Polyphony: variety ... leveling ... pedagogical knowledge.

Q: How can one add variety and not be repetitious in private instruction?

A: This is a wonderful question that undoubtedly comes from a teacher seeking to motivate her student and herself. Students like to know the expectations for a lesson, such as what may happen when, how the lesson will be structured and so on. Having a structured and balanced lesson is important for the student, and, yet, we all need and thrive on variety and creative ways to approach issues we may have dealt with before.

Many teachers attend master classes to hear a different way of dealing with teaching issues they encounter--they seek an alternative approach. Many teachers also attend workshops to gain new ideas to keep their teaching fresh and alive. Opportunities exist in each community for teachers to observe lessons by fellow teachers. For example, observing three lessons from three different respected teachers during a semester could prove to be an intriguing growth experience.

Likewise, many teachers continue to study privately, perhaps once a month or even several times a year, with a respected teacher in their area to maintain their playing and gain ideas for approaching their own work. Those who make an effort to keep their lives balanced with respect to dedication to their music activities and their private lives and hobbies, usually have a relatively easy time keeping creativity at the forefront in their lessons and teaching techniques.

Occasionally, a brief but abrupt change of piece and lesson pace with a student can help him or her awaken to the intrigue of music study. Introducing new materials such as music history, music theory games, an increased emphasis on ensemble playing and other similar activities, into the lessons could be helpful. Sometimes I recommend this as a good time to introduce avant-garde literature to a student, fascinating him with new sounds and techniques he will be using and challenging him with new ways to listen to the music he is playing--effective ways to wake up one's ears!

Q: How does a teacher decide what problems to address first with a student?

A: This is the heart of the best teaching--knowing what to say and "co-discovering" with the student. It is what the most skilled teachers do effectively and naturally but perhaps with more thought and consciousness than an observer may realize.

I trust very much my teaching intuition and know that many teachers do so after a number of years' experience. Intuition has a way of guiding a seasoned teacher, and may involve the student's personality and preferences, as well as the student's background and goals. Intuition involves listening and heeding one's inner instincts. And still, a hierarchy exists for addressing many student performances issues, and, of course, all performances are different.

I find it helpful to ask, "What is most needed here first of all?" with respect to a performance. Certainly the pulse and rhythm must be reliable and effective, for they comprise the heartbeat of any performance. And so, I listen for the heartbeat, working both with pulse (large rhythmic grouping) and rhythm (correct execution of note values). One should also listen with high expectations--always asking the student to achieve the highest goals. It is a given that the printed notes must be correct. If the essential character is absent, what does this performance most need to achieve, the specified "personality" in the work?

If, for example, the sitting position is not correct for a student and his arms and wrists do not work in correct alignment, then the most efficient technique cannot be achieved to allow fluency, as well as effective characterization of the musical passages. Often, issues hinge on the overall sitting position, innate pulse and realization of the meter in the performance, and an efficient technique to execute the music for the assigned level. The teacher then moves on to ask exactly what is needed in those areas.

Once, a teacher suggested that when evaluating a student, one should ask, "What is most wrong?" I like to rephrase this to say, "What is needed most, and then what, and then what?" A student usually can accomplish only one or two (or several) points at a time. To give too much correcting and too many points at one sitting diminishes the effect of what is most important at that time. Let's do one or two things well, then move on to the others.

Q: What are ways to teach a student to read quickly?

A: It is important to replace the word "quickly" with the word "consistently." If a student can read consistently well, he can function more easily as a musician--amateur or professional--than those who do not read as easily. Reading involves practice, and every lesson should have some part of an assignment that deals with sight reading practiced during the week. Students need to become comfortable deciphering a score and then playing it--all methodically. Students need to sight read weekly over a period of years.

Sight-reading progress requires a routine. Students should possess in their "stack of music" a level from a sight-reading series (several excellent sight-reading series are available for student pianists) or a music literature book from which they read a certain number of pieces or pages each week.

Secondly, the student should be able to set a tempo that she can maintain. The first step is to internalize the pulse and tap or count aloud the rhythm to establish the meter. Next, the piece is performed in the tempo that the pianist or other musician establishes; failure to do so is one of the major problems of poor sight readers. The teacher will ask the students to tap rhythms in the actual lesson, counting aloud in at least the earliest stages of this procedure. The established tempo must allow the student to look ahead and decipher patterns and groups of notes, rather than push the student so that she continues to skip over parts of measures. Each measure's beginning must start at the proper time in the meter. If a student cannot look ahead--if the tempo established is too fast and thus prevents this--the student will not render a satisfactory performance of the excerpt or piece.

