Posts Tagged ‘Suzuki’

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One More Time

Friday, June 11th, 2010

An interesting phenomenon I’ve observed over my years of piano instruction: “One more time” is about the worst thing you can say to a student.  She might play it perfectly three times, and as soon as you say, “Okay, once more,” I guarantee you she’ll tank and make all kinds of errors she’s never made before.

I have tested this theory numerous times, and it always works, even on my most composed kids.  I think those magic words — one time, just one — somehow make your brain shut off.  Woo-hoo!  One more time, and then we get to have ice cream!  (Well, Music Mind Games is pretty close to ice cream, and that’s usually the carrot that’s dangling in front of them, to use a very badly mixed metaphor.)

So, although I haven’t nailed down the psychology of it just yet, I’m learning to say, “Again, please,” until it’s correct, and then to just stop asking.  However, you’d be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t) how hard it is to strike a certain phrase from your vocabulary.  The more you dwell on not saying it, the more likely you are to say it in spite of yourself!

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Candid Camera

Saturday, May 29th, 2010

Yesterday one of my students’ moms began photographing the lesson about halfway through.  This is not entirely unusual, and actually I was just glad she was using her phone to document the lesson instead of texting or talking on it.

I noticed something, though.  I was sitting up straighter, lest she should catch me from a bad angle.  I was smiling almost continuously in an effort to ensure a positive expression in the photos.  And somehow, those two things helped improve my attitude; I was patient and engaged instead of clipped and distant.  I was doing it for the wrong reasons, but getting the right results.

Similarly, the first time I recorded myself in the classroom and watched it back, I was appalled by how brusque and clipped my speech sounded, and how businesslike and strict I was with the students.  I haven’t had the courage to repeat the exercise, though I have tried to incorporate those thoughts into my teaching (and to speak in a lighter, higher tone, which is better for my singing voice anyhow.)

In Blink (a wonderful summer book, if you’re looking for one) Malcolm Gladwell interviews a team of psychologists that mapped out all of the different possible expressions on a human face.  There are hundreds, and as they struggled to separate contempt from bitterness and frustration from hurt, they found that the very act of forming the expression caused them to experience the emotion.  After a morning of making negative expressions, they felt angry, sad and discouraged.

So, why not the other way around?  It makes sense.  Forcing a smile might be a good thing.

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Starting from Zero

Friday, March 12th, 2010

I am a Teacher.  I am In Control.  I fear No One.

Except the person who, unlike my students, might know more than me.  Okay, with a doctorate in choral conducting, he knows way more than me.  So much more that I’m majorly intimidated.  Oh, who am I kidding?  I’m freaking out.

Relax, I tell myself.  Breathe.  Sing.  You love to sing.

I do.  I love to sing.  And I know I have a gift for it; I thank God for my voice.  But until last month, I’d been skating by on tips and tricks I’d picked up from hanging out with musicians.  You know, really impressive terms like “glottal stop” and “diaphragm support,” standing with an open rib cage, over-pronouncing consonants.  Stuff I really didn’t understand, but was happy to throw around as if I did.

Until last month.  Suddenly, while sitting through a grad school lecture and wishing my classmates were not quite so verbose, I decided I was tired of being insecure about my singing voice.  I’d never actually had a voice lesson.  In a twisted kind of way, I was proud of that, the way I was proud of never having dyed my hair.  Then one day I just decided, who cares?  I feel like a change.  And I had my stylist put in highlights: 3 different colors, but wonderfully subtle.  I loved them.

So I guess this was similar.  What was the distinction of an untrained voice worth?  Certainly not more than the distinction of a trained one.  I looked up Suzuki voice teachers, found one in the area, and asked if he’d be willing to take on a piano teacher who had never really learned to sing.  He responded enthusiastically.  We set up the first lesson.  Here I was.  Learning, just like my students.

Also, like my students, completely overwhelmed, anxious and neurotic about every little thing.  Stand up straight.  Feet apart.  Hands and arms down.  Shoulders back.  Jaw loose.  Belly full of air.  Pure, clean vowels.  In a foreign language.  And for goodness’ sake, RELAX!

I saw it from the other side: my teacher patiently corrected all my errors, one by one.  Breathe deeply.  Give more support to the lower, richer notes; back off on the higher ones.  Relish the consonants.  Slide from lower to higher register seamlessly.  Let the volume expand; fill the room with sound.  And just as I was getting it, really getting it, I’d forget to breathe again.

“What did you learn today?” he asked after an hour.  (Only an hour?  Not three?)

“Singing is a lot more complicated than I thought!” I said.

He looked disappointed. “Then I’ve been talking too much,” he said.

No, no.  You’ve only forgotten, because I fake it well: I’m starting from zero.

