Teaching Tidbit #2: Woo the Student
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: 17 years old, upper intermediate level
Piece: Clementi Sonatina in F Major Op.36, No.4 (first movement)
Issue: Sell the student on a new piece
Tactic: Tap into the student’s other interests
Christina (not her real name) transferred to me about four months ago. In our first semester of lessons, I let her interests entirely drive our repertoire choices and lesson activities. She shared with me that she does enjoy classical piano music, but only if it is in a minor key and sounds melancholy. (Cue the Chopin preludes and nocturnes!) Christina also enjoys film music and improvising at the piano, and composes in a singer-songwriter style. While I’m no expert at teaching composition, we did work on a few of her compositional ideas in the fall, and I helped her craft an improvisation in the style of one of her pieces, which was fun for both of us.
I decided that it was time for me to attempt to broaden her horizons. After quickly evaluating which pieces were in her repertoire book that were not in a minor key or melancholy in character, I decided that it was time to assign a Classical-era sonatina. In order to win Christina over to enjoying such a project, I decided to do two things: 1) make sure the piece was slightly below her highest playing level so that it was not arduous to learn, and 2) sell it in a unique way.
I told Christina first that it was time for me to be an awful piano teacher who was going to assign something outside of her preferred style. Honesty is helpful, and I wanted her to know that I was aware that this was not her favorite! Then, I gave her a brief explanation of sonata form and she labeled the exposition, development, and recapitulation. I shared that I often imagine that composers writing in such a strict form probably enjoy geeking out over just how interesting they can make the piece while staying within the confines of the form. Then, after a brief discussion of ostinato (a term that teenagers can usually identify with!), I played the right hand part on my second keyboard while she sight-played the left hand on the main piano for the first theme. We stopped and I asked, “How would you describe the character of that theme?”
Usually students respond with shorter answers, but this student is a creative, and right away painted a word picture for me of the type of person who has walked on stage to this music. (I wish I could remember her exact words!) I played the second theme and the end of the exposition and asked her for more character imaginations, which she was quickly able to offer back.
After a few exchanges about details and a reminder to use consistent fingering on the scale passages, I assigned for her to be able to play the exposition in her next lesson, hands together. As I was transitioning to putting this on her assignment sheet, she said, “Miss Janna, I think I’m going to have fun with this piece.”
Mission accomplished.
