Polyphony.

This Polyphony column appears in two parts. The first part provides some personal reflections on the beginning of a new teaching year. The second section comes as a result of questions and feedback from the April/May Polyphony column on "Art as Process." In it we try to face some issues we all encounter in authentically allowing our teaching and philosophy to deal with art as process. Next month, we will return to a question-and-answer format, and I invite your questions and comments on that and future columns.

Personal Reflections

Just now I am returning to teaching after a semester-long sabbatical, an incredible opportunity only occasionally afforded for reflection, rest, renewal, revitalization and also meant for focused research and creative activity (an emphasis always found in higher education settings and often adopted by independent teachers with self-structured sabbaticals). Even while writing this column in May, I am bristling with energy with some aspects of my return to the academic and teaching setting at my school. It is the work with the students that most has me charged about the return, and thus it reinforces my passion that this is so critical--the central--element in my work as a musician/pianist, teacher, academician, author/editor and workshop clinician. It points out clearly to me how much I have missed the connections with students--the regularity of the lessons, the ups and downs in a student's progress and all the musical discussions we have within the process of a semester. Did it take a semester sabbatical for me to miss it to this extent? Perhaps not. But this does point out to me now how important it is for us all to find rime for rest and renewal either during a summer, between semesters or during a semester simply to keep our lives and teaching in focus.

What will I do differently when I return? Most of all I will try to remember to balance my passion for my teaching and my musical life with time to breathe, not to let any one aspect of my life become too heavy with work or teaching or too many meeting assignments or too many deadlines.

What will I do differently in my teaching? I am going to ask for even more student feedback in my private lessons, so I know where the student is. I once heard an educator suggest that faculty could ask students in a college course to provide at the end of each class several sentences for the professor, answering the question, "What was the muddiest point in this class?" Thus, the teacher could begin the next class by clarifying those points. It was a way for the teacher to learn what the student did not quite grasp or what in the presentation was not clear. I am thinking this could occur easily at the end of each private lesson, with the student writing down the answer just after the lesson and leaving it on a bulletin board.

And now, as we all begin the new teaching year, it perhaps is a good time to ask ourselves, "what part of our teaching gives us the most meaning, the most satisfaction and the most connection?" Just to jot down a few points on a piece of paper or in a notebook or journal in a ten-minute time segment could bring tremendous clarity and focus into our work for the new semester. This could give us a fresh start at the beginning of the teaching year.

Then, asking ourselves a second question and, again, noting our responses on paper, could bring additional clarity. "What can we do to enrich and deepen the meaning in our work and connection with our students, and what can and should we change?" By being conscious about exactly where we are at the beginning of the year, what our feelings are and what we can do now to change what could have hampered us last year (and taking effective action now), we can make the teaching process this year more rewarding, effective and meaningful than ever before.

One additional point I want to take into my teaching is this: I always want to ask the students, especially at the beginning of a semester and the beginning of the academic year, what their goals are for their study. "How can I help you the most? What are your overall goals for your playing this semester? What points in your technique would you like most for me to help you with? Are there aspects of your practice routine and techniques we can consciously focus on together or with which you would like special assistance?" It is important that students play a part in planning and setting their goals and the curriculum for their study. We work as a partnership at any level of advancement.

Art and Teaching as Process--in Real Life

In response to the April/May 2004 Polyphony column, I received the following letter:

   "Jane:

   Your article on 'art as process'
   came the day after one of my
   most talented and previously
   motivated students told me she
   just wanted to play the piano for
   'fun.' I was devastated, ms she
   had just won an award for the
   state and we had just looked at
   potential colleges to minor in
   music (which she still might).
   Your article helped [me] realize
   that this was OK and it freed me
   up from 'guilt' and the 'disappointment'
   of not having a 'winning'
   student.

   I think we, as teachers, need to
   develop this more. After we put
   down all the literature she was
   working on so hard, I did not
   know what do. How do I teach
   for FUN? I can teach memorizing,
   good phrasing, stylistic articulation,
   but HOW and what do
   I teach for enjoyment? Over the
   summer I do teach lighter pieces,
   but even these are for chord
   structure, voicing, etc. And I do
   find that students do NOT care;
   they just want to play. Part of it
   could be that we instinctively
   perpetuated out own experiences
   of polished playing and auditions
   exclusively without scores. I
   remember once at a college seeing
   on the bulletin board an ad
   for a college piano teacher and
   knowing that hundreds of great
   applicants would be considered,
   but also realizing that the job
   description duplicated the one
   that the current teacher had, and
   we were just perpetuating the
   same old-same old ..."

