A delicate balance: a study of the professional lives of piano faculty in higher education.

My mind often returns to an exchange I had with a student colleague some twenty years ago. It was a glorious June day in New York, a splendid day for celebrating graduation from the Juilliard School. Amid the festivities following the ceremony, my pianist friend said somberly to me, "You know, now that we're not going to be in school anymore, we may have to learn to get by on just five hours of practice a day." As my professional life and personal responsibilities have changed in these intervening years, I began to wonder whether I was the only one who was in fact seldom getting those "five hours a day" and was having trouble fitting teaching, practicing, writing, studying and personal responsibilities into a twenty-four-hour day. This curiosity led me to develop a survey that I circulated among 800 piano faculty I attempted to send it to every full-time piano in the country. Only piano faculty were surveyed because pianists are under much greater expectation to perform without score, although this issue currently is under heavy debate. Ultimately, 158 pianists returned surveys, and their responses form the source data for this article. Respondents included faculty at all ranks and all types of institutions, small to large, public and private, university, college and conservatory.

What Do Pianists Do in an Academic Position?

What tasks do piano professors perform in the course of their jobs? Respondents were given the following selection of tasks to describe their positions:

a. Teach applied lessons

b. Hold a regularly scheduled performance class

c. Hold an irregularly scheduled performance class

d. Teach courses in the piano area (group piano, pedagogy, literature, accompanying)

e. Teach courses in other areas to majors (history, theory)

f. Teach courses to non-majors (appreciation, history)

g. Perform memorized solo recitals at my school

h. Perform solo recitals with score at my school

i. Perform memorized solo recitals at other universities

j. Perform memorized solo recitals other than in universities or colleges

k. Present informal recitals in primary or secondary schools

l. Perform in ensembles with colleagues

m. Accompany or perform with students

n. Write articles for publication

o. Sit on more than two committees per year

p. Administer the music department

q. Administer my instrumental area

r. Run special seminars or music camps

(Add any other tasks you perform.)

Loads were then classified as applied only; applied piano plus piano-related courses only (pedagogy, literature, accompanying); applied piano plus music core courses (music history, music theory); applied piano plus non-music major courses (music appreciation).

Several faculty members mentioned they also composed or edited as part of their creative or research programs or served as directors of preparatory departments, and two directed musical theater productions in addition to the items on the list.

How Do They See Themselves?

The issue of integrating the academic life and the pianistic life is not new. Heinrich Neuhaus, teacher of Gilels and Richter among many distinguished others, commented in his book, The Art of Piano Playing:

   It frequently occurred to me
   that, though the teacher-performer
   offers a number of undoubted
   advantages compared to one who is
   a teacher only--and the first of all
   the advantage of being a living
   example.... I know from personal
   experience that as soon as my
   teaching workload becomes such
   that I have not sufficient time to
   practice myself, the quality of my
   teaching immediately suffers. (1)

Musical history contains many examples of legendary teachers in both groups. Clara Wieck Schumann continued concertizing throughout her life, arranging her teaching schedule at the Conservatory in Frankfurt around it. Her students, including her own daughters who served as teaching assistants, refer with reverence to her demonstrations. (2) Modern pianists who maintain the same priority include Lydia Artymiw of the University of Minnesota, who states, "My priorities were established years ago. I have always considered myself a performer first, teacher second. This has not changed. However, I have found that I can make a big difference to my students through my own experiences as a performer (exactly the way my principal teacher of twelve years, Gary Graffman, did for me). Students learn a great deal from hearing me play, from sharing my concert experiences with them, from knowing my schedule and how I cope with it."

Roman Rudnytsky of Youngstown State University agrees: "I have always had the same priority in the sense that I have always considered myself as a performer first. I always have felt that I could give my piano students a special insight into the practicalities of performance and interpretation, since I was constantly involved in doing it myself."

