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I don't blame you at all. I sit in on both of my kid's lessons and their progress has been much more steady because of it. I never interfere or speak. I just sit in and take notes. My kids are newly 9 and 12. I would ask, but of course the teacher can say no. This might be a breaking point for me as a paying parent unless my kid was super ready and wanted to be 100% independent. I am JUST like you - right brained and not a tiger parent at all. Although, people tend to paint me a tiger parents because my kids have progressed so well.

Interesting observation.

Easy labels can sometimes tell us as much about the feelings, attitudes -- and possibly the insecurities -- of the people using the labels as they do about the people labeled.

+10 could not agree more.

Great news, she is willing to allow me to sit in on all three lessons!



I need a friend like you in my life!! Based on your signature, we have even more in common because not only do all three kids play piano, but they also play violin. I NEVER set out to be where we are. The violin was an attempt to get my girls on different instruments when the middle child was really struggling and ready to give up on piano. I read a book that suggested for some children, the violin can be a better starting instrument. The logic given resonated with me since I never enjoyed piano but took really well to the flute.

Somewhere the plans happily backfired and here we are several years later with three kids progressing quite well on both instruments. My oldest *really* wants to add harp and my youngest still plays his trumpet when the feeling strikes him.

Can I take a tangent and pick your (and anyone else who cares to give their 2 cents) brain about this?

I believe that his current teacher would tell you that he comes to lessons prepared. That said, what would you do with a student doing these sorts of things in time spent at the piano (self-initiated) well beyond practice time?

-playing a his own arrangement of Humoresque by Dvorak from Suzuki violin, book 3 (which he is not yet playing in), adding his own chords as he plays the melody. THEN, immediately playing it in a new key when challenged to see if he could do it.

-fiercely determined to play Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto since attending the Cliburn auditions and listening to a Van Cliburn CD. He initially began playing it in a key that was a bit easier for him, but has now worked it into the correct key (I think). He only has about 3-5 minutes figured out (and modified I am sure, but to my untrained ears it sounds pretty darn close for a kid playing it by ear).

This is just a small sampling. We give him great leeway to modify, arrange and improvise all he wants as long as he first can play the song well as written.

Thanks for the great greeting! I'm glad I saw this post!

I'm glad the teacher came around and I hope the arrangement works out well! My oldest does piano and my younger does violin. Actually both my kids do Suzuki, although my piano kid is book 7 (last book) and is doing most of his work outside that repertoire, does tons of scales, reading, etc. The only piece of his lesson that looks like Suzuki really is me sitting in and taking notes! My 9 year old violin kid is in book 4. She also picked up Humoresque early! Her teacher allowed her to learn it as her first book 3 piece.

My 12 year old son recently started voice lessons. I was all game to let him go on his own but he especially requested I sit in just to take notes and help him practice. I could tell the teacher was not in love with it the first couple weeks, but 6 weeks in we have a great working relationship established. He's a young teacher, just finished his masters, and hasn't worked with many younger singers. In those lessons, I sit with my iPad reading a book and jump over to Evernote to take notes. I might occasionally video something. Piano looks similar now too. Both my kids are interested in guitar too. One may make it's way into the house at Christmas. I never thought we'd have so much music in our house either. Started oldest in piano at 5, and hoped he'd get through a couple years to help with small motor and focus issues.

I think teachers are missing the boat when they have a blanket policy like this. You wouldn't send a young kid to school one day a week and assume they'd be able to follow up on their subjects on their own the rest of the week. Learning to follow a task list or figure out how to dig into something new isn't an innate skill for many kids. Having an involved parent can make the difference between success and failure for some kids. And I do know parents who've gotten kicked out of lessons for being disruptive or negative, so I totally understand.

My opinion on this will be highly biased because I play rock & blues. As far as I am concerned, let him improvise / arrange all he can. Its much easier to play notes written down than to make his own music -- as long as he is not ignoring the music theory that provides the underpinnings for improvisation. Improvising / arranging will force you to develop concepts about chord theory etc that will rarely come from just playing what others have composed.

