2011
07.09

Piano Lessons

Piano lessons

Piano Lessons

When I was 4 until about the age of 6 1/2 I took piano lessons. I must admit I never learned to read music during this period and I just watched the teacher’s hands or mostly played by ear. My instructor was a good woman and a good teacher but the structure wasn’t quite right for me. I remember a few times being dragged away from Scooby Doo on a Saturday morning to practice. When you’re 5 you don’t quite understand this. Consequently piano lessons were not a good experience for me and ultimately I quit. I’ve regretted that ever since. I think I have the ear that could have helped me go far. Could have made a lot of things easier. When it was time for my child to take piano lessons I always said I’d do things differently with them.

My 4 yr old (soon to be 5 next month) and I visited a potential piano teacher this Saturday summer morning. One of her stipulations for teaching a new student is that we come to her house and observe her teaching another student.  We were to come and observe to see if, in her words,  “this was suited for him”.

I don’t know exactly what it is a 4 yr. old is going to ‘observe’.   Seems to me you either teach the child or you don’t.   Also seems to me you observe the student.  Not the other way around.  Both my boy’s parent’s are music teachers.   His Grandfather was a musician and music teacher.  This fall will be my 19th year teaching public school music myself and I’ve never asked somebody to come observe me. At least not when they’re pursuing instruction as a student.  I often quote my father who coined the phrase, years before Nike, “Just Do It”.   Seems again, that’s all that need be done.

Observe.   Sheesh.

We arrived at the piano teacher’s house as she was teaching a very small, very well mannered Viatnamese girl.   She was 6 but pretty advanced and was the kind of example that makes you feel like a dumb, lazy American.  Her mother and her brother both occupied the same plush chair in the corner of the studio and quietly served as an audience as she took her lesson.

The instructor was a well ordered and organized woman with a neat house that lent itself to a nice learning environment.  By the entrance of the house she had a little room which opened up through two French doors where two pianos sat side by side.  This was her studio with lots of teaching aids, books, charts and posters.  She and her house reminded me of people and places I’d known a million times before.  A musician, and more specifically, a piano teacher’s house.

There were two little chairs set up for spectators framed by each French door and we took our places during this ‘observation’ lesson.  I had instructed my son to be quiet during the lesson.  He was.  Again, being 4, and his mind being a lot like mine (and I become acutely aware of that fact at times like this), he observed other things.  He practiced winking to me.  He practiced his best Popeye face. He quietly whispered to me wondering what and why the French doors were.  He noticed the vaulted ceiling in her living room.   He noticed her ceiling fan (a big priority in our house hold).  I also believe, no doubt, that he soaked up every note of music that was being played.   But he didn’t want to observe.   He learns from doing like I do.  “Observe” I thought.  I very maturely and politely sat there the whole time but it made me madder the longer I sat there as I observed my son observing.

When she was done with this lesson she said nothing to us, other than dismissing us before her next lesson came in.  She never evaluated my boy.   Never seized him up.   Didn’t even act like there’d be future meetings.  As we left he was a bit confused and asked when his piano lesson was to begin.   I still didn’t know the answer to this.

But what I did know as I left is I’ve always known I was a little different.   Knew that I did things differently.   Learned differently.  Always heard the refrain in my head from “West Side Story’s” There’s A Place For Us.   I heard it again as I was leaving her house but realized I was hearing it now for me and my son.

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  1. So, after the number of years I have known you, (of) you being an excellent teacher for one, why not “teach” him yourself? I don’t know much on music lessons and how its taught, but I would wonder if he’d enjoy being taught at first by you?

    Many of the “skilled” things I take for granted now were all my Dad’s lessons. Baseball is one item masterly taught by him; pitching, that nasty curve ball I was really feared of by other teams, then the hidden spit ball in my later pony league years. Batting was a slacking skill of mine (he did his best there) but I did make up for it by never backing off playing hard and tough as a shortstop when not on the mound. Using tools, building and fixing things, repair your own car before a shop is needed, camping, shooting rifles and then pistols, boxing, raquetball and even swimming (never had a lesson from anyone else) all these were things Dad taught me. And I’m sure there are hundreds more things he either taught me or threw me into to try it and learn from it.
    I now know why he did those things for me….it was all about spending time with his son and passing on those lessons and enjoying the moments. Maybe a concept to consider for you and your sons. One day in 40 some odd years, maybe they will think about it like I’m doing now.

    p.s: I agree, don’t observe: DIVE IN AND DO IT!