While only 18 percent of respondents considered themselves concert performers who also teach, 66 percent considered themselves to be teachers for whom regular performance was vital. Weighing in on this side is Noel Engebretson from the University of Alabama: "I firmly believe that an active performer is the best teacher. This is not to say that a nonperformer cannot teach, but I believe that most would agree that if the same nonperformer were actively performing, his or her teaching would be at a higher level." Mark Clinton from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln agrees: "While some might question my priorities (putting practicing before any other facet of my 'job'), I think that this has had an extremely positive effect on my students. They have numerous opportunities to hear me perform throughout the year, and (hopefully) they are inspired by the quality of music making that I am able to achieve. Whim they realize that their teacher has to put practicing at the top of his list, they begin to do the same. This is one of the best benefits from my zealous commitment to practice!". Anthony Tommasini recently praised academic pianists, particularly Donald Currier of Yale, stating, "Much exceptional performing is being done by teachers in safe small halls on campuses sometimes far from major urban musical centers. (3)

Many historical figures, such as Franz Liszt, discontinued life on the concert platform while teaching occupied much of their attention. Amy Fay, in her delightful memoir, Music Study in Germany, speaks of her near-worship of Deppe, who was, in fact, a conductor, not a performing pianist, but had studied "nearly every set of Etudes under the sun ... as well as concertos and pieces by all the great composers, fingered and marked with pencil in the most minute way. It was enough simply to turn the leaves, to see what a study he must have made of everything he gave his scholars. (4) Many in the current profession follow this model and consider their own performance subsidiary to their role as teachers. Of the group surveyed, 12 percent consider themselves teachers who perform occasionally and 1 percent teachers who perform occasionally or never. A professor in the South finds, "The more energy that I devote to teaching, and the more I give of myself in lessons and other teaching, the less I have left for my own performing. In contrast, in years when I have performed more than usual, my teaching seemed to be less than my best. I have temporarily resolved this by learning new solo repertoire only during the summer, and only learning one new solo program per year. I have seen teachers who are performers first, and squeeze in teaching because they have to, and their students suffer. There are those who can do it all, and I certainly admire that, but I am not in that select group. My goal is never to give less than my best to my students, even if that means my own performing has to be compromised."

Some found it impossible to choose: "I am frustrated. In thirty-eight years of teaching I have never solved teaching and performing. I love both passionately and tend to give myself 100 percent to whatever I am doing. However, when devoting myself wholeheartedly to my students and their needs, I have a nagging yearning in the back of my mind to be practicing. But when I am devoting large blocks of time to practice and preparation for an upcoming recital or tour, I feel guilty about 'cheating' the students of all that I could give them. Life would be so much easier if performing did not bring me so much fulfillment."

Who Were Their Mentors?

How do these respondents see their mentors, their major piano professors in undergraduate and graduate school? What percentage see themselves as following in the paths of these role models? Eighteen percent see their mentors as performers first, teachers second; 65 percent see their mentors as teachers who regularly perform; and 13 percent consider their mentors as teachers who occasionally, seldom or never perform in public. Of those who see their mentors as pianists first, teachers second, 35 percent see themselves as following in that model. Seventy-six percent of respondents who see their mentors as teachers for whom performance is vital follow in that tradition. When the mentors were infrequent performers, 66 percent consider themselves similarly.

Professor Stewart Gordon of the University of Southern California, author of Etudes for Piano Teachers and A History of Keyboard Literature, mentions having had mentors in each category: Walter Gieseking as the performer who also taught, Cecile Genhart as the teacher to whom regular performance was vital, Adele Marcus as the teacher who performed occasionally and Olga Samaroff as the teacher who performed seldom or never.

Performance Activities

Most faculty would like to adjust their solo performance schedule: While 28 percent find it ideal, 54 percent would like to do more and 18 percent expressed frustration at lack of practice time to maintain quality with their current schedule. In retrospect, I should have worded this question differently: It seems quite possible to fall into both of these last categories.

Respondents also commented on the time crunch created when both organizing and performing an ambitious schedule of recitals. Wayne Johnson of Seattle Pacific University remarks, "I had an agent for a while, and this made an enormous difference in my schedule and in successfully promoting my concerts in various venues. However, most managers are only interested in working with people who are full-time artists or have a national or international reputation--or who have won some recent competition."

There has long been a suspicion that faculty may cut back on professional activity, including performance, after earning tenure. The survey results do not bear this out.

Type of schools attended by respondents was one variable that showed significant correlation with level of solo performance. While the second largest group of those attending only colleges and universities selected "none," those earning all degrees at conservatories reported the most active schedules, while also reporting a larger number of those selecting "none" than those who attended both colleges/ universities and conservatories.

Many faculty have chosen to perform recitals from score rather than to curtail performance schedules due to time contraints. (5, 6) Jerome Reed of Lipscomb University is one who has chosen this option: "I decided that I had proved myself by playing long, solo recitals from memory for many years. I've also played many concertos from memory. For me, memory work is arduous and it takes so much time from other things--even the chance to learn more music--that for now I've decided to learn more music without worrying about the memory aspect. Again, at some point I will probably go back to playing from memory."