I generally allow parents to sit in. I've only worked with a few parents who were so problematic, that their presence during lessons caused problems.

Most of the time, it's the other way around: I WANT the parents to sit in during lessons (especially for the really young ones), but they make all sorts of idiotic excuses.

I was told flatly that I was not to be with my dog during procedures, on our first visit to a new veterinary specialist in dermatology. My attempts to explain were brushed off rather brusquely--- I assume that they expected me to be underfoot, and in fact they actually told me that the animals behave better without the owner around. What a surprise: while the veterinary technician was trying to draw blood, the animal put a pretty good nip on her--- good enough for her to go to the doctor herself.

He never bites our regular vet's nurses (or they are skilled enough not to allow it to happen).

Is the moral of this tale that piano students are likely to bite, if a parent is absent? Maybe, some of them, but not enough to worry an insurance actuary--- in fact, a slip-and-fall by the parent is a likelier risk. Any animal will bite if it is hurt or frightened--- or cornered, or constantly pestered. It is possible that for some kids, having a parent present for everything, instead of developing a healthy superego of their own, could be crippling. There is more of a point to class time (and practice time, too) than simply going through the instructional material.

If the OP's kids are as bright as represented, they should be ok. A teacher can communicate to parents by writing a note or e-mail, by phone, or in person at a conference. There is no real need for them to be there for every minute.

Very young kids may need the parent to be there constantly. Older kids may need for the parent not to be there, or at least, not right there in the room--- there is only so much room on the bench. If the teacher is not trusted, that should be an end to lessons, right there. If the parent needs to catch up on her--- or their---music skills, maybe she should be taking her own lessons.

A teacher has a right to set his or her own policy for the studio. If it is not upheld, then it is not really a policy and might as well not exist, though there are some serious troubles with this. A parent is perfectly free to seek instruction elsewhere if the policies are onerous, but I think it is wrong to ask that they be waived.

Sounds great, but does any teacher here actually do this for a student weekly/regularly? I am really curious to know.

Most teachers that I know off schedule lessons back to back, so it is not possible to do it between lessons. To do this at the end of the day, I guess the teacher needs to be very organized, not to mention the extra efforts.

Email, phone, in person conference, once for a while requested by a parent, sure. Regularly? Not so sure.

It would depend on how long the lessons were and if the things I wanted to get set were totally completed. My students and their parents often have highly unrealistic ideas of what should come next. They want to skip steps, jump to concepts that totally stop what I'm trying to finish.

I'd tell him to impress me and play it in all 12 keys. I am NOT kidding..

Fooling around with things like that early can really screw up being able to play the for real later.

That's a good bottom line for so called "classical music". For other kinds of music, following the music exactly, note for note, could eventually be crippling.

It's not the same thing...

Hey, for some kids that would be a fun challenge!

Indeed.

And in addition, the content of periodic emails and the content of sitting in on a lesson are quite different. Reading an email is purely cognitive. Sitting in on a lesson offers much more affective nuance. You see and hear how the lesson goes, and you learn from that lesson where your child seems to be succeeding, and in what domains s(he) is not getting it. This can make you a better assistant to the teacher.

It was for me.

Years ago there was a transposition requirement for the guild, which I participated in as a student. That's what I did, picked something and transposed it in all keys.

Because I was so terrified of my lousy memory, in my senior year of college I took the Bach Sinfonias that I was opening with and transposed them in all keys, not to get it smooth (in the other keys) but to satisfy myself that I truly heard it that clearly.

But I frequently demonstrate taking fairly easy tunes and playing them in all keys, just so show the importance of being comfortable that way.

So I was not kidding, or being sarcastic.

When you deal with talent, just challenge. If it is done in a positive manner, you never know what you will get.

Thanks, Gary, for your response.



