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Wrong species.

Fish have scales, dogs have fur.

The same works for groups of kids in the classroom. They stop being curious in the subject and wanting to learn, and go after the rewards and feel like failures if they can't reach the bar. Reversing that is a monumental task. People aren't dogs.

The kids I work with do not make progress for long unless the reward for the time they put in enables them to play music that makes them feel proud of themselves.

I think delayed gratification is over-rated. There are rare individuals who will set a nearly impossible goal then work to accomplish - even if it takes years - but in my experience that is rather unusual.

"...They stop being curious in the subject and wanting to learn, and go after the rewards and feel like failures if they can't reach the bar..."

They are failures--- what is your point?

No doubt, any one motivational technique has its limitations, and it would be a very poor teacher who gave up after half a weenie. Food rewards only help overcome inertia, and establish momentum (with dogs). It is a big step toward learning good habits, but hardly the journey of a thousand miles--- it takes a teacher and an exemplar to get as far as that.

Anyway, even in this meager example, there are many elaborations, found to be effective in experiments by behavioral scientists. Well, grad students. I'll tell you one thing, though: you can house-train a basenji puppy in three days this way. Three days. Of course, one also has to anticipate their needs by taking them out sufficiently, praise their success and smartness, never strike or yell at them (never!), and associate the reward with something that will always happen, and that they love: going for a walk. And remember that they will never do anything that is contrary to their nature.

A cracker once in a while will get the sleepiest or laziest dog to the door, and it's good for their teeth. But even dogs get bored, and the same thing does not work forever. Anyway, I am not saying to feed dog crackers to piano students.

Stimulus/reward is like falling through a trapdoor. Once one falls through by learning the task, the task is learned and there's no falling back up. Yes, it is a trap, but I'm not above it.

Feel free to interrupt anywhere you find that the above is not applicable to the way a kid behaves. Those who still scoff would do well to consider the slot machine.


PS:
"...I noticed that Jonathan Baker offered an advice to promptly dismiss colleagues who have a different teaching method. I also noticed that nobody objected. Does it mean everybody here agree with Jonathan?"

Yes, completely. His last post was completely agreeable to my personal experience, the discussion was complete, and it was beautifully stated. I think there are quite a few who would do well to take it to heart. Since you asked.

I'm writing from my teaching experience, both in the classroom and privately. A lot of these kids actually mastered the subject but had been persuaded otherwise because of that system. You have written a lot about dogs. Can you share what you have found in teaching - whether privately or publicly, in music or outside music is immaterial.

Good for you! But the reason we are discussing this topic here, as I understand it, is not because the OP's daughter was deprived of opportunity to get familiar with basic rudiments and to flip some triads. We are talking scales because 9 year old student needs to study all major scales to play fluently and hands together on short notice. Unless the student is a little genius I doubt that 5-10 minutes a lesson would make it.

I learned from my experience that nobody is perfect including of course myself. The best of us are wrong as often as 40% of the time. Good example, probably, would be forecasts of our famous economists. Because of the above I would shy away from the advice given by overconfident, self-righteous, know-it-all people. It is not that they know everything. They are simply unaware about their own limitations.

The teacher after all is not all that bad as some self proclaimed gurus are suggesting. So, if I was the original poster, I would give the teacher the benefit of doubt.

The cavalier attitude in suggesting to dismiss the teacher based on mere short post, without getting sufficient information and solely based on teacher's approach to studying scales I, as a teacher myself and as a colleague of the teacher of OP's daughter, consider as completely inappropriate, unprofessional and unethical. I would be ashamed to offer such a superficial and ill-thought-out advice.

Come on chaps ... we play up scales to

find the most dextrous THUMB FOLD
in negotiating 7 white and 5 black keys.

RH scale playing (dot for thumb fold)

C major
1 2 3.1 2 3 4 5

C#major
1 2 3 4.1 2 3 4 (quite a stretch)

etc.

