4 ms·

I had two of the world's worst piano teachers as a young kid. Everything was exactly the boring nonsense in the parent comment. There was honestly more focus on

I had two of the world's worst piano teachers as a young kid. Everything was exactly the boring nonsense in the parent comment. There was honestly more focus on posture than on actually making sound come out of the piano. The songs I had to learn were obscure classical pieces. It was all so horrifically boring, and GOD FORBID if I ever just sat down at the piano and played around, making sound that interested me or trying to replicate something I heard on the radio. That was "unstructured time" on the instrument and was counterproductive to "real" practice. I absolutely hated every single second of it, and finally quit in a huge blowout fight with my mom when I was about 9 years old, and just refused to keep playing. As a teenager, I taught myself to play bass, and spent my 20's playing in bands, working in music, touring and all that good stuff. I still play bass and guitar constantly and I've never had any formal instruction in either instrument, but honestly I really wish I had kept playing the piano. The problem was, the way kids are taught, the same way I was, seems designed to make it as repellent as humanly possible. It would be so easy to make piano interesting, and more importantly, FUN to practice and play, but the old-school approach, making kids play garbage they have no interest in, yelling at them over and over about sitting up straight, is the worst possible way to go about it.

jeremiep 10y ago
That pretty much sums up what I said earlier: your teachers know and understand things you're years away from grasping. They don't put you through all that out of some perverted wish to make you suffer. They do because they know what's at the other end of that practice. I do agree not all teachers are good teachers (if you get yelled at, you DEFINITELY have a mediocre teacher) - teaching is first and foremost about transmitting a passion, then explaining the theory which holds it up. And in order to do so you've got to figure out what your student's interests are.
- xraystyle 10y ago
  But see, that's the point I'm trying to make. Having the benefit of hindsight as someone who actually went on to recording records and regularly playing live in front of paying audiences, my teachers were focused on ENTIRELY the wrong things. You get people interested in the instrument first by giving them a taste of how they can actually play things they like. Let them explore and have fun. Point out problems they might have with technique, but do it within the framework of getting them where THEY want to be, playing what THEY want to play. Don't force focus on theory and reading sheet music. When you're a kid who just wants to play something cool that shit is boring and it sucks. Once you get a handle on the instrument and really get passionate about it the theory end starts to become interesting on its own. Seriously, these teachers didn't know a damn thing I don't know now, and there's a much better way to go about this.
  - jeremiep 10y ago
    Theres probably a better way to go through it, but at some point you HAVE to learn the language. Theory and reading sheet music are incredibly important (more so than most people realize) especially if you'd like to have a large musical repertoire. > You get people interested in the instrument first by giving them a taste of how they can actually play things they like. That can work, but its very dangerous for the student to develop bad habits in doing so - which are then next to impossible to undo to learn the proper method required to play effortlessly. My first year in music school was basically unlearning everything I learned before. Not fun. I saw a lot of people giving up right there. Learning to read and write text is boring and sucks, yet absolutely nobody will argue its useless. Once you realize the world of possibilities knowing how to read/write opens - you forget it was a pain to learn. You're even thankful for the people who forced you to learn it. Everyone learns it, even if only a handful push it all the way to university as their major. Music should be the same, it looks alien to teach theory and posture because its not the norm like teaching how to read is. But when you think about it people saw reading the very same way when only the elite had access to this knowledge. Promoting a culture of anti-intellectualism does nobody a service. > Seriously, these teachers didn't know a damn thing I don't know now I very highly doubt that, simply because its impossible for you to know what they knew, and they most likely knew a whole lot more than they made it seem when teaching you.
    - analog31 10y ago