Gail Berenson, NCTM, of Ohio University agrees: "As people reach senior status at their teaching institution, their responsibilities grow, and it becomes more and more difficult to fit in sufficient practice time to feel secure performing solo repertoire in recital by memory. There still exists a stigma about performing using score. Perhaps it is time that was changed.... I finally decided that given the amount of collaborative performances I do, the writing and the committee work, along with my full teaching load, I simply cannot devote enough time to perform a solo recital from memory."

In fact, ensemble performance takes up a significant amount of effort by 'faculty.

Respondents most frequently reported satisfaction with their ensemble performance schedules or the desire to do more (40 percent and 41 percent, respectively). Fourteen percent would like to have more practice time to continue at their current schedule, while 5 percent expressed the desire for fewer ensemble performances due to a preference for other musical outlets.

Practice

Certainly with the performances scheduled, along with study of repertoire taught, practice was an important concern.

These numbers (see chart above) show a large contrast to the amount we would ideally practice.

Many respondents referred to a distinct time deficit:

A respondent in the Midwest replied, "I just need a longer amount of time to live with a piece before I perform it, since I am not spending as much time per day with it.... Finding efficient ways to practice has helped me to. think more about learning a piece, which has been helpful to share with students who often don't know how to practice or go about learning a new piece. To satisfy my need to perform, I find myself doing more collaborations that don't need to be memorized.

"I would be lying if I said that I had enough time to practice, because I really have two full-time jobs--my university/academic responsibilities and my performing career. There is never enough time to do much else!"

Lucia Unrau of Bluffton University is forthright: "This is an extremely frustrating issue for me.... I don't integrate performance, practice and teaching much; instead, I prioritize. When I have a performance coming up, my teaching suffers; when I have a heavy teaching load, my practice suffers.... I think another frustration that goes along with this is the perception that we're just 'talented' and don't necessarily work hard."

George Kiorpes of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro mentions" a valuable quality in our professions: "Of course one must adapt.... There are no fixed rules; one must be flexible."

I might add that sometimes the performance suffers from the heavy teaching load (Several respondents, including myself, reported sometimes teaching more than twenty contact hours weekly.) even when the number of practice hours might seem appropriate, as a consequence of impending mental, physical and emotional exhaustion. In addition to their teaching loads, 48 percent report performing with students on juries and recitals and with student ensembles as time consuming. A midwestern professor is one of the many who has learned to be practical: "Students have to be responsible enough to track me down, because they know that I don't have the time to seek them out.... When a final jury exam includes the option to hear any one of six different pieces, I tend to not even try to master the more difficult accompaniments, because the chances are high that it won't be selected. My time is too valuable--and limited--to spend time working on music that will never even be heard." As one busy faculty member eloquently wrote: "The ... issue for me is finding and conserving the energy required for an artistic mindset."

A few respondents reported benefits stemming from limited practice time: "My practice time is much more focused. I know what I must accomplish in a given amount of time, and I make sure that it happens. This has also helped my teaching." Wesley Roberts of Campbellsville College mentions that he deals with the time issue by "blocking time for each area and not setting unrealistic standards for the amount of time I have to spend."

So when do respondents find this time to practice?

Professor Lydia Artymiw of the University of Minnesota represents many who choose the evening to practice. "I often practice late at night--from 9 P.M. through midnight or later--in order to 'be able to cover all the new repertoire that I am required to learn each year," she says. Noel Engebretson and others choose mornings: "I tend to keep my mornings free (for the most part) and schedule students in the afternoons."

Other respondents mention various compromises, particularly intensive summer practicing:

* "... by learning new solo repertoire only during the summer, and only learning one new solo program per year."

* "My practicing is usually late at night, but usually relaxing and energizing. I make very good use of summers to write articles and to learn new music."

* "My solution is to have cyclical rhythm to my year where my concentration and focus shift with my various demands. Summer is a recharging time where I learn any new repertoire, which I will play the following season."

Anita Renfroe of Millersville University of Pennsylvania savors the luxury of summer practice: "Thank goodness for the summers! That's the time to rekindle our deep relationship with the piano, tempt our fingers and ears with new compositions, and actually have time to ponder several approaches to a phrase or the literary link between verse and score."

A chair in the Southwest responded: "With each year's added responsibilities, my practice has diminished.... I do turn down a lot of performance opportunities due to the added burden of teaching new courses in a downsized university."

The strongest correlation between amount of practice and other aspects of faculty profile was seen in the type of school where faculty earned their own degrees.

