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December 11, 2003
TT: Battlefield dispatch
A reader writes:I thought I might as well add my comments about the opening of minds to symphonic music and your reader's observation about instrumental lessons being a crucial but missing element in American schooling.
As a former full-time piano teacher and a present part-time piano teacher, I can vouch for the fact that many parents provide private piano lessons for their sometimes unwilling children. Most study for a year or two until they nag their parents to let them quit. Sometimes I wonder if they find the lessons uninteresting, not fun, or not informative. A large majority of parents tell me that they have to fight with their children to get them to practice and they soon tire of the frustration.
Who or what is to blame for this sorry state of affairs--teachers, parents, television, computers, technology games, too much homework, too much participation in sports? I certainly do not have the answer for you. But I can tell you that achievement at the keyboard by beginning students varies from dreadful to excellent. If I can produce one proficient student, why can't I reach all of them? Am I competing with too many other distractions for the attention of the very young? Somehow the Twinkle Variations for beginners seem quite quaint in this age of technology. Few are willing to invest time and effort in learning to play the piano, and it grieves me that I may be causing some students to actually "dislike" music by asking them to "think."
This is the piano teacher's dilemma. Should I actually expect my students to advance satisfactorily as in regular school, or do I just let them fool around until they convince their parents to let them quit? I know that the students who get the most out of piano lessons are the ones who stay the course. There are various reasons why parents want their children to study piano--some for the discipline required, some for the therapy music may provide, and some for the joy of being able to play.
I still remember one young student who told his mother that I didn't care whether or not he practiced his assigned pieces or how many mistakes he made. I was shocked to hear this, because nothing could be further from the truth. My hope is that each student will take "something" away from the lessons whatever the length of time studied. Finding a way to reach each child is a spectacular challenge, but I'll never stop trying as long as I am still breathing.
But are these piano lessons actually leading any of my students to become candidates for concert attendance or love of classical music? I don't know the answer to that question either. It seems to me that the students who reach excellence at the keyboard are the ones who were genuinely interested in music and the piano and who had the idea of piano lessons germinate in their consciousness with or without encouragement by their parents. I assume that these students would become lovers of music even if they had never taken piano lessons.
Music does not give up its secrets easily, but that is part of the magic! Those of us who are in love with symphonic and instrumental music will never stop trying to inspire that love in others. But apparently your reader thinks we have already failed.
I, too, wonder whether anyone who is forced to study piano (or any other instrument) gets anything out of it beyond grief and exasperation. I've always wondered whether there's a better way to nudge children in the direction of dabbling in music. My own case is so uncharacteristic as to shed no light on the larger question: I started taking piano lessons in high school, after I'd already spent three or four years studying violin and teaching myself how to play bass and guitar. I did it because I wanted to, not at my parents' behest. The drive came from within.
Presumably I would have developed a serious interest in music even if I hadn't studied it as a boy. Or maybe not. Either way, I have no doubt whatsoever that I owe much of my aesthetic life--first as a performer, now as a writer--to Richard Powell and Gordon Beaver, the men who taught me how to play (respectively) violin and piano. Yes, I found the door, but they held it open it for me, and I bless them for having done so. What's more, I think it's a pretty safe bet that my correspondent has done the same thing for dozens, perhaps hundreds of children. I hope I succeed in doing even one thing in my life that matters half as much.
Posted December 11, 2003 12:00 PM