Students need to be fluent with typical keyboard patterns--scales and arpeggios of all forms, broken and blocked chords with inversions, octave studies, five-note patterns and so on--according to their level. Fluency with these essential technical skills on the keyboard or any other instrument allows the student to bring the facility gained through studying the patterns to the reading and incorporation of one of them in the music. The sight reading is facilitated as the student physically/technically recognizes and plays the patterns.

One of the best ways to acquire sight reading skills is to incorporate it into every lesson, by having the student: (1) sight read a solo piece that is new to him, (2) sight read a piano duet with the teacher or (3) read for the teacher part of the prior week's sight reading assignment. This allows the teacher to go through the reading process many times, in many lessons, so effective reading skills are established. Some teachers may need to deal with only a few lines at a lesson with some students in the initial stages. The important thing is to go through the process so the student is successful in the lesson.

Piano duets used as sight-reading material can help the student gain the habit of not stopping, since the teacher continues the pulse even if the student falters. This activity also sets for the student a model of feasible tempi that can work in the reading process. I like to recommend that all students carry a reading book used for strengthening this skill. This helps expand a student's knowledge of the literature and builds her confidence and reading skills that can last a lifetime.

Q: Can you explain leveling?

A: Knowing what is difficult about a piece and the extent of those difficulties for the full repertoire spectrum is at the crux of excellent and expert teaching. Then one matches the student's abilities and potential to the appropriate music. It takes experience--just doing it--and it takes perception. A student who is assigned pieces that are consistently too challenging may begin to lose interest. Music study that previously was exhilarating gradually becomes more of a burden; gradually a portion of the excitement and desire to learn is diminished or removed. While almost everyone likes a challenge, the challenge must be appropriate. Assignments that consist only of literature that is too easy for the student may discourage the student, since little challenge is present. Expert teachers know what is appropriate and what is too difficult or too easy at a certain point. This is a primary aspect of leveling: knowing the levels and relative ease/difficulty as compared to the student's own playing level at any time.

Seasoned teachers often approach leveling and assigning repertoire with more ease than teachers with less practical experience. In the latter case, careful thought and time spent in planning repertoire assignments can prevent forays into literature that is too hard (usually) or too easy. Working from some of the available graded repertoire series can help in terms of knowing approximate levels of literature and then teaching that material to students. Still, most teachers will also work from collections that sometimes do not have uniform leveling and will, through perception and experience, become more skillful when assigning just the right pieces at the right time for a specific student. This is something that we spend a great deal of time thinking about, rightly so, in our own individual work as teachers. The appropriate nature of the material assigned to the specific student makes all of the difference in their musical satisfaction and growth. One of the most effective things we can do as teachers is to spend thoughtful and abundant time planning literature, finding just the right pieces for the student at the right time, thereby motivating the student through the music he plays.

Q: How can I build up piano pedagogy knowledge by myself for a lifelong benefit?

A: Listen, listen, listen--to excellent performances; this includes live performances and recordings. Read, read, read--both musical scores at your ability level and student literature. In addition, read literature including music journals, books and articles about learning, teaching, piano pedagogy, communication and so on. Find out what is current in college and university courses and pursue those readings.

Avoid working in a vacuum. Belonging to a local MTA leads to sharing experiences and solutions. Associations share knowledge and experiences and insights for the benefit of all involved. Teachers who are 60 can learn from those 20 or more years younger, and likewise teachers who are 25 can learn from those who are 20 and more years older. The relationships that develop can sustain one through difficult teaching situations and serve as a forum for sharing common interests and issues. Attending music and piano workshops for indepth study is akin to teacher in-service training for the schools, and provides a means of discovering what is new in the field, observing and studying teaching techniques, and learning fresh literature. All of this is motivating and affirming and both needed to sustain a lifetime of music making and music teaching/sharing.

Jane Magrath, NCTM, is internationally known as a pianist, author, clinician and teacher. She is professor and director of piano pedagogy at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma.