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I Want Piano
Lessons to be Fun
by
Rebecca Martin
Many
times a new, prospective parent calling me about
piano lessons for their child will make the
statement “I just want the lessons to be fun.” I
have an immediate reaction. “Oh, no, here we go
again. Do they have ANY idea what this is all about?
Do they know what DEDICATION and STAMINA this
takes?! This isn’t FUN! This is honest to goodness
HARD WORK!” All kidding aside (am I kidding?) piano
lessons can be fun but it takes some creative
thinking on the part of the teacher to keep it
happening.
Eighteen years ago when I first switched my studio
from “traditional” to “Suzuki” I was immediately
impressed by the free exchange of information
offered by veteran Suzuki instructors. I was
actually invited and welcomed to come and watch
teachers teach at no charge.
 I found this amazing
and refreshing. I had finally found a musical
community helping each other toward the common goal
of instructing children in the art of playing the
piano. I have assimilated many ideas both from other
teachers and myself to share in this article. I
enjoy reading inspirational, philosophical articles
about teaching but I want those balanced with down
to earth, practical ideas to use in my studio. The
following are some events and ideas I use in my
teaching to keep it FUN.
Piano Lessons can be scary!
If you
ask my students, they may say the number one fun
thing we do is the Halloween Recital. Every year, we
dress up (teacher, too) in scary or funny costumes
and play Halloween music. The selections range from
original compositions to “serious” classical pieces
(for example: Chopin Prelude #20). The high school
students enjoy it as much as the younger students.
The parents have the option of dressing up, too, and
many do. Some of my costumes have included a witch,
a cheerleader, a football player, a skater dude, and
a disco queen.
Piano Lessons can be festive!
I
encourage parents to play duets with their children
on our holiday recital in December. Often, I will
pair a young student with a teen if neither of the
parents plays piano. It’s a great opportunity to
create a nice relationship with older and younger
children. I also encourage other instrumentalists
and vocalists to perform on this recital. Last year
one of my high school students accompanied a choir
friend singing Joni Mitchell’s Blue. It was a very
nostalgic moment for some of us baby boomers. I have
had parents of graduated seniors tell me this is the
recital they miss the most.
Piano lessons can be summerific!
In the
summer, we have the Summer Sight Reading Challenge.
Each student has a specific number of pages they
must complete by September in order to pick a prize
from a basket I have in the studio. Students are
encouraged to surpass their goal. I have a lot of
fun shopping for the prizes. They can include
everything from nail polish to Hot Wheels. I believe
the most pages completed in a summer were 1,089!
This summer, I also started a Summer Scale
Challenge. Being a competitive runner myself, always
striving for a personal best, I decided it would be
a great idea for the students to keep track of their
personal bests in scales on a weekly basis, measured
by the metronome. Just like the Olympics, students
would always retain their personal best even if they
could not duplicate or better it during the
following lesson. It was inspiring and exciting to
see the progress week to week.
Piano lessons can be informative!
This
year, I started a monthly newsletter in the studio
to recognize my students’ involvement in musical
activities outside of piano lessons. It has been
particularly informative for parents of young
students. They are now finding out about summer
music camps and Suzuki Institutes, middle school
musicals, high school opportunities for band and
orchestra, choral productions, jazz bands, which
students play a second or third instrument, and ways
that my high school students are earning money
playing and/or coaching professionally. It is a
great “networking” tool. I provide a legal pad each
month where students can record their activities. I
have also included information about what I am doing
musically outside of teaching.
Piano lessons can generate hand me downs!
When
my son was in elementary and middle school, it
seemed he only got to wear his recital clothes one
or two times before I had to buy the next bigger
size. I decided to start a recital clothes recycling
idea. Everything is free for the taking. In the
three years I have been doing it, there have been
many white shirts, black pants, black shoes and
beautiful recital dresses passing through!
Piano lessons can be improvisational!
Probably my students would say the second most fun
thing we do is the monthly Theory/Improvisation
class. My students love to be with their group and
they like the relief of no private lesson during
this week. We do traditional theory exercises as
well as games and jazz/rock/blues improvisation. I
routinely set up several keyboards in my basement so
we can play together. This month we were jamming on
the Blues Brother’s version of Booker T and the M
G’s Green Onions. I have sometimes set up a keyboard
down the street at a neighbor’s house to jam with a
drummer. I will take a whole class (4-9) of students
down to play. I have new college students living
next door who constantly practice with their band. I
plan to take my classes there, as well. This time we
will also have a bass player! Sometimes, if the
theory class is scheduled around dinnertime or I am
running a late ensemble rehearsal I will surprise
the participants with a pizza. You can get lots more
accomplished if your musicians are not starving.
Piano lessons can inspire interest in other music!
I have
had three recitals where students performed music by
only one composer. Each student shared a fact about
the composer before performing his or her chosen
piece. We have done Schubert, Chopin, and Bach. A
parent recorded the Bach recital and we all got CD’s
of the performance. At each recital, I presented
students with a small bust of the composer.
I
really believe in ensemble playing for piano
students. Practicing piano is a lonely endeavor. If
you have other students to play with, it becomes
more of a social event. All of my students can
participate in duet playing. We also perform piano
trios, duos, quartets, and participate in a monster
concert involving 12 grand pianos.
Often,
parents wanting to start a listening library will
ask me if I could provide them with a list of
recordings to buy. This task has always seemed
daunting to me. Instead of spending hours compiling
the list, I decided to offer an album of the week
coupled with a musical quote of the week. I post the
information on my bulletin board on brightly colored
paper. The musical selections include classical,
jazz, blues, and rock. I have had so much fun
reflecting on albums special to me. In some cases, I
have had them for so long, I have to make sure they
are now available on CD. I have enough favorites to
keep this going for years! If you type in “Musical
Quotes” on the Google search engine, you will find
many, many websites with legally reproducible
quotes. My quote for this week is “Country music is
3 chords and the truth”…Harlan Howard. They range
from the reflective, “Music is what feelings sound
like”…unknown, to the silly, “All the good music has
already been written by people with wigs and
stuff”…Frank Zappa. Great Fun!
Piano lessons can be documented for fun!
Each
of my students presents a Suzuki Book Recital at
their home when they have completed a book. It’s a
fun party complete with refreshments. Early on in my
Suzuki career, I decided to save every book recital
program from my studio. I purchased a small
portfolio with clear sleeves to display them. I
recently purchased the fourth volume to make room
for the 149th entry! My seniors can flip through and
see their Book One program that they may have
handwritten and illustrated. I also have five or six
photo albums filled with student pictures from
recitals, competitions, festivals, theory classes,
etc. While waiting for their lesson, students love
to look in these albums. When my seniors graduate, I
enlarge several pictures from this collection and
display them at the last recital.
So,
can piano lessons be fun???
I
think they can be if we break up the routine of the
day-to-day practice sessions with interesting and
amusing things to do. Challenge yourself to come up
with one new idea a year. Keep it fresh, keep it
changing, keep it creative, and keep growing, as a
teacher and musician, and it will be FUN!
(I
would love to hear what makes it FUN in your studio.
Please email me at generalmail@rebnotz.com. I look forward
to hearing from you!)
Rebecca Martin maintains a very active Suzuki Piano
Studio in Boulder, Co. In addition to the Suzuki
repertoire, she enjoys teaching jazz, rock, and
blues. She currently performs with Lois LaFond and
the Rockadiles and Pandaemonium and is recording her
first CD of original piano music. She is an
instructor at several summer institutes.
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