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Dear Teachers,

Some of us are 30 years away from any formal learning environment. We come to you for a variety of reasons. We want to fulfill a desire to learn to play the instrument, or engage in learning something new to us to keep our minds expanding and flexible or to (insert host of other reasons here ___). We are in awe of you because you can do what seems like the impossible for us, especially if we are new to our journey. We don't mean to keep repeating the tired phrase "I played it better at home" - in fact I've quit saying it all together because I've learned from these forums how tiresome it is for you to hear. Perhaps what we are really trying to express is that we were so much more comfortable playing it at home, which is a safe place for many of us.

We are trying to do many things at once. Learn what you are teaching us, let go of old ideas like "wanting an A on our paper" so to speak, and to get passed a certain nervousness that is akin to public speaking when we come to present for you.
Ahh, but for some of us, we really do feel like we are performing, even if it's just to you - a person we have assigned a high value to.

It will take a certain amount of time for us to move beyond that strong desire to please you with our efforts. Most likely it will involve us developing more security and confidence in ourselves.

For myself, I personally really like my teacher. She's upbeat, she's fun and energetic, I'm comfortable with her and she gives me wonderful feedback on how to improve a piece. Yet my heart will still thud when I first sit down at the keyboard at my lesson.

Debbie

I never say "it went better at home" anymore it feels true but sounds so lame to me.....and I know it isn't helpful for my teacher to hear.

I've been with the same teacher for 6 years now and he knows me pretty well. He's wonderful, very kind and patient but still I am a little tense (or maybe self-conscious is a better word?) when I first sit for a lesson. I'm trying to use my lessons also as "performance" practice - expecting that I'll be a little nervous so I'm trying to train myself to focus on the music instead of his watchful presence - playing slower than I would at home.

Teachers of nervous adults, I find that if we first start with a little music "chat" and then follow with a newly assigned exercies or piece that I have no expectations of myself with then the "jitters" are worked out more quickly and my "polishing" piece goes a little better.

Also, unless I'm really messing up, my teacher will let me play through my piece without interruptions. There are often repeated passages that will go better as I move through - this is also helpful. We'll go back and start over with him stopping me where he sees a problem that needs particular focus.

Forgive me for posting one more time here --

But no one has described the opposite-- playing WORSE at home -- or to put it differently, actually playing something BETTER at one's lesson.

This happens to me very seldom, but it HAS happened. One jazz piece that gave me great problems at home came off superbly at my lesson. In fact, I doubt that I ever played it that well before. Why I cannot tell you.

I remember going home from this particular lesson, all excited, and telling my wife, "you will not BELIEVE how well that went."

Unfortunately, it is usually the other way around, due to nerves, unfamiliar piano, the feeling of being watched like a cat watches a mouse . . . and on and on.

A great thread. I've learned from this one.

Awesome post, Debbie!! I think you said it perfectly.

It's very scary to play it right in practice and then bomb it in the lesson. It's pretty frickin' unfair too!

Cause. Effect. Which person has the power to work with and change a phenomenon: student, teacher, or both. There is no single formula because each situation is different and must be dealt with individually.

I have already posted on a particular phenomenon of adults students that directly affects their ability to play well in front of a teacher, and I have posted the solution that every single person I know who tried it found to be a solution, because it goes straight to the effect. In this case both cause and effect are in the student's hands, and no amount of reassurance on a teacher's part will make much of a difference.

We adult students have a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of lessons, and our role within those lessons and with our teachers. We often believe that we must "perform" in front of our teacher, that a well played piece is the object, and often that our merit as a student is tied up with that merit - and extending the latter more, one either can or one cannot: "talent" and "ability" is something that is or is not there. This attitude creates a greater paralysis and anxiety then would happen playing on stage in front of an audience.

The solution lies in perceiving the activity and the role differently. A teacher cannot do that perceiving for us. I, the student, am working on developing my abilities to play, in the same way that I might be engaged in learning to make a chair, and you, the teacher, are helping me make that chair. From week to week we will examine this chair, which is not me, and see how it can be made into a better chair.

