Vintage PA: Fun Is A Policy
Recently, I read a thread on social media that truly disturbed me. The participants were united in their belief that music lessons are serious and anyone who has fun is doing it wrong. Period. Here are my thoughts on the subject as put forth in a post from November 2011.
My daughter and I were texting about important logistical stuff when I suddenly realized that I had to leave to go teach. “Gotta go teach!”, I typed. “Have fun!”, she replied.
“Hmmm”, I thought. “Will they have practiced?” Then I reminded myself that I do enjoy teaching very much and having fun is a policy not an occurrence.
I was off to teach 30 minute classes of mostly 6-8 students at a time for a free music school. There was never a lot of time for one on one with the students. Every once in a while, I planned a week where to go around to everybody individually for mini lessons. This was one of those weeks.
The students were all working on holiday music and they were excited to share their pieces and get some personal attention. We adjusted fingerings, worked on trouble spots, played together, and laughed together. About half of the students had mastered their piece(s) and were ready to start new ones. I got to know each student better and they got to know me better.
We had fun!
One of my high school students was playing Still, Still, Still and had a horrible case of pedal hic-cups. Her partner was absent so we worked for most of the lesson on timing the pedal until she could practice it well on her own. Then she said, “The pedal on my piano at home is broken so I never use it.” We looked at each other and laughed uproariously. The pedal is getting fixed this week.
To me, fun isn’t about cute activities, or joking, or cheerleading during lessons. Fun is about mutual respect—doing something together that you both love and making that something better than it was before. Fun is about a positive attitude and the ability to laugh. Fun is about discovering what you can do and doing it with others. Fun is about dispelling tension.
Fun is a policy.
I still have fun and so do my students. We can talk about and do serious stuff and still be lighthearted. Recent fun has included, laughing about the “silly, fun loving finale” in the Mozart D Minor Fantasy, improvising on Bach, playing the low brass bass part to a Rag to help a student hear the bass line, and playing scales in rounds with multiple players. Yes, I have to get on them when the time is right. It is sometimes necessary. But, I’m keeping my policy in place thank you.
To close here is Lang Lang having some fun courtesy of Sam Rao. Enjoy!
I agree! Thanks for reading!
I completely agree! Sometimes I look at all the piano teaching blogs out there, with all their cool printouts and games, and think maybe I’m not a fun enough teacher! But what I realized is that although I may not have the cool printouts I do make lessons fun. I try to be goofy and say funny things as often as possible to get the student to laugh a little. My philosophy is if the student doesn’t enjoy the lesson time, then there’s no way they will enjoy practice, and therefore they won’t stick around as a student for very long and experience the full joy of music.