Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Always build up, never break down.

You declared the above in one paragraph, and then, in the next paragraph, said this:



You just trapped yourself, saying you're "sure some people [read your words with] a strange voice..." and then in the next breath declaring that you don't make guesses about people.

There's oh so much more I could say on this thread, but enough from me. Time to pull out some pots and kettles and get some lunch going.

I'd be interested in reading ideas about teaching or learning. any ideas. Anything other than speculations about who somebody is and the like. In that flood of "stuff" surely there is something that someone can take off on, and put into some kind of direction.

In this thread there is a student whose entire playing was dismantled completely, who could then not apply to college, and who spend several decades not playing. Are there no thoughts about this? Should "defective" (real or imagined) playing be dismantled like that? Are there alternatives? Have people experienced variations and choices in this? I think we had one teacher respond to that one.

I think that would make a nice new thread.

Any new thread would be better than this mess.

This is not a piano example, but this tale reminds me of the story of Tiger Woods, formerly professional golf's number 1 men's player, and Hank Haney, the swing coach who set out to completely revamp Tiger's golf swing. Haney employed an approach which bore greater similarity to "smashing" than "tweaking." Not going to attribute causality, but after this period when Tiger's golf swing was re-engineered, Tiger did not win another Major until last month - 9 years later.

Again, might be no causality, but it's also possible that sometimes, it might not be so good to "smash" - at least in professional golf - and better to leave well enough, alone.

I'd give thoughts if I could wade my way through all the comments NOT related to this. I just got on and saw this mess. I'd love to take some time and respond to his response to what I said, but I'm not sure this thread is recoverable.

Im sorry Andamento you failed to read that he was actually making guesses about me so I was responding, or am I not allowed to say someone has the wrong opinion about me? That seems very illogical. I guess that is what you get when you are merely in a critical mode, you sometimes read small parts without reading the context.

I responded to that post, I guess the other "teachers" didn't want to offer their opinions.

It seem to me that some of you are suprised that the internet can cause chaos of reponses, can we really moderate people who come onto this thread and tangent it all with their one liners and commentary that doesn't dig deeper at any constructive questioning? The mess is not of my own creation it is the other members here so it is this forum which has people attempting to create a mess I guess I am happy to respond constructively to any question about what I have written and have done so every time at the same time I will call people up on their fear mongering and irrational ideologies about what I have written which seems to provoke people more to respond rather than something more intellectual which is understandable I guess lol.

Personally I am able to read everything on here and use my filter in my head to grasp hold of actual questions that are relevant to the thread. Some people have asked questions and there have been responses, people cry about walls of text but good grief I would think that many of us are academics who are used to reading a lot, apparently not so for some.

AZNpiano that logic is killing kittens. How do you get that I assume people are dumber than me lol good grief. It seems logical that if people read a lot of books that what I write here is not long at all (certianly not at a length that requires numerous post about the length of my writing lol, as if that critique means much), though it seems that a minority of people merely want one liners, two sentences, oh no three sentences you pushing it buddy! lol

Yeah Jazzy, I mean that's the internet for you :P I find it funny also!

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I responded to your initial comment on this thread where I expressed great sadness that you had to go through this experience and be without a relationship with music for almost 4 decades. To me this is such a tragedy and if only the teacher built you up before trying to destroy what you already had (even if what they wanted to replace you with in you was superior) perhaps things would have been different, there must be a timeline for such changes to occur and it almost always cannot be abrupt especially if the tools trying to be changed have actually served the students well for a length of time. Sometimes studying at a conservatory is not the best place because there are time limitations to development, I feel that many education systems stifle creativity and individuality and I am not alone thinking this. They churn out only those students who can jump through certain hoops at a certain time and others who cannot do so who otherwise would be brilliant musicians suffer.

It is so important for teachers to spend time to get into their students minds and understand exactly how they work, only then will they realize that some issues should not be removed and instead should be nurtured further and experience built up to a point where they can then make changes themselves and not feel overwhelmed and lost. Yes some students can make fast changes and there are issues which can be somewhat rapidly but there are a lot of foundations which really do not need to be removed and instead any new foundation can be created along side it, connecting to it, enhancing it even if it is of a different character, "together but different". With the arts there is no one right way of doing things but some teachers can get so caught up over a singular method which works for them that they believe it must apply to all in an unchanged package which I think is a shame.