      I'm a fluent sight reader, and it does figure into the kind of work that I get hired for, even as a part time musician without a music degree. I used to look down on non-readers, but have had to re-think that attitude, simply due to the reality of how music gets played by a lot of people. But the parent is talking about the electric bass, which I also play. There are plenty of successful electric bassists who never read a single dot off a page. A lot of music is performed without having a written bass part, or improvised from abbreviated notations such as chord charts, Nashville numbers, etc. Also, it's hard to get motivated to learn reading, when your preferred genre has no written repertoire. Written charts are used in the studio, but seldom by working bands. A problem with reading is that it's a long learning curve -- especially for adults who already know how to play -- and not much use for it unless you can do it at a fairly advanced level and seek out work that requires it. So, the so called "reader gigs" are covered by a cadre of players who specialize in that kind of work, including myself. As a jazz musician, I live in two worlds. When I play in larger ensembles, or bands that have heavily composed / arranged repertoire, then I do a lot of reading. But when it's a jazz combo playing standards, I don't even bring a music stand.
- fossuser 10y ago
  I suspect there's probably a balance - my Russian trained piano teacher was tough, but also threw a lot of music in front of me. We played easy songs in the beginning eventually building in complexity and a lot of variety with theory mixed in. There was never a strong focus on posture or anything like that. She also didn't believe in using mnemonics to memorize notes - that knowledge would just come from repetition. Though she did hit me pretty hard when I messed up so not sure if that's good or bad.
bjterry 10y ago
Music, language learning and fitness all fall into this category of things that are difficult because they require so much regular investment, are optional in every day life, but anyone could in theory do them. For things like this, the number one factor any teacher or system should be optimizing for is motivation. No matter how important every other goal is, if you don't optimize for motivation people will just never learn. If you can't make it fun, don't even bother trying to teach most people, because only those with a burning passion will make it across that hump where it begins to have a real impact. For examples of this effect in language learning, check out the writings of All Japanese All The Time, and for this in fitness, see Crossfit where the group setting and competitive features provide additional motivation and is wildly successful. Of course, this doesn't ONLY apply to those things. This is also the secret of success for unschooling. As far as I have heard unschooled kids have the effortless joy of learning whatever they want at their own pace end up going much deeper on subjects that are of interest to them, and in the end they end up only 1 grade level behind their peers who went through 12 years of relative suffering.
derefr 10y ago
> The problem was, the way kids are taught, the same way I was, seems designed to make it as repellent as humanly possible. My hypothesis is that the "old-school approach" works for adults but is directly at-odds with teaching children. As an adult human being of average IQ, you can keep "proper posture", note names, etc. all in mind quite easily as you learn, such that it then needs relatively little reinforcement and you can quickly get to playing music. As a child, focusing on one thing makes you instantly revert to your "natural behaviour" in every other respect. You can pose, or put your hands on the right keys, but you don't have enough executive control to keep track of both. The simple solution: stop trying to teach kids piano; start trying to teach adults piano (and encouraging adults to learn piano.)
unsignedint 10y ago
This reminds me of my elementary school years. This was in school in Japan I had to learn recorder. I sucked at it for first three years or so, felt that classroom instruction took me nowhere getting good at it. There was a student who was good at piano routinely played after the class was over. For some reason, five others, including myself joined and started playing their recorder to that music, every time after the music class. In couple of months, I was one of the best recorder players in the class. From that experience I feel having fun is very important, and so is repetition. But also seemingfully boring practice session in class probably helped setting foundation as well. Some pain in learning process is not probably unavoidable and could even be beneficial but then it's very hard to keep yourself motivated enough to continue when it's not compulsory.

