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I had eight lessons today. Only one lesson left until recital.

Here was my day:

eight recital reminders given

seven times I prayed for patience

six still learning music

five on color coded finger numbers (yikes!)

four incorrect tempos

three with music left at home

two memorized incorrectly

and one parent said, "we did not have time to prac-tice."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I have several rank beginners- but geesh!

when I write in the assignment notebook,

Forte means to play ____________________

piano means to play ____________________

and it is left blank??

when I give The Lego song (Everything is Awesome), or The Lion Sleeps Tonight, as FUN music, and they don't even do that, let alone the assigned Jingle Bells and Mary Had a Little Lamb, and Compose Your Own Tune on Three Black Keys, or I ask them to march at home, or when I ask them what stuffed animal they used to play a certain music game with, and I get...nothing in response....because they did NOTHING at home...

I get frustrated, annoyed, and tired.

A teacher cannot make the students care, but when the MOM said, "Oh, we did not have time to practice," I had to turn my head and hide my shock at her nonchalance.

But, I know another teacher that has two students WITHOUT a piano. So, I guess I can't complain?

Any advice?

Thanks!!

In a fort

The piano sometimes

Whizbang,

that was exactly what I needed tonight- a good laugh!

THANK YOU!!!!!!

The quality of kids and parents has gone way down as of late. Parents are more clueless than ever. There's nothing we can do about it. Charge more?

This cracked me up!

So, we just had a duet competition for NFMC yesterday. I wrote it down long ago as being a week earlier, the 16th. Everyone was working like crazy to get ready for the 16th. In early November, registration opened and I found out my error. Luckily everyone had started the last-minute practicing in time for the 16th, and they ended up just the right amount of prepared for the competition, including a couple who were poor practicers before that.

I think I might "accidentally" tell everyone the recital/competition is a week earlier than it really is again sometime!

Didnt your 8 yo play in it? How did she do????

Was this to me? I'm feeling confused because yes, I have an 8yo who played in the festival. And yes, he did fine.

But I didn't remember mentioning this before on here, so . . . maybe it was to someone else? hahaha

I think dogperson was asking if this was the 8yo girl from the Emotionally Sensitive Students thread. You'd mentioned to me over there that the girl and her friend come to lessons together and were going to be playing a duet in a festival.

Maybe that was a different event than the NFMC duet competition you're referring to in this thread?

Follow up-

Well, it's done!

I had the students fill in a self-eval, and more than half actually did it! (students sit on front row and some needed parental help to read/write, so I may get more turned in later)

The boy with the,"oh, we did not have time to practice this week" did come to the off-site reception, with grandparents. Mom and Dad had another engagement. Grandma laid down rules with him. He worked his little tail OFF all weekend, and pulled it off. Thank God for grandma! I am glad he practiced. I asked him, "how much better do you think it would be if you worked each week instead of just at the end?" And grandma backed me up!

Parent verbal responses- "wow, you have a lot of beginners!"
"It's great to hear the progress over time."
"You have a lot of patience!"
"Your piece made me cry." (it was a Christmas hymn medley)
"We want little sister to take lessons starting January."

And I got some nice Christmas gifts- monogrammed paper set, chocolates, candles, a scarf, and gift cards. Whoa unto the beautiful plant I received. I do not have a green thumb.

My husband was very patient with me and I am off to enjoy the day after because now I can relax.

It's over!!!!

Thanks for sharing!
So what is the percentage of the rank beginner, beginner, intermedia and advanced players in your studio? (Any teacher please answer the question if you wish)

usually,

20-30%- , "patterns of keys, five fingers, left vs right"

30-40%- "can read on staff, learning chords, getting better at counting and theory, realizing it takes work to get to where they want to go."

20%- "I'm getting this! I can have musical conversations with my teacher and lessons fly by as we work together."

10%- "may actually pursue music. playing in other venues (church, band, accompanist) and geek out on music jokes and study music history and composers. Analyzes the music and enjoys learning. Practice is a lifestyle."

But, it fluctuates. I mostly use Piano Adventures, and have had students complete the series and exploring...everything now! (I do Lesson, Theory, Tech/Art, Performance, and lately, Sight reading) . However, I should take stock out for the purple Primer and red Level One book series!! And, lately, with pre-readers/young children aged 5/6, the pre-reader series.

This year, I have about 50% rank beginners.

Why did the others leave? Joined band or orchestra, (parent didn't want double lessons/time/money) chose dance, moved, parent decided since they could read well they no longer needed lessons, busy school/work schedule...tends to happen around junior high age.

Many of my students are through a private school and some students sign up just for the schedule convenience. These students tend not to last since they do not practice.

What do other teachers have, percentage wise?

Private studio:
~20% beginner-beginner
~20% early-beginner
~20-25% mid-beginner
~25-30% advanced-beginner
~10% intermediate and up (labels are so relative; these students are of course considered advanced by the others)

About half have been with me more than 2 years (and the other half less than 2). About 15% I would consider top practicers.

I love this categorization!