Secondly, ability is not a thing you "have" and if you "don't have it" you're doomed. By definition, when you begin something new, you are "not able" and you go from "able" to "able" via the process of lessons and practicing. It is acceptable to play badly and make mistakes, teachers accept mistakes, expect them, and have the opportunity to use these mistakes as points of guidance.

If these two sets of realizations are adopted and carried out during lesson time, the drop in anxiety and paralysis can be dramatic. At the same time, there is an immmediate new role and relationship between teacher and student, which the teacher may not realize, since he wasn't in on the old attitude. The student MIGHT actually start playing better, and will definitely stop saying "I played it better at home." because mistakes no longer matter.

This is one example of cause and effect of a phenomenon. In this case the onus lies entirely on the student. The only way a teacher can play a role is if the teacher knows that this, specifically, is going on, and finds a way of addressing it. I have never seen such a thing mentioned anywhere and I don't know to what degree teachers are aware of it.

Two other things arise:

Teachers do not just ask their students to practice a particular piece. They want to develop certain skills. They may have, as a single important goal, that a student practices playing evenly. Or he wants the student to (I'm making this up) play staccato/legato in turn in order to create some finger control. Believe it or not, even though you are saying it, students won't ** get ** that this is important. They won't get that this "d'uh simple" thing is your main point. We will do all kinds of things to impress you and make you pleased with our playing, except for that "piddly little thing".

So we practice our fingers off, wrongly. The piddly little thing may be the solution to most of our problems, but we don't do it, because we don't know it's important - so week after week you see us making the same mistake, struggling with the same problem, as though we had not practiced at all.

If your student doesn't know he is supposed to practice what you tell him to, and that the "what" includes especially the piddly stuff, then you, as a teacher, must make him understand. Repeating the same instruction over and over hoping some day he'll do it or get it isn't going to do it. You have to get at the problem. He doesn't get it! Tear your hair out if you want - he ought to get it - he doesn't! So make sure he gets it. Our responsibility as student then, after you've laid it on the line, is to do it, once we get what we're supposed to do.

While I was a student going through just that, I had a student in another field, doing just that. He worked incredibly hard and proudly presented the fruits of his labour. He would not budge on a piddly thing that I had asked, which eventually took the effort of 10 minutes for two days, and the lesson was stymied for a month. While I was being lectured on not doing fancy things, doing the piddly things, I gave the same lecture with the same degree of frustration that the teacher lecturing me was suppressing. It was comical, actually.

Third: Who is responsible for acquiring playing skills. This is not as obvious as it seems. If we, as students, do things our way, relying on our own judgement, we won't get the skills you are trying to give us. If we think that following you totally passively, but without an active involvement in what we are doing, it will come in tiny drabs almost by accident. Then, when we do get involved, we're back to changing your instructions, re-interpreting, and again it doesn't work. "Mindful practicing", purposeful practicing, without altering the guidance of a good teacher, is not as obvious as it seems.

If the issue is practicing, does this need to be taugth and discussed. Not just: do this every day at 60 bpm for 10 min. eventually increasing to 120 bpm, and make your tempo even. Actually what happens in the course of practicing.

My teacher, these days, will say "Tell me how you practised this." or "Tell me how you intend to practise this." I had a private student last year, a young teen, who wanted to work more independently. We spent 80% of some lessons discussing study strategies, problem solving strategies, organization strategies, and 20% of the time going over the material itself.

"Illusion" is a common word in the music world, and it is an important one. If we don't hear our mistakes, we cannot correct them, and we are condemned to stay at the same level. The most devastating stage of development is when we hear our mistakes for the first time, and we think we have suddenly deteriorated because we play so horridly. We always did play horridly but we heard what we imagined we were doing: when we here "horrid" and the nature of "horrid" we start improving.