I have had students who learn music in all sorts of ways, some would listen to a recording over and over again and learn the piece by ear, more recently one has been using those synesthesia piano videos to learn pieces (and quite tough pieces I might add). These kind of students often have a lot of issues with their fingering and of course when you deal with students who use sheet music it is easy to present the fingering ideas but with these other ones where the sheet music is somewhat absent you need to formulate a method to deal with this, and it certainly doesn't mean stop them at every single moment to change every fingering you are disagreeing with.

For me as someone who first learned music by ear for many years from the age of 3 then moved into sight reading just before my teens I personally have two ways in which I can learn music at a strong rate and I cannot say which one is better than the other they are both very useful. We need to develop students who connect to music "in their own way" first and foremost this process of building them up with what is familiar to them and what naturally works in them is such an important point to nurture. Of course next to this we can include new skills and ideas but never so much so that it strangles their natural capabilities. I feel that some teachers can neglect this and thus make students feel that their ability to play the piano even if it has been succesful actually has something wrong with it or should indeed be totally replaced. That is a tragic mistake I feel.

Some interesting extracts from this article: How the Brain Learns New Skills NEUROSCIENCE NEWS MAY 2, 2019

"The human brain is “plastic”: it can adapt and rewire itself, often more easily when learning new things related to familiar skills. For example, it is probably easier for a professional tennis player to learn to play badminton than soccer."

"Then, the researchers altered the mapping between neural activity and the cursor’s movement—for example, if the participant thought about moving her wrist down, the cursor would go up. For some new mappings, the participant was able to adjust to the perturbation. In these cases, the researchers wanted to know how the adjustment happened. Did the individual neurons controlling the BMI learn to change their tuning for up and down? Or did the participant learn to think about moving up when instructed to move down?"

"The researchers found that the participant was sometimes able to adapt to perturbations in the cursor’s movement by altering her cognitive strategy. For example, she would say that she re-aimed the cursor movement in her mind to perform the task. However, the participant was not always able to solve the mapping perturbation by adopting a new cognitive strategy, and in those cases, the researchers found, her brain did not generate totally new patterns of neuronal activity. In other words, her adaptability—specifically, her ability to re-aim the cursor to certain locations in space—was constrained by the tuning of the particular set of neurons being recorded from. This suggests that the extent to which a person can learn a new skill is constrained by pre-existing neural wiring."

https://neurosciencenews.com/skill-learning-brain-13013

Morodiene, who is a teacher, not a "teacher", gave a good and well thought out response. I have always found her responses to be well thought through, knowledgeable, and useful (useable).

Well, do we have any evidence that when people disagree with you, or offer a different viewpoint, you give some consideration to the idea they might be right? Think before you answer. You may have a pattern you are unaware of.



Even a casual read of the Piano Teachers Forum would indicate your posts are of extreme length compared to the average. So there is an existing accepted culture that you are violating. There is also your casual approach to sentence structure, grammar, and punctuation, which makes long posts even harder to read and parse. You will notice that keystring writes longer posts than most, but despite not being a native English speaker her posts are well constructed and readable, and therefore people respond to them.

Lol listen to yourself! Evidence lol. You are welcome to look through my 15 years of interaction on pianostreet to look for that. Who makes it a habit to memorise such things just incase some random person wants to know for some obscure reason? Hilarious really, now back to relevant posting on threads please.



Violating culture now too! Well I’m sure pianoworld can be glad they have a defender of culture in you. I will continue to post how I feel comfortable thank you 😊

Accepted culture on this forum? Absolutely not! Responses range from one sentence or brief phrase to long paragraphs of a reply. Threads often ramble into off-topic conversations, some totally unrelated to the OP. . All have been tolerated.

There is not a PW thread culture and no poster has been called out for violating the assumption.

Well, in some places there is a culture of removing one's shoes when entering a private home, and in other places you keep your shoes on. I'm a shoes-off person, so if a guest insisted on walking around my home with his shoes on, I might start to feel a little annoyed.

What a great example! And in fact there are those quite militant about their side of the shoe-on or shoe-off preference. Coming from Asia, I'm also a "shoe-off, look for the slippers" person. I've on rare occasion shed shoes in someone's home, and then been politely asked to put them back on. When this happens, I do wonder if it's that my socks are considered dirty, or if the homeowner has a shoe fetish!

Oh right I should have said “some teachers” I see my error in implying all. TimR will be glad I admitted this lol. It’s annoying pianoworld only allows limited time to edit.