Almost all parents (or just people) who heard my kids play asked me what level they are. By level, in our neck of woods, it means RCM exams. When I told them that my kids have not taken any exam yet, they usually look confused, and parents often look relaxed after the moment of confusion, they didn’t have to complete, after all, I guess. And typically they went on to say: “How great! So they can really focus on enjoying music…..”, while didn't look like they meant it. (Don’t get me wrong, I respect the players who went through the exams. Kids passed grade 8 might have a wide range of musical capabilities, but kids passed grade 10 that I personally know, are all very musical, very capable, delighted musicians.)

Off-topic:
Our province has got rid of letter grades in student assessment. All elementary school has effectively banned from letter grades (never mind percentage), and high schools are going through the transition period , communicating with the colleges I guess.
Instead of A, B, C (with plus and minus), the assessment now is
• Emerging
• Developing
• Proficient
• Extending

Everyone was confused at the beginning and parents are all try to map them to the letter grades.
The official interpretation are :
• Emerging - Initial understanding of the concepts and competencies in relation to the expected learning
• Developing - Partial understanding of the concepts and competencies in relation to the expected learning
• Proficient - Complete understanding of the concepts and competencies in relation to the expected learning
• Extending - Sophisticated understanding of the concepts and competencies in relation to the expected learning

But people like me still confused. Then I have seen a dozen unofficial interpretations, some helped a bit, some not.
After the Missbelle’s lovely categorization, I think I am transitioning from “Emerging” to “Developing” on the understanding of this new assessment system.

Off-topic 2:
Asian parents’ interpretation of the letter grades:

• A - Acceptable
• B - Below expectation
• C & F - Catastrophic Failure

Yesterday, an RCM examiner from Canada told me that the single largest group of RCM exam test takers in the US are children of a certain ethnicity who take the RCM exams to buff their college applications, and that it is well-known that the maximum level of buffing is from an RCM Level 10 or ARCT.


Wait, that's not the correct interpretation? 🤭

At one of the recent workshops I attended, the speaker mentioned that "repertoire is everything."

Ha.

I also assign really fun music. Some of these "songs" are extremely popular and kids _should_ enjoy them. But they don't. Some don't even listen to music. They are "amusical."

Right now my studio is filled with beginners, many of whom probably will never get past 2A in their method books. Some are already contemplating quitting because they quit everything else like soccer, swimming, tennis, taekwondo, and painting. Two families still have not upgraded to an acoustic piano. One student plays on a crummy upright that might as well be firewood.

Just last week I got an inquiry from a parent who wanted to have lessons, but not buy a keyboard. I had to explain to him that a keyboard is a basic necessity. I never heard back from him.

And it's not like these kids are getting stupider and stupider. Yes, quite a few of my students are grossly below average in terms of general intelligence, but even the really smart kids nowadays cannot FOCUS on anything. They are so distracted by their busy lives and can't get anything organized or prioritized in a logical fashion.

Some of the parents need lesson in organization and prioritization as well. They are just as EVERYWHERE as their kids!

80% Beginners (method books)
5% Intermediate
15% Advanced (levels 9, 10, and beyond)

Many advanced students graduated in the past 4 years, and I've not replaced them with any student of caliber. Now I can't convince my Advanced students to play at studio recitals because they are embarrassed to play with such deformed beginners.

I find this surprising, as a kid I remember when more advanced students in my music school were eager to play to "show off" how much better they were than the rest.....

In the past few years, the format of our teacher's studio is like this:

Rank beginner -> Beginner -> Early intermediate -> Intermediate -> Early Advanced ->
Repeat
Repeat
....
Beginner -> Beginner -> Intermediate ->Advanced ->
Beginner -> Beginner -> Intermediate ->Advanced

It built up the anticipation, reached a height and reset the cycle, allowed the audience to relax and to focus again.

All followed by a confident "can read on staff, learning chords, good at counting" young girl playing a very simple version of "You Raise Me Up" with another cute young girl singing, it actually did push the recital to a little climax.

Finished with the piano teacher and a violin teacher playing a wonderful duet that everyone wowed.

It was great, a little too long for me (2 hours and 30 minutes excluding the greeting at the beginning and the picture time and reception at the end, but that is another story, She managed to have everyone engaged from the beginning to the end.).

So I would say, there are 2/5 of rank beginner, beginner, 2/5 of intermediate students of various levels, and 1/5 of advanced players at different places in her studio.

I also wanted to say, that in a studio recital, as a member of the audience, I think how well you play is at least as important, if not more important than what you play.

Many people in the audience have no idea how difficult some of the advanced pieces are, nor do they care. Show off what you can play in a studio recital, filled with families just starting piano you are probably facing the wrong audience, they can catch your mistakes, while giving no appreciations on the wonderful executions of the difficult segments.

It is a show, better to show off how well you can play a seemingly impressive piece.

Kudos on your exam! As I said, I have my respect for the kids who went through the exams.
I have my highest respect for the adults who went through the exams!

Yes, you guessed it right, I am a proud member of the said ethnicity.

Talking about college applications, RCM level 10 worth 4 whole high school credits (for most Canadian universities), same as a computer 10 class taught by a teacher who knows very little about computers and all the students who occasionally wake in the class will pass. But of course, not all credits carry the same weight I guess.