[GRAPHIC OMITTED]

What Impacts Faculty Practice Habits?

A large number of respondents mentioned the birth of children as the most important factor in decreasing the amount of attention focused on performance and practice. Jerome Reed comments, "There is a major, major shift in priorities with the arrival of a child. I am keenly aware that she is changing every day, and I don't want to miss out on any of it because I was practicing or performing. Therefore, practicing has to be squeezed in." Fay Adams of the University of Tennessee and immediate past president of the Tennessee Music Teachers Association states unequivocally, "My children come first, no matter what."

Children early in one's career can cause a time strain that is irreconcilable, as articulated by one faculty member: "The birth of my daughter helped me put things in perspective. I would love to do all the things they expect here, but my family comes first. Before my daughter came along, I tried to put practicing first, in order to keep my skills up. I'm very out of shape now, because I put my child first, but that is my decision and I live with the consequences at work because I'm a mom first, pianist second. Research, etc., has also gone by the wayside. I feel very frustrated."

Maturity also plays a part in reorganizing priorities. A professor at a midwestern institution comments, "My children are young--3 and 8 years old. They are my priority. I gave my professional life the priority for many years, but now that I am 44, what seems important has changed." Another professor agrees: "Age and family have brought the realization that what I give as a teacher and mom will have more far-reaching effects than what I give as a performer. Nevertheless, it is vital for me to devote some time each day to my musical art." Louis Nagel at the University of Michigan states: "They [my priorities] have always been family first followed by equal amounts of teaching and playing. I admit early in my days family did not always come first. But that is my goal."

John Salmon of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro responded, "I'm not sure I have totally resolved these issues (balance of performance, teaching and family)! But having recently been promoted to full professor ... gives me the freedom to seek new solutions.... Junior faculty are often expected--by inference if not explicitly--to do it all: teach, serve and engage in high-level creative/research projects."

Since many times women find themselves in the position of offering more child and elder care, the question of gender and its effect on both performance and practice arose. Study results would seem to indicate that any effect of gender is slight, given the small numbers of persons in the extreme ranges, but that men are more represented in the higher categories and women more represented in the lower categories:

Respondents refer to a change in priorities that is consistent with the cross-disciplinary literature of faculty growth over a career: (7)

* "Hopefully, I am less self-centered than when I was a student. My career goal is now to assist students in becoming better teachers and players."

* "My early ambition was to perform; my love of teaching has grown through the years as I've discovered the tremendous rewards there."

* "I feel as though I have a much greater commitment to my teaching now and that my performance has become somewhat secondary. I no longer have the energy to work on large recital programs. I am not willing to go into the classroom situation unprepared."

The discrepancy between full- and part-time salaries prevents some from balancing home and professional life: "I find full-time college teaching to be overwhelming in regards to wanting to maintain my practice and performance and also raise a child. I would so like to work three-quarters or half time, but my university won't permit it."

Numerous other respondents mentioned paperwork as consuming much more time than it should. Michael Gurt speaks for many. "The real reason we can no longer do our jobs has mostly to do with the ever-increasing paperwork burden we are forced to bear," he says. "Consider: At Louisiana State University there are about the same number of students and faculty now as there were when I began in 1987. There are far more administrators and support staff, though, and each of those people is hard at work generating more forms, procedures, regulations, etc. The inevitable result is that more committees need to be formed in order to deal with those procedures, causing additional drain on faculty resources." A professor at a Midwest college agrees: "External pressures I feel include the need to be (over) involved in committee assignments and marginally related community activities. One must reserve a certain amount of time each day to deal with the voluminous paperwork that crosses the desk." Another Midwesterner comments: "The most difficult conflict is not the teaching, but the heavy load of committee work and general paperwork obligations of a college teaching position, which can amount to more hours per week than the teaching load."

Arthur Houle of Albertson College of Idaho suggests faculty must take an active role in balancing their lives: "I am a workaholic who also realizes that my family and professional growth (e.g., practicing) should not forever take a back seat to the demands of teaching, committees, meetings, community service, etc. In the long run nobody benefits from burnout ... Ultimately it is up to each individual faculty member to assert him-herself in order to find a healthy balance between all the personal and professional demands in life. Alas, it's easier said than done, however!"

A chair from the western United States represents the comments of other pianists who have assumed the role of chair: "As I have matured (I am 51 years of age.), I have been called upon to take on more administrative duties, because (I am told) of my good 'people skills' and the richness of my background and experience. I enjoy this work enormously, but find it to be yet another stress factor in the daily balancing act, which has been my life."