In the past, he has transposed to most of the keys, but I wasn't sure about all 12, so I just challenged him to see if he could. He took one of his favorites, Be Thou My Vision, and played it with ease in every key that started on a white key. When he got to the black keys, he made a few quickly corrected mistakes, until he got to b-flat when suddenly he took off playing the entire song virtually mistake free with huge sound....and then launched right into Tchaikovsky.

So very true! We had our first lesson of the new school year today and it was wonderful.

What I learned today from my oldest's lesson:
-She needs to play a very specific section of the Haydn sonata she is working on.
-She needs to play that section very slowly.
-She is not to play the first two pages.
-She has lots of specific articulation, phrasing and hand position to work on. (I may not be using the correct terms here)

What I would have learned if I had grilled her following her lesson:
-"My lesson did not go very well." Why, I would ask. "Because I didn't do very good on my Haydn."
-What do you need to focus on? "Fixing the mistakes."

How this will change my ability to help her in practice this week:
-I will be listening to make sure she is not playing the much loved first two pages. Last year, I would have had no idea that she was not to be playing a certain section.
-I will be listening to make sure she is not playing fast. Oh how she hates to practice slowly.
-I can ask her if she is doing the phrasing and technique that the teacher worked with her on. This is where she is pretty much on her own. I struggle to hear those nuances that my kids can hear and fix quickly. This is part of what I enjoyed about sitting in on lessons in the past. I was able to start picking up on it a little more and was able to sometimes even notice and ask if they were playing it correctly. Most of the time though I am clueless. This is where videoing those specifics is soooo helpful. The kids can review those specifics and correct it much more quickly than when they only see it demonstrated once at lessons. We record all the time at violin and it amazes me how they can quickly adjust and fix those technical issues by reviewing the video.

It was very interesting observing the lesson. I was watching her practice yesterday and she was obviously having so much fun playing the Haydn. She played it much worse for her teacher today than she played in practice yesterday. She left telling me that she was not happy with how she did at her lesson. Now I can have such a better educated discussion with her because I knew exactly why she was not happy with her lesson. These were times last year that I questioned if we had the right teacher. Today I could confidently say, wow, the teacher was amazing. My daughter has lots of work to do this week. She is hitting the point where she can't rely natural talent and is really going to have to learn how to practice well.

This is really important. The fact that when she played it for the teacher and it didn't go very well is because she didn't know as well as she thought she did, so when playing under the "pressure" of scrutiny by a teacher, it cracked. Your daughter doesn't appear to be wanting to practice the way her teacher is suggesting, thinking that "it goes better at home" and therefore the teacher is addressing problems that aren't really there. But they are, they just may not show up all the time in the comfort of one's home with only family listening for the upteenth time.

I think it's great you are getting involved in this way and can monitor what she is doing at home to get the most out of what you're paying for. These suggestions by her teacher actually do work and if your daughter at least tried them, she will be delighted in the results, I'm sure of it!

OP,
you are the kind of mom I want at lessons! You are there to encourage your child!

My own kids are teens and we get the standard, "how was school?"
"fine."
"What did you do"
"stuff."
"Who with"
"people"

But the glimpses my husband and I do get into their world by proofreading a paper, or a comment at dinner about history or Latin class, are fun and enlightening and make me realize how much my kids are developing.

The poster that stated that asking a young child to go to school one day a week, and then progress all week till next class on their own, is exactly what some parents expect.

Even just once a month, the last ten minutes of a lesson for parental observation, could develop a good music team. A teacher could send a monthly e-mail to all the parents, reminding them that "first week of the month" (whenever) "Is 10 minutes show-and-tell for the parents" all invited, no need to RSVP.

No parents, ever, would make me nervous as a parent. As a teacher, I feel I could never make that blanket policy.

OP,
your children sound like a lot of fun, bright, and happy.
Good job!

Exactly this! Sitting in on the lesson was so helpful because some of the instructions that the teacher gave were the same things that I had been suggesting but didn't have the confidence to know if I was telling her the right things. Hearing it reinforced by the teacher was golden!!