by Linda Silva
We had a teacher leave recently and I went through the nuanced task of moving their students to a new instructor. Families love their music teachers (our families seem to, anyway) so this is not always an easy transition. Each teacher has their own approach, introducing the standard concepts—beat, rhythm, note-reading, dynamics—in different ways and emphasizing one or another at different times. It takes students, parents, and teachers a bit of time to get used to each other.
But what made this transition especially tricky was that it happened as many of the students were at about the two-year mark with lessons. This can be a make-or-break time for music students. Note reading gets more complicated, a higher degree of small muscle coordination is required, keeping a steady beat has to be locked in. Certain aspects of musicality become non-negotiable in order to move forward; they have to be mastered or the student will not play well. (This is not to say they won’t advance. Just that they won’t make a particularly appealing sound.)
So as the new teachers took on these transitioning students and proceeded to do what music teachers do, there was some push-back. I found I was getting the same sort of parent comments about all of the new teachers: too strict, not as fun, awfully picky. What I started to see was that it was really more of a timing issue. The other teacher left before the students had reached that frustrating point where techniques and concepts need more wrestling with, when things are not so easily mastered as they are at first.
An unfortunate axiom of music education is that students tend to leave after two years. I saw that at the beginning of my career but it is no longer my experience. A good teacher, good environment, and informed parents go a long way toward keeping students at their instrument long enough to become proficient. But the gargoyle at the gate of true proficiency is struggle, and a student has to be willing to take that on. Being good is not a simple thing. Becoming a musician is not for the easily discouraged. (Neither is being a musician, now that I think about it.)
Yet struggle is exactly what children need to do. They need to take something that is “too hard” and chip away at it until it becomes not quite as hard. Then work with it some more. Then have a bad day where it seems to have slipped away, but still sit down with it again. No matter how long it takes, no matter whether it’s any fun. Because in a few days or weeks or sometimes even months…they’ll have it. It will feel great. They’ll know they can master something difficult. And when the next difficult task comes—be it a sonatina or a bar chord or a math problem or a new job—they’ll know that with perseverance, hard things don’t stay hard.
Plus, they’ll know how to play piano.