So many of us can echo the sentiments of this writer. She has come through the disappointing experience of having a top student change her professional goals. "What does one do in this situation?" is a real-life question. My comments lie mostly in the area of ways to experience the time with the student in the lesson rather than in the area of what repertoire, skills and technique to study.

It is important that students who decide not to major in music do not feel they are disappointing or letting us down. Students often so badly want to please a teacher, and if they feel for whatever reason they are not doing so, it is possible they will cease music study as the distance grows between them. We want them to feel they have our support and respect "no matter what." The hobbies and passions of this student need to be respected, even if they are different from ours. When the relationship is strong between teachers and students, they are most likely to succeed with a change in plans.

Ultimately, we hope teaching a student who wants to study "for fun" can allow the student and the teacher to enjoy the process and still provide high-quality performances, as well as rewarding experiences. I wonder if there is a teaching approach that might be followed to allow this. The process of working on detail, achieving and hearing technical refinement, discovering theoretical principles within a piece of music (chord structures, harmonic deviations and surprises, and so on), hearing balance in a musical line, shaping a phrase or singing a melody and then playing, and countless other activities--these all

seem to be the stuff of "serious students" and, too, can be encountered in lessons for any student, regardless of the goals. All of these refinements, however, may not happen at once--and this is the key. They build on each other gradually in terms of refinement of individual skills.

Once I heard the most incredibly skillful teacher make the biggest exclamation to an elementary student in a lesson over the shaping and ritard in an eight-measure piece in a beginning method book. She did it in such a way I'm sure the student never forgot that

Send Us Your Questions

Do you have a teaching question you would like to have answered?

Perhaps you have a practice tip for students you would like to share or a studio idea you are trying differently this year. Questions and other items may be sent to: American Music Teacher, Attn: Polyphony; 441 Vine St., Ste. 505, Cincinnati, OH 45202-2811; fax [phone]; or e-mail to [e-mail]. one experience, and I imagine the student went home to practice to emulate the phrasing on every piece in the lesson assignment for many weeks. The teacher was affirming in a memorable way exactly what she wanted robe repeated again and again in the student's playing. Although so many of us are quite performance oriented, learning to enjoy the process of the student growing along the way can give our work more personal meaning. Performance orientation provides a performance in a specific time; the second, process orientation, has to do with personal and musical growth that go with a person for a lifetime. Both are important to acknowledge and develop.

One occasionally encounters students who seem not to care. Briefly, two ideas seem pertinent. One is that competence motivates children. Whatever they do well in piano tan be stressed and used as a confidence builder. They will work to do whatever they believe they are good at again in the next pieces, because they believe they do it well, as reinforced by the teacher. Students enjoy doing what they believe they do well. Secondly, sometimes these students may respond to hearing a tape recording of their own performance of a piece played back for them during the lesson. This can be followed by asking the student to teach themselves (during the lesson, in dialogue with the teacher). The teacher can ask: "If you were the teacher of this performance, what should that person work on first? What second? What is the most needed Here--the most 'wrong'?" In addition, be sure to ask the student, "What is the most "right?" or "What are the three best things about that performance?"

Students also respond to autonomy. Perhaps asking the student what her goals are now in her piano study, helping her refine the goals as they are expressed, can help both parties plan the next months of study. Giving the student three repertoire choices to choose one from and similar situations where the student has choice also could help the student who wants to play for "fun."

Ultimately, we teach each student individually, just a bit or even a lot differently from others. Most of all, we work on the student's relationship to each piece she plays and her relationship to music itself, and let that process be illuminating, rejuvenating and satisfying. We know also there will betimes that are more frustrating and which perhaps produce growing pains. And I know that students certainly go through stages during their years of study, and that we as teachers need to try to ascertain when just to hang in there with students, nourishing them while they grow through an issue.

I believe that if we have been there with a student and celebrated her best performances in the lesson; experienced her "aha" moments; heard her expression of an original composition, skillfully written and presented with pride; when we have heard students' dreams and emotions expressed through music; when we have experienced their enthusiasm over a new piece they loved learning (whether or not it is initially worked out to our pleasure)--then in these cases and others we have experienced some of the rewarding moments in the process of that student's growth.

Wanted: Teaching Tips

MTNA has a website feature devoted to teaching tips. Please share with us some of your favorite tried-and-true ideas. Send your tips to: MTNA, Attn: Teaching Tips, 441 Vine St., Ste. 505, Cincinnati, OH 45202-2811; fax [phone]; or e-mail to [e-mail].