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On a side note, why is it that students will tell you they are frustrated and stuck, and yet refuse to practice in the manner you have told them precisely to get them 'unstuck'?

Hi Morodiene,

Ok, you are the teacher and I'm a student so you have way more experience in this than me - this is just a suggestion, don't take it like I think I know what I'm talking about...

But what I was suggesting back on Oct 10th was that you give her more control and more decision-making in choosing her path. What you've said just now sounds to me like you are telling her "do exactly what I say if you want to improve". Sounds like you really didn't agree with my advice of the 10th (And there's nothing wrong with that.)

From what you've said, it sounds like a motivation issue. I'm wondering if you can take a big step back, change all the pieces she's working on (to something easier), change the techniques she's working on, just try to reset her process in a way that makes it easier for her. Let her do the easy stuff and regain her confidence and enthusiasm and come back to the current sticky point from a different direction after traveling a different road for a while. I.e. If she is stuck, and you can't get her unstuck, maybe its best to take a detour...

Yeah, not sure if this is helpful but ... I mean well anyway

Don

Probably because the way you want her to practice is harder than the way she wants to practice.

And maybe on some subconscious level she thinks if she does it your way and still fails, she'll feel even worse.

Can you break your advice down into smaller practice tasks, and ask her to just do one or two for the next lesson?

And what if she were to set it up as sort of a science experiment? In other words, she turns her egg timer to 10 minutes, does one practice task for 10 minutes, then writes a mini-report (a paragraph or so) in her notebook about what results she got, how it went, etc.

Maybe that would let her distance herself psychologically from the effort, and protect her ego. As if she were just the observer, monitoring a student's practice.

That's the thing... have done this.

She has been planning her daughter's wedding and doing a lot of babysitting, and I think that perhaps that is the real issue. Hopefully she can stick it through until that's over with.

Probably because the way you want her to practice is harder than the way she wants to practice.

And maybe on some subconscious level she thinks if she does it your way and still fails, she'll feel even worse.

On a side note, why is it that students will tell you they are frustrated and stuck, and yet refuse to practice in the manner you have told them precisely to get them 'unstuck'?

I wonder if it's a pride thing why students do this. Once in a while a student will get it and be astounded that when they follow my advice it actually works

She has been planning her daughter's wedding

For 3 weeks now I have had very direct conversations with this student, telling her specifically how I think she should practice at home, and each week she comes in not having done any of it, and complaining about her mistakes. I finally said toward the end of the lesson that if she continues to practice her own way, she will give up piano because she won't make the progress and will continue to be frustrated.

Hi, Morodiene,

I am an adult piano student into my 7th year of lessons, so maybe I can add a bit to the discussion.

Since she has her own way of practicing, have you asked her to show YOU the way that she practices? Maybe with seeing what she does you can zero in and suggest a more productive way of doing it. In regards to her mistakes, I've been taught to focus on practicing theses areas of the piece I am learning in tiny fragments, adding notes back in and then the measure before and after, etc. After I have the mistakes under control then I go back and play a complete section with the hard parts back in. You can show her that by focusing on the hard parts she can work in short time frames and make great progress.

I think a lot of people, young and adult students, think of practicing as playing the entire piece over and over and not fixing the problem areas.

Another thing that might be pointed out is to go through the piece to see where the music repeats, such as in an A B A composition. My teacher told me that since I was playing the A section twice already that I needed to work on the B section twice as much. Breaking down the piece can make it less intimidating to learn.

If you can penetrate your student's mind-set by getting her to understand that small bits of music in short practice sessions can achieve a lot of progress, then maybe she can feel that practice is doable in between her other activities. It is actually good to step away from a focused practice session and do other things because it lets the brain absorb what was just learned.

In regards to your post about the Beatle's piece. Did she say why she didn't want to continue with it? Too hard? Didn't know how to approach it?

Granted, she may be too distracted by the upcoming wedding, but if she continues, maybe the above ideas could help?

I am sure that you have already suggested the above ideas, but I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in from the adult perspective.

I am not concerned about mistakes in my lessons because I know my teacher and I will work together to fix things and I will then be able to play the piece well.

If she understands that mistakes are a good thing maybe she will not focus so much on them. Many adults have ingrained in them the sense that mistakes are bad because of how they remember school and how they were taught in the past. Getting past that memory can be hard for some.

As I was writing this I just had another thought. Some adults think that learning the piano is just going to be easy to do. If your student can grasp that it is a process that has its ups and downs but a student will be able to get there with STEADY focused, efficient practice, that she will get there in the end. If she understands that everyone goes through hitting road blocks but with the help of her teacher she can get past them and improve beyond what she thinks she can achieve, then maybe your input can get through to her.

A Rebours

It's funny as I have a 180 degree view of things.

...

I always come to my lesson well-practiced, prepared and focused. I pay attention at all times to what my teacher is telling me, and best of all, I virtually never cancel lessons and always pay on time.

I think that we ABF adult students may constitute somewhat of a lunatic fringe in the world of piano pedagogy.

I think that we ABF adult students may constitute somewhat of a lunatic fringe in the world of piano pedagogy

I think that we ABF adult students may constitute somewhat of a lunatic fringe in the world of piano pedagogy.

...I told her to hold off on serious practicing until her daughter is married and she comes back from her much-needed vacation after that.

Hopefully in 2 weeks, we'll be back to making progress in her repertoire.

Why the rush? Maybe she could benefit from a lot more non-repertoire-directed work, such as continuing to learn to play freely through out-of-the-box activities as you described.