But it can be a "play it better at home illusion" illusion, where a teacher has the illusion that it is an illusion, when it isn't. In other words, if there is an actual problem, and you decide to assume that your student has not been practicing when he has, then the problem will not be resolved. If the student actually has not been practicing, then it is not an illusion, and the solution is for the student to start practicing - the onus is on the student.

What is the problem? Is it the real problem? What is the cause of the problem? What is a possible solution to the problem? Who will have to do the work to create this solution?

The student side is reacting rather heftily because a large enough number have been caught in the cycle of practicing, not being able to play well, and fearing the accusation of non-practice. It is a discouraging experience to practice and not be able to produce. To then be accused of not having done the work is painful. Far better to find a solution, maybe.

I think this is something that matters far more to the student than the teacher. To all you students out there let me just say that we teachers have been there ourselves many times. Of course it is not (always) an illusion. When you feel under pressure it is difficult to perform as well as when you are relaxed. As pianobuff says, this is the realitly of performing. When you get up on that stage or go into that exam room you better be prepared for the fact that your performance might not go as well as it does at home. This is why you have to prepare as well as possible. I hear that phrase a lot. Believe me, I can tell if it is genuine or just an excuse. I am pretty sure that most experienced teachers can too.

It is important for us to know that, because it is the "mattering" itself which creates the paralysis in front of a teacher. This paralysis IS of concern if it is ongoing.

I am an adult student, I don't have this problem in lessons. I seem to be a natural performer, so performance brings out the best in my playing.

In view of what I discovered in the "adult world" as written in my previous post, I would move away from comparing performance situations with lesson situations. It might aggravate. The problem the paralysis consists of viewing playing in front of a teacher as a performance which must be perfect. The solution to this cause consists of seeing lessons as a mutual effort to work on improved playing, and focussing on the task instead of the self. If you try to mentally prepare yourself as though for a performance, this falls apart in my internal world as a student.

What I experienced is that when I began seeing my role as working with my teacher at a task, then that work resulted in an improved piece almost as a side effect. My attention and focus had shifted, and remained shifted form practice room to lesson. This built up a different kind of solidity in my practicing and my playing, and a different kind of focus.

When a performance came near, I then drew on that acquired solidity - my lessons changed in nature as the piece to be performed was worked on: more like a rehearsal. Practising then was also toward the performance. Playing in performance, playing rehearsal-mode in lessons and in practicing, were of a different nature than playing in lessons and practicing when we were "chair building". Initially before I had found my role as a student, every lesson was like the rehearsal mode, and practicing was like a practicing for rehearsal for performance.

Does this distinction seem plausible and at all useful?

When I say you need to prepare I was not really thinking about the kind of mental preparation you might do for a performance. Rather that you need to practice to the point where you can play well almost all of the time. This might seem obvious but I often see the result of poor preparation in lessons and in recitals. The odd slip here and there is acceptable and often inevitable. But when parts of the piece break down completely and the student is unable to pick it up or even appears to be sight reading then it is clear that they have not practiced enough. I get the impression that some students will practice to the point where they can get it right. The important thing is not to leave it there. You have to practice well beyond this. I have heard many teachers say 'practice until you can't get it wrong'. I am not saying that it is as simple as this in all cases. But more often than not thorough preparation will be obvious to the teacher despite nerves and anxiety.

I forgot to say that as a teacher I do not expect a perfect performance every time. It depends on what stage a piece is at. If it was perfect then there would be nothing left to work on right?

Also, when a student slips up, and it being a continuous slip up (not just human error), I could care less if he/she can play it better at home, and again (I wonder if that is true.) But regardless if it is true or not, instead the slip up shows me a place where more practice is needed, because in the real world, you are not always playing at home. I am basically reitterating what Chris just said.

Also, slip ups/mistakes are suppose to happen! This is why you are taking lessons. So for what it is worth, relax, you are not performing for your teacher. Like Keystring said, "you're building a chair together!" You are looking for guidance to playing the piano well. Having this focus should help with yourself as a person in the real sense.

I too have been on the other end of the stick and, for me, it is an illusion. I really do not play it better at home. I may think I do, but really, I make the same mistakes at home too.