A female chair at a private university is more negative: "It's presently pretty awful, not due to teaching load but due to administrative work."

Chairs also have affirmed the increase in paperwork mentioned above. Paul Nitsch observed, "The change over the last twenty-three years within the department has been toward increasing administrative duties." A western chair says, "The largest of problems in balancing time is dealing with all the small, everyday, and seemingly insignificant details associated with managing programmatic content. It is these small details (everything from instrument and hall management to recruiting packages and advertising, with a million things in between), which eat into both teaching preparation and performance preparation. The administration has little understanding of how these almost unaccountable details eat away your time and focus."

What Does Practice Accomplish?

It could be extrapolated that we do not only practice repertoire scheduled for performance, since faculty who never perform a solo recital or in an ensemble still tend to report some practice. Questions were asked about the quantity and depth of repertoire studied.

A male professor comments: "I find it very difficult to maintain standards of performance which were expected of me in my graduate and undergraduate programs. My repertoire cannot be as complex and demanding, and I need a much longer time period for preparation. Also, my students are much weaker than the background of knowledge and information which I have amassed. As a result, I find myself forgetting large chunks of the piano repertoire and focusing on a few accessible works which my students can accomplish with good results."

Many individuals indicated frustration with the demands placed on them in their jobs and the lack of time to "have a life." Interestingly, only one individual commented on financial issues, although academics are frequently considered underpaid in relation to working hours or educational preparation. However, for many of us, the satisfactions outweigh the heavy workloads. A professor at a southern university speaks of finding satisfaction amidst a variety of activities: "I formerly performed more frequently; my priority is now teaching. Life changes! Maybe this little story will explain things. I direct a summer piano institute. After a faculty piano duo recital at the institute, a teacher attending asked how I did all this and managed to perform. My response was, 'The music was the reason for all else that we do.' I think each person has to find their own priorities, and hopefully fit these within the job expectations. I believe that music restores life to us and gives back even more than we put into it." Rachmaninoff would have agreed with the last statement, as evidenced by his remark, "Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music." Tommasini elegantly salutes the "many master teachers who are revered by young musicians as performers, yet who seldom stray from the environs of a conservatory or college campus. There, it is the process of working that sustains them, like a monk's daily ritual of chanting and prayer. And, to them, passing on the practice to younger musicians is a sacred and self-empowering trust. (8)

Who are the Respondents?

other
(instructor, lecturer,
artist-in-residence,
unranking institution     6%

Professor                45%

Associate Professor      26%

Assistant Professor      23%

Note: Table made from pie chart.

Weekly Practice

7-12 hours           26%

5-7 hours            18%

16-22 hours          17%

less than 5 hours    16%

12-16 hours          16%

22-28 hours           4%

More than
28 hours              3%

Note: Table made from pie chart.

Family Status

Single                  17%

Married, no children    33%

Married, one child      14%

Married, multiple
children                36%

Note: Table made from pie chart.

NOTES

(1.) Neuhaus, Heinrich, The Art of Piano Playing. (First English edition, Barrie and Jenkins, 1973; reprint, Longwood Academic, 1989): 169-170.

(2.) Reich, Nancy B., Clara Schumann. (Cornell University Press, 1985): 292.

(3.) Tommasini, Anthony, "Master Teachers Whose Artistry Glows in Private," New York Times. (October 27, 1998): Section E, 2, col. 3.

(4.) Fay, Amy, Music Study in Germany. (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Company, 1880; reprint, Dover, 1965): 286-287.

(5.) Weirich, Robert, "Out of the Woods," Clavier. (December 2001): 43.

(6.) Berenson, Gall, "Solo Performing Odyssey," American Music Teacher, 46 (6), (June/July 1997): 22.

(7.) Ladd, E. C., and S. M. Lipset in "The Aging Professorate." Chronicle of Higher Education, 1976a, 12 (13): 16, give the following breakdown of percentages of faculty preferring research to teaching: age under 35 years, 35%; age 3-44, 26%; age 4-54, 23%; age 55+, 16%.

(8.) Tommasini, Anthony, op. cit.

BONUS BYTES

Complete survey results are online at www.mtna.org, Click on American Music Teacher, hen click on "Tell me more about Bonus Bytes."

Lynn Rice-See is professor of piano at East Tennessee State University. She holds degrees from Peabody Conservatory, the Juilliard School and University of Southern California. She is also a member of the faculty at the Adamant Music School.