Semi-unschooling piano

[musicianmom]

Piano has really been a struggle for the last several months. I remember this time last year, dd was really on a roll and progressing rapidly, but she has just hit a wall and is resisting practice, etc. Quitting is not an acceptable option. Tonight she's been playing the piano for fun, just easy stuff that she learned at 5 and 6, but she's been at it for close to an hour!

 

So, I'm thinking of leaving piano on her to-do list each day, but telling her to set a timer and play whatever she wants for "practice" time. Maybe it would re-kindle her enjoyment of playing and motivate her to get started on really learning again.

 

Has anyone had a similar experience?

[Mandy in TN]

My son and I went to a dress rehearsal and question and answer session with pianist Joyce Yang. She explained how her aunt taught her to play. Her parents bought her a white upright and put it in the living room. She said she loved that it was white, because she had never seen a white upright. She was not encouraged to practice. As a matter of fact, she wasn't supposed to touch the piano. It was her reward at the end of the day. She said that of course she would "sneak" in and play. She loved her aunt and when her aunt came to give the lesson Joyce wanted to impress her with how well she knew the music. :-) However, when she was little, her parents didn't initially think that piano playing was going to be her future. Her parents are both scientists in South Korea.

 

Anyway, three things. One- maybe you can listen to pieces in the car. Play it yourself and then just, umm, you know happen to leave the music sitting out. It's not exactly the same as using piano for an end of the day reward, but it could be a sort of stealth introduction to new music. And two- I like placing it on the check list with a timer and backing off to help her rekindle her interest. Three- Joyce Yang's aunt still teaches piano and is in the process of putting her method together into practice books. Joyce was going over soon to record the music for the books. I wonder when those will be available in the US?

 

HTH-

Mandy

[LindaOz]

I'm a piano teacher in that other people pay me to teach them.  My own kids are pretty much 'unschooling' piano.  I started them off and taught them the basics but now they are off and racing on their own.  I rarely give them lessons.  They mostly choose their own music and actively search out things they want to play.  Their enjoyment of their music is intact through this method, I believe. 

 

I think you're onto a good thing with your dd.  Let her go for awhile doing her own thing and playing what she chooses.  Every now and then find a suitable piece of music that she might like to play and go through it with her.  There are some great places online to find all sorts of piano music.  www.musicnotes.com is just one of them.  You could end up with a real music-loving kid on your hands :-)

[PeterPan]

My mom NEVER had to "make" me practice the way I've heard people doing.  My dd struggled with piano, and the more we tried to enforce the worse it went.  After a hiatus of a couple years, she's back at it all on her own recently, spending quite a bit of time.  I think that's how real learning occurs.  Sure a good teacher can help when the student is ready or has those questions.  I think there's something though to leaving them to do it to themselves.  Either they want it or they don't.

[mathnerd]

Did you consider providing enrichment material for your DD in addition to the piano curriculum you have? My son is very excited to learn a lot of his favorite tunes on his own time and this is on top of the daily practice. I go on amazon periodically and get him fun music sheets like Star Wars, Harry Potter and Disney movies. I also get him DVDs about composers to watch periodically. They seem to spark his interest a lot.

[Nan in Mass]

We sort of did this. Our son was definately musical and took piano lessons when he was small. When he was older and quit practicing and didn't want to take lessons, I scheduled time in his day to play piano, anything he wanted. He played around by ear and had fun improvising and forgot how to read music and hit a wall because he wanted to be able to play things that were too hard to play without doing any sort of excersizes. Just about what you would expect. Then he started community college classes in 11th grade and didn't have time. We were very sad but kept telling ourselves that he had the foundation and could go back to it later if he wanted to. This fall, he started engineering school at one of the geeky-techy colleges. It has a rather hefty liberal arts requirement, for an engineering school. He has to pick an area of liberal arts to focus on. And guess what? He signed up for Intro to Music, to help him remember how to read music again, and has his eye on Fund 1 + 2 and Jazz! He wants to relearn how to sing. He discovered the pianos in practice rooms in the basement of the music building and figured out how to prop open a door so he can get in late at night an play to relax a bit before bed. He asked us to send all his piano books and to order some new music books for him. We are holding our breaths and hoping this lasts. He may not have the time and energy as he moves through his engineering degree, but he might also find that if he can struggle back through the basics now and to the point where he has some things he can play and something not too demanding that he is working on, he can use piano as a refreshing break and much needed emotional outlet. Even getting through this one class will be good, since he has to learn a piece and analyze it for the class. If he quits after that, the next time he decides to pick up piano (and I'm pretty sure now he will), it will have been a much shorter gap.

 

At some point, all musicians have to switch to unschooling music. I think the trick might be to not to let go of your children so soon that they can't really do anything. For this reason, I am a big believer in memorizing some not too hard pieces that you adore and in learning to sight-read. Then you can sit down and play (as in have fun) at the piano, not just work at practicing. Like so many skill-oriented things, music is much more fun when you are good at it. You somehow have to get good at it without getting to hate while working through the boring bits. I like your idea. I think, though, that you might want to label this a "break" in lessons rather than an end of lessons? Maybe?

 

Nan