Whaat? Is that really the fingering you use for C#? No wonder you find it a stretch.

balalaika -

How do you expect a student to become familiar with a variety of Seventh chords if they do not have an easy and handy familiarity with common scales? How could anyone begin to get a grip on even a tiny slice of the vast panorama of jazz at the piano (in this case) without a familiarity with both? I do not think you can, or want, to address such practical skill-building.

There are many ways of being a musician-pianist. Not everyone spends all their days wallowing in the voluptuous hallucinations of a Skryabin Vers la flame. Some may be working with an orchestra, whether classical or broadway, or they may work in a church or synagogue, or they may be a collaborative pianist with singers and instrumentalists, or work in a nightclub, and so forth. I cannot know for certain which roads my students will ultimately travel, but I do require of myself that I give them the foundation of practical skills that will allow them to move with relative ease into any of these avenues.

I cannot recommend a piano teacher who is dismissive of practical skills such as scales / that lead into chords / that lead into harmonic progressions, much less recommend a teacher who is in a burlesque rage against them. I did not say such teachers should be publicly executed (LOL) nor would I publicly name them, but I will silently skip over them and recommend someone else when consulted on the matter.

My focus is on providing a thorough music education for students, not personal 'job protection' for lazy teachers.

Your tumultuous frustration bordering on hysteria, and volcanic rage, have little or nothing to do with what I have written. I wish you the best of luck, and I will leave you to yourself. Ciao.

JB

Wow! Tumultuous frustration... Hysteria... volcanic rage...
Sounds a bit impolite... Thank you for your kindness though.

This is really has nothing to do with what I have written.

Is this how you show your respect to your colleagues?
Having nothing to say about the message then let's say something kind about the messenger! That is a well known strategy...
I am not wishing you luck.
Bye, smartie.

The student is however nine years old. The teacher who knows her well may be making decisions based on what she thinks a very young student needs at this point in her development. She may be right or wrong, but she isn't necessarily incompetent.

Hello Tim,

In the first post the teacher in question opined that familiarity with scales, regardless of age, was a "waste of time" and "did not understand why" such an "odd" request was made.

When improvising, it is exceedingly handy, to put it mildly, to have working knowledge of the circle fifths if, for instance, one wishes to create a sequence as a bridge to another section. That common musical device is an invaluable skill endlessly exploited by great improvisors from Bach to Chopin to Brubeck.

I think it is reasonable and very much within the ability of any piano teacher to have sufficient breadth of culture to grasp that simple fact. If the goal is nothing much more than the one trillionth recitation of Fur Elise, then the current teacher is fine.

Classics get played. Some say too much. But I never hear anyone suggest taking "To Kill a Mockingbird" off school reading lists (yet perhaps teachers tire of this one too).

I hate to say this but:
"Why was 'To Kill a Mockingbird' banned from schools?"

Elise's Fur, now there's an interesting side bar. I had a student perform this for Auditions this year, with the caveat that she could only play it if she actually mastered it and played it reasonably correctly. Then I apologized to the judge for allowing her to play it on the program, only to be told by the judge that this was the first time in decades that she'd actually heard it played correctly, and it was actually a pleasure hearing it. It's actually an amazing Bagatelle if played correctly.

I've just noticed that Mr. Baker after submitting his post, saying his Ciao and receiving my reply promptly went back and edited his post. The note that his post was edited he conveniently removed though.
Now my reply on his post looks kind of irrelevant. Mr. Baker's original post is fully quoted within my reply.

I will decide later whether I should or should not reply.

Hi Keystring,

I definitely picked the wrong example. It is disappointing to see this book has been banned.

Yes, in a kind of backward way, the fact of its banning also makes your point.

I must confess that it was only through teaching Fur Elise that I really came to admire it. In fact, the Bagatelles now astonish me. The man knew how to write.

I decided to address the part of the post that Mr. Baker sneaked in after receiving my reply.


Need to study chords, sequences, modulations and circle of keys - good course of keyboard harmony will make it for you. All that has very little to do with the subject of studying scales as we know it.

It is all just smoke and mirrors - a voluminous idle talk away from the subject of the discussion combined with furious personal attacks on those who dare to disagree.