I wish that all students can continue to take piano lessons forever. However, the realistic truth is that the vast majority of piano students will cease lessons as they grow older. Perhaps they become passionate about other endeavors. Or perhaps they move to different cities to pursue employment or studies, or feel too financially restricted to continue. Even I as someone who is passionate about the piano, am not continuing piano lessons even though I know I am nowhere near done learning.
In fact, the statistics show that most piano students will take lessons for about 3 years. As a piano teacher, this gives me the wonderful and daunting challenge to capture the student’s musical interest with in a fairly short time frame. It also means I need to give my students the tools they need to continue their learning.
So What Should We Do?
One of the main questions that I ponder is how to promote musical curiosity. While that it is important to play through the classics, how do I instill a curiosity? Whether that be country, pop, folk, rap, or classical music, how do I encourage the students to listen to how the music is constructed and how it makes them feel?
At EN Music Studio
One of my main techniques, is to use descriptive language. Much of music learning is the development of your ear and the language to describe the intricacies of sounds heard. When beginning piano lessons for the first time, the language is simple but relevant to the music being learned. “That was loud!” “That was very soft” “That went step wise all the way down”.
As we continue along, the language becomes accordingly more complex. “That note in the melody fits in that left hand chord in a warm and comforting way”. “The tempo was unsteady, and it gave us a uncertain feeling”. And even further along, the language continues to evolve. “We want this melodic line to sound like a singing bird, soaring and bright, but delicate in it’s staccato and interval jumps”. With this language, that students can continue to promote improve their own musicality. They can also notice the intricacies in other people’s music.
If at at the end of the day, the students no longer wish to play piano, I hope that they acquire enough language to find the music that really, really moves them to their core.
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Eric Ng (B.Mus, A.R.C.T , ECE ) is a piano teacher based in Richmond, B.C. Mr. Eric has taught in a variety of early childhood education styles, including Reggio-inspired, Montessori, Play-based, and Outdoor-based settings. Along with his formal classical music training from the RCM curriculum and the University of Victoria, Mr. Eric brings a unique perspective to teaching music to young children today.