Teaching Tidbit #1: Are We Listening?
This week, I’m listening to myself teach and finding things that worked. Chime in with a comment if something similar has worked for you or if you have another brilliant idea!
Student: 16 year old, early advanced level
Piece: Bach Fantasy in C Minor
Issue: Two-note slurs inconsistent
Tactic: Record and listen back in lesson
I had a hunch this student was so worried about being able to play this perpetual motion piece as a whole (it is hard! but so fun!) that she wasn’t really listening to what she was doing. The most notable problem to me was the lack of consistency in her two-note slurs. Some weren’t slurred at all, some emphasized the second note, and some held out the second note far into the rest immediately following.
I asked her to play the first page again, with my iPhone voice recorder app on. I just told her that afterwards I was going to give her something to listen for. On first listening, she picked up that she was holding some of the notes into the rests. I then guided her to listen to all of the two-note slurs and see how they sounded. She pretty quickly picked up on some of the other issues, and I pointed her towards the remainder of what I was hearing.
We worked through a few of the slurs. Two of them were in the left hand and required a different fingering to execute well. I had her rehearse those several times, left hand alone, to get it, and then play three times correctly in a row.
Then we recorded the section again, and listened back. Both the student and I heard a decent improvement, but there was still room for growth. We re-evaluated a right hand slur that we hadn’t previously discussed. Again, fingering was the issue….
The beauty of recording is simple. Instead of the teacher telling the student what she heard, the student hears it herself. I know that I have sent the student home with an understandable goal and practice strategies to reach it. While I can’t guarantee it, I’m hopeful that she will listen more intently at home.