jeremiep 10y ago

That pretty much sums up what I said earlier: your teachers know and understand things you're years away from grasping. They don't put you through all that out of some perverted wish to make you suffer. They do because they know what's at the other end of that practice. I do agree not all teachers are good teachers (if you get yelled at, you DEFINITELY have a mediocre teacher) - teaching is first and foremost about transmitting a passion, then explaining the theory which holds it up. And in order to do so you've got to figure out what your student's interests are.

xraystyle 10y ago
But see, that's the point I'm trying to make. Having the benefit of hindsight as someone who actually went on to recording records and regularly playing live in front of paying audiences, my teachers were focused on ENTIRELY the wrong things. You get people interested in the instrument first by giving them a taste of how they can actually play things they like. Let them explore and have fun. Point out problems they might have with technique, but do it within the framework of getting them where THEY want to be, playing what THEY want to play. Don't force focus on theory and reading sheet music. When you're a kid who just wants to play something cool that shit is boring and it sucks. Once you get a handle on the instrument and really get passionate about it the theory end starts to become interesting on its own. Seriously, these teachers didn't know a damn thing I don't know now, and there's a much better way to go about this.
- jeremiep 10y ago
  Theres probably a better way to go through it, but at some point you HAVE to learn the language. Theory and reading sheet music are incredibly important (more so than most people realize) especially if you'd like to have a large musical repertoire. > You get people interested in the instrument first by giving them a taste of how they can actually play things they like. That can work, but its very dangerous for the student to develop bad habits in doing so - which are then next to impossible to undo to learn the proper method required to play effortlessly. My first year in music school was basically unlearning everything I learned before. Not fun. I saw a lot of people giving up right there. Learning to read and write text is boring and sucks, yet absolutely nobody will argue its useless. Once you realize the world of possibilities knowing how to read/write opens - you forget it was a pain to learn. You're even thankful for the people who forced you to learn it. Everyone learns it, even if only a handful push it all the way to university as their major. Music should be the same, it looks alien to teach theory and posture because its not the norm like teaching how to read is. But when you think about it people saw reading the very same way when only the elite had access to this knowledge. Promoting a culture of anti-intellectualism does nobody a service. > Seriously, these teachers didn't know a damn thing I don't know now I very highly doubt that, simply because its impossible for you to know what they knew, and they most likely knew a whole lot more than they made it seem when teaching you.
  - analog31 10y ago
    I'm a fluent sight reader, and it does figure into the kind of work that I get hired for, even as a part time musician without a music degree. I used to look down on non-readers, but have had to re-think that attitude, simply due to the reality of how music gets played by a lot of people. But the parent is talking about the electric bass, which I also play. There are plenty of successful electric bassists who never read a single dot off a page. A lot of music is performed without having a written bass part, or improvised from abbreviated notations such as chord charts, Nashville numbers, etc. Also, it's hard to get motivated to learn reading, when your preferred genre has no written repertoire. Written charts are used in the studio, but seldom by working bands. A problem with reading is that it's a long learning curve -- especially for adults who already know how to play -- and not much use for it unless you can do it at a fairly advanced level and seek out work that requires it. So, the so called "reader gigs" are covered by a cadre of players who specialize in that kind of work, including myself. As a jazz musician, I live in two worlds. When I play in larger ensembles, or bands that have heavily composed / arranged repertoire, then I do a lot of reading. But when it's a jazz combo playing standards, I don't even bring a music stand.
fossuser 10y ago
I suspect there's probably a balance - my Russian trained piano teacher was tough, but also threw a lot of music in front of me. We played easy songs in the beginning eventually building in complexity and a lot of variety with theory mixed in. There was never a strong focus on posture or anything like that. She also didn't believe in using mnemonics to memorize notes - that knowledge would just come from repetition. Though she did hit me pretty hard when I messed up so not sure if that's good or bad.

bjterry 10y ago

Music, language learning and fitness all fall into this category of things that are difficult because they require so much regular investment, are optional in every day life, but anyone could in theory do them. For things like this, the number one factor any teacher or system should be optimizing for is motivation. No matter how important every other goal is, if you don't optimize for motivation people will just never learn. If you can't make it fun, don't even bother trying to teach most people, because only those with a burning passion will make it across that hump where it begins to have a real impact. For examples of this effect in language learning, check out the writings of All Japanese All The Time, and for this in fitness, see Crossfit where the group setting and competitive features provide additional motivation and is wildly successful. Of course, this doesn't ONLY apply to those things. This is also the secret of success for unschooling. As far as I have heard unschooled kids have the effortless joy of learning whatever they want at their own pace end up going much deeper on subjects that are of interest to them, and in the end they end up only 1 grade level behind their peers who went through 12 years of relative suffering.

derefr 10y ago

> The problem was, the way kids are taught, the same way I was, seems designed to make it as repellent as humanly possible. My hypothesis is that the "old-school approach" works for adults but is directly at-odds with teaching children. As an adult human being of average IQ, you can keep "proper posture", note names, etc. all in mind quite easily as you learn, such that it then needs relatively little reinforcement and you can quickly get to playing music. As a child, focusing on one thing makes you instantly revert to your "natural behaviour" in every other respect. You can pose, or put your hands on the right keys, but you don't have enough executive control to keep track of both. The simple solution: stop trying to teach kids piano; start trying to teach adults piano (and encouraging adults to learn piano.)

unsignedint 10y ago

This reminds me of my elementary school years. This was in school in Japan I had to learn recorder. I sucked at it for first three years or so, felt that classroom instruction took me nowhere getting good at it. There was a student who was good at piano routinely played after the class was over. For some reason, five others, including myself joined and started playing their recorder to that music, every time after the music class. In couple of months, I was one of the best recorder players in the class. From that experience I feel having fun is very important, and so is repetition. But also seemingfully boring practice session in class probably helped setting foundation as well. Some pain in learning process is not probably unavoidable and could even be beneficial but then it's very hard to keep yourself motivated enough to continue when it's not compulsory.