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All Kinds

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

“It takes all kinds to make a world.”  Yes, to make a world full of trouble.

Today, one more day of trying to teach while ensnared in a web of red tape, I’m thinking specifically about two kinds of people:

1. The kind who thinks the rules don’t apply. You can give them the Suzuki Speech before beginning lessons, but they still don’t understand that they need to be involved.  You can tell them tuition is due at the beginning of the month, but they won’t bring it until you remind them, sometimes multiple times.  You can even make them sign a contract, but they may or may not abide by it, depending on the weather.  Their lives are just SO complicated and SO busy; you couldn’t possibly understand what they are going through, but at least try to understand it’s much more important than anything you care about.

2. The kind who takes a mile. Growing up, my mother had the same job I do now, so I learned early the value of a professional relationship.  It drove us crazy the way her students would tromp through the kitchen exclaiming, “Wow!  That smells GOOD!” or “What are you reading?”  We felt invaded, even when the people were our friends — imagine your friends following you to the office and trying to make small talk while you work.  Eventually, she trained them to come in through the front door, and I’ve done the same with my students.

Except then we had this little storm, and shoveling four feet of heavy, wet snow is exhausting; it was all we could do to clear a path from the street to the front and back doors.  I (generously, I thought) offered to let my students use the back door that week.

Now the snow is melting and the walkway is clear, but they have still been coming in and out through the back door.  I feel awkward refusing, especially when they look at me with Bambi eyes and say, “It’s soooo cold, can we go out through the back?”  So I say of course, and they walk through the kitchen commenting on dinner / dishes / decor.  It throws me into the most grumpy mood imaginable.  Is it a big deal?  Of course not.  (And at least it’s reasonably clean.)  But I hate feeling like a sucker when I was just trying to be nice.

Now, I’m willing to bet that I’ve played both parts on occasion.  So I’m actually, in a sick sort of way, grateful to the people who have inspired this rant post.  Because of them, I am more than careful to honor my commitments and respect the boundaries others set.  Here’s hoping that’s contagious.

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Help Me Help You

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

A few years ago, my mom was cleaning out old file folders and found something she wrote for me when I was young.  I was having difficulty with piano, probably saying I wanted to quit (I made a lot of noise about this for a lot of years, and it’s to my parents’ credit that they ignored me.)

It was a questionnaire, something designed to allow me to share my feelings about playing the piano.  Five questions: what I thought of my teacher, practicing and performing, and my likes and dislikes about learning to play.  Each had a handful of possible answers and an opportunity to fill in my own.  Judging by my penmanship, the 7-digit phone number scrawled on the back and the fact that she wrote it out by hand, I’d put it at about 1988.  I was eight years old, playing Bach minuets but struggling to learn to sightread the most basic melodies.  It was a difficult time, perhaps the only difficult time in my musical career, and without her brilliant pedagogical logic I might not have made it through.  I don’t remember the experience at all, but that’s probably a testament to the resolution we reached.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess.  Last week I did a very similar exercise with my Journalism students, who were in a pretty bad place after last semester.  They claimed they were furious at the administration for killing some of their pieces; I arranged a meeting so they could communicate, at which point they told the administration they were furious at me for assigning too much homework.  Clearly, we had misunderstood each other.

So, last week, we started over.  I asked them what they liked and disliked about the class, what they would change about it if they could, and what they wanted to do for the rest of the year.  It was not nearly as well-thought-out as my mom’s questionnaire; I just asked a question, gave them five minutes to brainstorm, and then asked for volunteers to start the discussion.  I tried to be fair and unbiased (although when one girl protested that we should do more sports articles, because “everyone loves to read about sports,” I had to take a couple of deep breaths.)

The result: a lot of great ideas.  One suggested a food issue where we review local restaurants, share recipes and interview nutritionists.  One wants to write only about sports, but another only about international news.  One was adamant about including games, like Sudoku and word searches.  All liked the format of the paper and at least some of the articles they’d written thus far.  After some profitable discussion about interviews, I increased their deadline from five days to seven, which made all the difference in the world; they agreed it was fair and even seemed excited about starting their new assignment.

It seemed almost too easy to heal the hurts of a semester in a day, but by actively seeking and relying on their opinions, maybe I reassuried them that they count, that I valued them fellow human beings.  The surprising thing is that when you ask for input and are serious about accepting it, you will find that students’ standards aren’t much lower than yours.  Sometimes they’re even higher (many students had specific suggestions about grading, implying they wanted their classmates to share their ideas about proper quality.)  In short, after a bad start to the week, things are looking up.

Just for fun, below is the whole piano questionnaire, with my answers in bold.  I made a few changes to the original and I think I may send it out to my piano parents — it could be one of them is dealing with a child every bit as headstrong and difficult as me!

(more…)

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