A piano parent once commented that I’m very unlike their child’s earlier piano teacher because I interact quite often with parents.
This student enrolled in piano lessons with me because he wasn’t practising and had lost interest in learning with his earlier teacher. Began lessons with great enthusiasm. Then practise began to falter. I called the parent in – to attend a lessons once in a way – so we could find a way to get practise going. And it worked!
What was new was the parent’s understanding of what’s going on in piano lessons and the kind of parent support that was needed at home. And my understanding of what really happens at home during piano practise time and how I could guide my student better.
Teacher-Parent Communication With Children & Teen Students
My piano parents get weekly feedback via Teacher – Student Family WhatsApp Groups and Practise Feedback Emoji’s. Recordings of in-lesson playing that will help their child practise better. Parents can sit-in on lessons once in a way or call me. I try to have once in a quarter off-lesson calls with parents who are at work during lesson time – just to be sure that practise at home works easily and that we’re all on the same page with piano lesson goals.
My piano parents tend to be quite clear that they want their child’s learning to be as device-free as possible. So, no practise or aural test apps that will get their child attached to devices.
Do students need parent support to learn in solo piano lessons?
The best way I can talk about this is with examples from my past teaching experiences.
The examples in this post are based on students I’ve taught in the past – many years ago. I’ve deliberately kept all students that I’ve taught in recent years out.
One Example – A Pre-Enrolment Activity
The pre-enrolment interview with my new piano student families includes an exercise on rhythm and pitch. This is just so I learn more about the students aural skills and get an idea of where to start when teaching.
I clap 4 times (with an even rhythm) and ask the student to copy me and gradually adding something new, until I reach the level the student finds challenging.
Quite a few students enrolling with me in Navi Mumbai had difficulties with this. I haven’t had this experience with my students in Andheri West, Mumbai as yet. I learned that it was not uncommon to find students unable to copy the very first 4 claps even after watching a few repetitions. Totally confused at being asked to do so. Needing an explanation of why I needed them to copy me. And then really concentrating while I repeated it again, until they could get it. I had this experience with children, teens and adults.
I found that these students need very high levels of parent support to actually practise correctly. And adults like this just wouldn’t practise. Because they couldn’t follow simple instructions.
Other Reasons Why My Students Might Struggle
These are just a few examples that represent some of the reasons why my students might have struggled to learn.
- Needing someone to listen and enjoy their playing once in a way and having no parent or family member do this.
- Young children who need to focus on technique (Piano posture, HOW to play and use their hands, fingers & arms, etc) and don’t follow teaching instructions on their own.
- Struggles with reading and processing information that haven’t been identified because they’ve been able to get by with rote learning in school.
- No eye check up for years so they’ve been learning without prescription glasses even thought they actually can’t see well enough to read clearly. I learned that quite a few parents just would not get their child a routine eye check and would wait till the struggles in school were really bad and reading and learning issues had time to set in very firmly.
- Struggles with focus that might have been treated as a discipline issue up till now. And not identified and addressed in a way that makes learning easier for these children.
- Students with balance or coordination issues that need to be addressed in order for them to develop healthy piano playing technique.
- Learning music and pieces that they don’t like. I was way beyond the knowledge gaps of my early teaching years by this time and aware of repertoire that students found exciting. Getting parents to invest in music books their children enjoyed was a challenge.
- Students who needed to meet other piano students but couldn’t make it to anything other than their solo lesson because of very tight family schedules. Thankfully this has changed with my current batch of students. They meet each other online regularly and really look forward to our in-studio events.
- Children and teen students with busy lives, daily coaching and other hobby or exercise classes, lots of distractions and access to television and devices. This last applies to almost every student in this age group today. Parent support to schedule daily piano practise and help these students stick to a routine is essential.
I have quite a bit of experience teaching students with reading difficulties and processing issues. My lessons incorporate movement that helps fidgety kids focus and also helps students with balance and coordination issues.
So, it’s often the level of support the piano parent provides with daily practise and whether the parent communicates with the teacher during times there’s struggle at home, that determine whether a young student will practise effectively.
Piano Practise Is Different From Playing
Piano practise is a very structured way of playing. It involves section work as well as playing the full piece. Repetition. Off-the-piano work – some examples are rhythm work, pitch recognition or balance exercises. Different ways of playing that explore moods and textures with articulation, dynamics, tempo and rhythm.
Children and teens left to practise on their own will rarely choose to practise. Instead, they mostly just run through pieces and get a lot of repetition on playing with errors – actually practising how to play wrong. And progress will often be really slow.
How Parent Support Often Starts
The new piano parent often starts out with a life that’s super-busy. And a high level of confidence that their children will practise daily without parent support.
Time passes and the parent realizes that this confidence is misplaced. And then, I notice a willingness and even an interest in providing some level of parent support.
I see piano parents who are invested in piano lessons and who value the joy effective learning brings to their children.
Other posts from The Piano Lesson Diaries here.
anitaelise piano studio 