of course means a terribly slow pace, and adds a whole new dimension un-necessarily.It cannot make for a flow of sound, not to mention taking in cresc.. dim. etc. Good luck! Busylizzie.

Oh, I see - you meant you had a problem with students not looking ahead. Much depends on the age and level of the student - obviously it develops with time and experience. Try reading something aloud in a language with which you're only partially familiar, and see how far you look ahead.

One thing you can try is to get them to memorise bar 1, then get them to play it while you are covering it up with a ruler or similar, while they are hopefully looking ahead at bar 2. Which you then cover up, etc.Like most skills, it kicks in over time.