Hi Chris,
Yes, I understood what you were saying. What I was after is the phenomenon that I discovered. I think in essence it is a profound and major misperception of our role and reason as students, because we come into it so late and as a foreign world, and if that perception is corrected, then we can do as you say, and to the right end. It's a psychological thing at our end, but an important one.

Now when you talk about a student not practicing enough: how about knowing how to practice? Many of us will come to music thinking of it as a "whole". So we might play the piece over and over, doing the same thing. But with experience, hopefully we learn to address "aspects" and work with these, rather than the whole in the manner that a listening audience hears the whole.

One can practise 40 hours over a 2 week period, and hardly make a dent, and even entrench error. Or one can focus on an aspect, achieve more in 1/3 of the time, and affect the quality of one's playing as a whole everywhere. But you have to know how, and change mindsets.

Because I understand more, I am even less flumoxed by a bad performance in a lesson. I will know that my teacher will here, for example, evidence of practice with tempo even while everything is in apparent shambles. In fact, I can hear it in my own playing.

Keystring,

This is the teachers job.

We are somewhat derailing this thread by bringing up a "How to Practice" topic.

A good teacher should be very specific on what and how to practice at your lesson, especially if you are not advanced enough to know how.

I think the whole "I play it better at home" thing isn't as straightforward as it might first appear.

First of all, I disagree with Pianobuff who reckons it's an illusion or a poor excuse. Certainly in my case, I would never use that as an excuse. I often play pieces better "at home" than I do in a lesson, although in my case it's more like with no teacher present as my lessons are at home.

What you need to do is to examine what the difference is between playing at home and playing in a lesson.

During the week, you have endless attempts to get it right, and in my experience I still make mistakes on most attempts, but every now and again I absolutely nail it.

That is what I think confuses people. Yes, they played it better at home but in your lesson it's the first attempt that counts, not your 7th attempt on your 3rd day of practice.

I believe in most cases when people state that they have played it better at home that they are being honest. They have played it better, in some cases maybe just once or twice and in other cases perhaps most of the time.

Yes, I am aware of that and I have brought the matter up not in an attempt to derail the topic, but to enrich and complete it. This topic deserves to be looked at thoroughly.

On the surface you have a student playing badly but saying he played better at home, and a teacher believing he didn't practice, or that the student harbours an illusion. You also have students not realizing that it doesn't matter if you played it better at home. These are relatively unimportant matters.

On the next level you have adult students who become paralyzed week after week because of a fundamental misperception regarding the role of students and teachers and the role of lessons. I've written about this in detail. I have communicated with fellow students on and off for about four years. Some go through emotional anguish after every lesson that can last for days. For these, "I played better at home." is a cry for help. The solution seems to lie, not in being able to play better in lessons, nor in aiming to be less tense in front of a teacher, but in changing the perception of roles. That change in perception works backward toward everything else. Additionally, playing better at home doesn't matter anymore. And Chris has just stressed that playing better at home doesn't matter. However, a student must also know what does matter, and when the focus shifts toward that, the problem disappears and there is more harmonious work between teacher and student.

This thread is not only about a student thinking his at-home playing was better, but also the assumption that a student is lying about having practising, which is a perfectly plausible possibility.

The second scenario is where a student appears not to have practised because he is still making the same mistakes. But even when his teacher has told him specifically to focus on a particular element, and even when he thinks he has, he doesn't. I have been helped by an advanced student and by a professional musician friend to learn how to approach practicing, and how to translate instructions into something effective. I run into people who don't know how to do that. What they are told to do seems obvious to me, and I would know how to practice it, but they don't get it. So they come to lessons week after week, struggling in practicing, with no sign that they have done anything. When I pass on what I know and work through some things with these friends, they break through in practicing, and then they break through with their teachers and are able to turn the instructions into action. I have seen this repeatedly now. There is this tiny chasm between teacher and student, like a language barrier, which can be crossed with a sneeze and it has to do with "how to practice" in more detail, stating more obvious things, than you might imagine necessary.

