“He’s been playing the piano all summer. Of course, it’s not the sort of thing you’d give him to play.” So said the mother of a piano student. The student, aged fourteen, has been learning to play for the last six years. He’s always enjoyed his lessons, but it’s only this year that he’s discovered real joy in it.
So what is “the sort of thing you’d give him to play”? In other words, the sort of thing his teacher would choose?
Well, perhaps exam music. Or some wonderful piece of baroque or classical repertoire. Perhaps a technical exercise to develop some weak aspect in his playing. This was the understanding of the boy’s mother. She was well aware that, when she paid the teacher for her son’s music lessons, she expected that teacher to develop the boy’s musicianship, to shower him with exam certificates proclaiming his progress and his achievements, and to promote an understanding of “serious” music.
Did she also expect the teacher to develop in her son a love of playing the piano? I’m sure she did, and I’m sure she was delighted to have heard her boy playing joyously all through the summer holidays. But – she thought the teacher wouldn’t approve. Why not?
Because of the boy’s choice of music.
This student had fallen in love with a popular song and had taught himself to play it.
So the mother’s tone was almost apologetic. Yes, her son had been playing the piano a lot. But, sadly, the music he’d chosen to play was not something the teacher would likely approve of.
Well, the teacher made haste to disabuse her! Of course he was glad the boy had been playing! And the choice of music was just that – a choice. Let the student choose whatever he wanted. Let him have fun! Let him while away the long summer evenings, lost in the delights of music and the fact he could, actually, play it for himself! Make it his own. Play it slower, faster, with his own expression, his own message.
The teacher reassured the mother. This is a splendid outcome! he cried. This is what we wanted all along! The student has discovered he can play. How wonderful is that!
You see, beloved Humoresque readers, music teachers (as I am wont to say) actually want to make themselves redundant. The sole purpose in a music teacher’s music teaching life is to take someone from fluffy dependence (two-day-old chick, unable to stand, squeaking and helpless) to rugged independence (soaring golden eagle, circling mountain crags, sovereign, solitary, and answerable to nothing).
I’m not saying that teaching itself becomes redundant once you can soar into the clear blue sky. The best professional performers still frequently go to a teacher for guidance and feedback. After all, their performance will be heard, assessed and commented on by music critics. But they don’t go to their teacher to learn to play the piece. They can do that all by themselves, and that’s the independence we seek.
It’s true that the boy might have benefited from the teacher’s feedback on his playing of the song he liked. But was it necessary, or even desirable? No, because the boy was just enjoying his music. And that was the teacher’s goal all along: give each student the skill, power and motivation to leave the nest and fly solo.
Whatever you like. Whenever you like. Riding the spine of the mountain. Owning the space between rock and sky.
This is a true story from this summer, when the mother brought the boy to his first piano lesson after the long break.
But it’s a story that was told to me, for I am not the teacher and the boy is not my pupil. I wait in breathless excitement for one of my own pupils to tell me he or she has been “playing the piano all summer. Of course, it’s not the sort of thing you’d give me to play”….
I’d love to know what you think of all this. You can put a comment in the box below this post, or you can email me directly. I read and respond to everything.
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Humoresque = a whimsical or fanciful piece of music. Be whimsical, be fanciful, but play in time!
This is Humoresque Number 19