The World According to Ms. Alison

Sorry, couldn't resist the pun. 

Something I take pride in as a teacher is my extremely high retention rate.  I know this is in large part because at the first consult I am completely honest with parents about whether or not I think their child is ready to begin, and whether or not I think I am the right person for the job.  Sometimes this may be a euphemism.  I can neither confirm nor deny.

But, when I work for a school, I don't have the luxury of choice.  Today I encountered the logical conclusion of an eye-gougingly frustrating semester of uphill effort with a student who never wanted to take piano in the first place.  She wanted to quit before she even started.  I want her to quit because it was a waste of my time and her parent's money .  The school doesn't want her to quit because she is a paying customer.  And the parents are stuck between a rock and a hard place as the only instrument she actually WANTS to learn is drumset.  With a big, shiny, ear-splitting crash cymbal.

In search of solace I googled "piano student drop out rate".  Prepare yourself, dear reader.  This true confession is profoundly uncouth.  According to Morty Manus, president of Alfred Publications, one of the world's leading music publishing companies, we can infer by sales of level one books that...wait for it...2 MILLION students take up piano every year.  2 MILLION!!!!  And how many of them buy level 2 books?  By my own experience in my own studio, at least 95%.

But no, my friends...the  paltry, sad, pathetic, tragic statistic is that 10% of students stick around long enough to buy level two books.  It could of course be inferred that 90% of consumers simply prefer not to purchase any more books from Alfred.  But that seems unlikely.

Perhaps even more perturbing was Mr. Manus' assertion that this situation is no cause for concern.  As a CEO I would be beside myself with concern at the massive waste of ongoing revenue, but more to the point, according to him, "some people simply reach the limit of their potential, beyond which no amount of instruction will carry them, and wisely choose to stop studying".  Seriously?!  After a YEAR?  Even worse, another authority cites statistics that "90% of students who drop out still wish they could play the piano".  Of course they "could" play the piano.  Anyone with the cognitive ability to read, the small motor skills to write, and enough maturity to take responsibility for their own progress can learn to play the piano well.

10% retention.  Big shiny ear-splitting crash cymbal.  Go figure.

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No!
Parents, one of the most helpful things you can do at home (relax, it's something a lot easier than the predictable tussles over practicing) is to ensure that your child is sitting at the correct height.  If not, it's the physical equivalent of providing your kid with the wrong size baseball bat:  He or she will never be able to develop the physical habits necessary to to play skillfully and may well injure themselves over time.  Here's a link to an excellent article on a subject which is very interesting to those of us who are interested in these sorts of things:
http://www.wellbalancedpianist.com/bpseatingguide.htm

I love her idea of using those squishy interlocking gym mats and a carpet remnant or two.  I'm leaning towards memory foam myself, these days.

Yes!

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When the Infamous "Tiger Mommy" memoir came out it was the subject of morbid fascination among many of the parents in my studio.  The report most pungent with the fumes of pure BS was that of  Tiger Offspring being chained to the bench with bursting bladder until she had, goddammit, "mastered" my old friend, "The Little White Donkey".  This was one of the first pieces I fell in love with as a kid, and I vividly remember my excitement discovering how cool the clippity-clops of the first few measures were and proceeding, in stark contrast to Tiger Offspring, to bury my nose in that particularly amusing musical story until I'd reached the end.  The only familial conflict was my brothers complaining that I had been excused yet again from doing the dishes because I was practicing.  Sweet! 

It's inconceivable to me that such a quirky, imaginative piece could ever be used as a form of "discipline".  The moral of this horror story is fourfold and serves to illustrate some of the the basic values underlying my own teaching philosophy. 

Firstly, like any piece, my sweet little Eeyore will only bray and defiantly kick your face in if introduced too early in a student's development.  In terms of technique, it's not very difficult.  Any intermediate student with independent practice skills (are there any other kind?) could enjoy solving the puzzle and play it with personality and verve. 

Secondly,  if your kid really doesn't want to take piano lessons, don't make them.  Life is rife with other opportunities for your child to be fascinated and challenged by something just as beneficial as piano.  Tuba, anyone?

Thirdly, music study does not need to be validated by supposed collateral benefits such as playing at Carnegie Hall as a strategic element for getting into an Ivy League law school.  Incidentally, it's not that hard to get to play at Carnegie Hall.  You can just rent it out like any other venue.

Fourthly, while excellence for the sake of excellence is an effective standard for objective subjects, like math, excellence in any creative field is a lot more complex and elusive.  While apparently it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at anything, I can assure you that even 10,000 reincarnations of 10 million lifetimes of mindless, enforced repetition will never, ever replace the intrinsic motivation, genuine expressivity and independence of spirit necessary to become an actual musician. 

I know for a fact that literally everyone is, to some extent or another, a real musician.  By which I mean capable of not only mastering basic skills, but of comprehending and communicating the emotional and musical meaning of what they play.  I'm not interested in training flying monkeys to fulfill the demands of tiger mommies by beating little donkeys to death.  And it saddens me that this paradigm is chronic enough to warrant such a book becoming a bestseller.

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