This thread is about students performing in lessons, what a student has done at home, how a teacher perceives both of these things. It is about a student being prepared for a lesson by having done what is assigned, how it was assigned. The thread situates us smack dab in the middle of studio and home, practicing and lesson - and thus it is spread evenly between student and teacher.

One can assume that a student knows what to do, isn't doing it, makes up excuses and teachers need to have a chance to vent once in a while. But there is also the possibility that a student does not know how to prepare, either because a teacher has not fulfilled that responsibility, or because the nature of that lack of knowledge is not apparent. Surely if there is a problem involving students not preparing for lessons, or not being able to show signs of such preparation, one should be looking for causes and solutions. Such causes and solutions would logically be found both with the student and with the teacher in terms of roles and input. And as such, what I wrote is not off topic but an integral part of the topic.

If I have offended anyone, such was not my intent.

By what you just said confirms the fact that it is an illusion.

You're right you do have all week to play the piece in the comfort of your home and maybe on the seventh time you may nail it. So students really are not being honest when they say "they can play it better at home." Because they are having to play seven times to "nail it"! Which by the way is not what learning to play the piano is all about.

When a student of mine makes mistakes when playing a piece that is at perfomance level (or close to it), I usually ask them to play it again. If the same mistakes occur, I ask if this happens at home. Most often it is, yes. A lot of times they even tell me that they are having a problem with such and such section, before playing. These students are being honest with themselves and with me. I have had some students say "no" to that question. I then say well we all have good and bad days. I just tell them to do their best and if that mistake does happen at home then practice it like this...

I also didn't mean it that the student is purposely using this "I can play it better at home" as an excuse. But, it ends up being that way, if he/she keeps saying it. Also, I think that the student is thinking they are being honest when in reality they're not.

Glasweigian confirmed this with his post.

What I just said does not confirm it's an illusion. What I've said confimrs that people can often play pieces better than they can than on a 1st take in a lesson.

They are being honest. They have played it better on previous ocassions than they just have in a lesson. What makes this an illusion or a lie?

keystring,

We must have posted at the same time.

As a teacher when a student says "I played it better at home" I do not even think about how the student practiced or if he or she did practice! Does not even enter my mind.

By saying "IPBAH" doesn't mean anything to me. This is the student's problem that they need to work through. I try to help them by addressing the issue with what I posted earlier. And most often that remedies it and they never say it again.

As far as praciting, what I do as a teacher, is I look at my notes from last weeks lesson and I see if they have improved. If not, I ask them if they practiced like how I said in my notes and how we went over it the week before. Most often it is, "No, I was really busy this week, etc..."

Glaswegian it is an illusion because you are playing it several times at home.

Level the playing field with yourself and play it one time at home. Bet you will play it the same way at the lesson.

First of all, I was talking about a hypothetical student, not myself.

A couple of other points.

If you have played a piece better than your current attempt, that is quite simply a fact, not an illusion, not a lie, a fact. Whether that attempt is in a lesson, is your first attempt that day or your 10th, it's still a fact.

It is of course not a measure of whether you're getting better or not. A measure of that would be what your "average" attempt would be. Do you normally play it through at tempo free of mistakes? Or an you only do that 1 in every 10. Or can you only play with few/no mistakes if you play at a slower tempo?

And as a teacher, I find it somewhat disturbing that you appear completely disinterested in finding out a bit more about why the student feels that they have done it better in the past but are not doing it now.

As for myself, as a performing musician who made his debut aged 10, I know all about getting it "right" first time. But getting it right still doesn't mean I play my best each and every time.

I know why a student feels this way and as discussed in my earlier posts, I do discuss this syndrome with my students. And by the way, we all have had this sense of disillusion, including me. So I very well understand.

By reading your last post, I'll be honest with you, it does not make much sense, except that it still verifies, to me, the fact by saying IPBAH is a very vague statement and really does not help the student (or teacher) by saying it thinking that it is true when I feel it isn't.