Ways of helping to stimulate the interest of a pupil who finds the repetitive as pects of practice boring

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Everything About Teaching and Learning the Piano : One Thread

Will you please suggest ways of helping to stimulate the interest of a pupil who finds the repetitive aspects of practice boring.

-- Audrey Heesong (audreyanna@intnet.mu), January 25, 2002

Answers

Audrey, From the beginning I explain to students that each piece is a chance to learn many things about piano playing. So, for example, your bored student could: play the right hand part with the left hand, left hand part with the right, use both hands to play the right hand notes an octave apart, same for the left hand part, play the melody and harmonize an alto part (singing and on the piano), sing left hand while playing right hand, tap left hand part on thigh while playing right hand part, play the piece in different keys, play trills on every quarter note, if piece is in the major then play it in the minor, and so on. If a student has done this kind of varied work throughout the study of a piece, and even begins to create his own “exercises,” he will eventually learn to think musically and will be able to learn pieces by exploring through the use of his own variations, without doing the same boring thing over and over. I find this kind of work really accelerates a student’s becoming musical, rather than just playing so many pieces in a method book every week. It is true that the student will learn fewer pieces, especially at the beginning, but the rewards later on are worth the time spent on musical variety at the beginning.

-- Alan (Noname_Poster@yahoo.com), January 30, 2002.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