The Voice, Vision, And Coordination: War Or Piece?
Piano Rodeo
Traditional piano lessons remind me of the rodeo: the teacher battles with
the attention span of the beginner. The victor is the one that hurts himself the least and stays on the saddle the longest. It’s like all of the methodology of the
beginning period of education is set against the perception of the child, and was
created with a goal to lower his self-respect and confidence.
Playing the piano requires that:
1. You can control all ten fingers of both hands,
2. You are familiar with the entire space of the keys,
3. You can read notes from sheet music,
4. And all of this is to be done AT THE SAME TIME.
But the teacher won’t let the student learn so quickly. First, he will spend a
long period of time teaching the keys, notes, music theory, and hand preparation.
And all of this is done separately!
We already know how the perception of a young beginner takes to
unwanted material. Coming to class, the child is usually full of hopes and
aspirations. He is ready to pass through all of the hardships necessary so that he
can realize his dream: to sit and play his music with his own hands. It is exactly
because of this that students are willing to do everything that the teacher asks,
and even enthusiastically start cramming, entering a steadfast battle with their
own perception, which fights against this type of education every step of the way.
To this day, teachers still think that it is enough to separately work on the
hands so that they can sense the weight of the keys, separately study music
grammar and separately play exercises, and the student will start to play.
“Preparing you” in this way, they are convinced that all you’ll need to do is open a book of music, and all of the skills will work as one happy family.
Alas, this never happens. A skill that is learned separately will remain a
separate skill! And separate skills aren’t in much of a hurry to unite for the
common good. Here, a common neurological law is at work: to master a new
type of complex activity, one needs to work on the entire activity as a whole. Skills should be worked on gradually, but simultaneously!
Should We Read Books Behind the Wheel?
If you can read, and you can ride a bicycle, it doesn’t necessarily mean that
you can do both at the same time.
One can give a student a mass of exercises all at once. He will get familiar
with the keys, will learn to ‘walk’ along them, will develop his coordination and
confidence in his movements, and will learn the ‘map’ of the keys and their
octaves. The more confident the coordination of the hands becomes, the more
developed the apparatus is, and the more freedom the muscles will have. This
means that the keys will become a part of the student’s consciousness. But this
absolutely does not mean that the student will be able to open a book of sheet
music and play a piece from it freely. It isn’t enough to have good coordination to fluently sight read!
While playing simple exercises, the perception quickly grasps the note
sequence and works on autopilot, freeing the student’s attention for coordination.
But if the path is sharply complicated, and if it also needs to be deciphered, the
limited paths of the exercises won’t help. After learning to drive our car in our
neighborhoods, we always reduce our speed when traveling somewhere
unfamiliar. And the more difficult the route is, the slower our going becomes –
until we reach a complete stop.
Why do traditional teachers love to repeat the mantra, “practice, practice,
practice?” Because after the selection of a new piece, the student progresses at
an extremely awkward and slow pace. Sometimes, in order to play it from the
beginning to end, an entire lesson is needed! The teacher can’t even allow
himself to aim that the student, as he should, could simply open the music book
and play a piece from it at once, with minor difficulties. Another popular saying
comes from this: “work bar-by-bar on a selection of songs.” This means that the
student sits down, and slowly, note by note, ‘picks out’ the music.
Imagine how this baffling process plays out between the student’s different skills:
A Few Minutes from the Days of Their Lives
(A one-scene drama)
Perception: Agh, I’m sick of this cramming of rules! How about playing a little
something?
Coordination: What, you haven’t had enough of Hanon yet?
Perception: A total bore! That’s what your Hanon is! I’m sick of it! I want music!
Vision: And have you thought about me? I’ll have to read in that case! I think I
need glasses! Besides, nobody’s taught me..
Perception: Hooray! They gave me a song to learn! Of course it isn’t Moonlight
Sonata, but it’ll do. Something about a star. Nice and simple!
Coordination: Simple!? What are you, joking? I’ve got to play with both hands in this one!
Perception: So what? You played with both of them for Hanon, didn’t you?
Coordination: Like there’s a comparison! With that one, it’s just the same thingover and over in a circle; anyone can figure it out. But here we’ve got a
schmorgesborg of some sort! I never agreed to this!
Perception: And what’s the vision for? It needs to help out!
Coordination: Go ahead, keep waiting! Look, there it is – it’s still latched onto
the first note and is pondering about how to find the other two.
Hearing: Hey, intelligentsia, will you be a while? Are we burying someone or
what? I’m about to fall asleep! How long are you going to chew over one? Have
pity!
Coordination: Don’t yell at us, you philistine! You’re over there twiddling your
thumbs, but I’ve got a devil’s pick here of keys. I’m picking at straws here! The
hands are blundering around in fear, look for yourself – agh, they’ve gotten
somewhere else again! Listen, Vision, you could at least help a little!
Vision: But if I tear myself away from this note now, I won’t be able to find it
again! Give me some sort of hint or I’ll-
Hearing: A-Ai! What the heck are you guys doing there? What a sour note! That hurts!
Coordination: Pardon moi, there’s only one of me, and there are lots of keys!
What’s done is done.
Vision: Well, now, it’s happened! Where am I? Help, help! Someone! Anyone!
Coordination: I can’t help you with anything. I’m barely moving on my own
here…
Hearing: Well, that’s it! Enough! Figure it out on your own! Who am I, Sherlock Holmes? Solving the mystery of the three false notes at the tempo of a dying turtle!?
Perception: Folks, what’s the problem here? Where are the proper fingers? Why aren’t you following the rhythm? Did you fall asleep or what? The teacher’s just said in plain English to play in tempo and expressively!Coordination, Vision, and Hearing: That’s it! Do it all yourself! And express it
all on your own!
Perception: Mutiny on board, eh? And what about me? What am I supposed to
do? And what will become of me if I can’t figure out this little song after a month?
Vision, Hearing, and Coordination: You’re untalented, that’s what you are! And so are we! This business is dead, folks. Burn it down! We need to get out of here. Not everyone can be Mozart, afterall!
Curtain.
There’s a pretty picture! The only salvation in this state of affairs is to drag
it out. In order for the work to somehow seem more like music, the student needs hours, from day to day, to patiently pull it all apart and then put it back together, like the pieces of a picture puzzle. Not to mention that the tactical memory takes the entire unbearable burden onto itself. The hearing and logic also do all they can to spare the perception from the tedious work. The final sum is still an inability to read notes. The song is memorized, and becomes another impressive, complicated, though useless skill. Memorize a concrete, one-time-use collection of sounds that will quickly be forgotten - is there much use in that?
This type of education can only be tolerated as a necessary harm. It leaves
so many tiresome memories that the joy at the result fades into nothing. You
won’t have much luck in getting the majority of “musically educated” people to
figure out new material. More often, they don’t approach an instrument for years!
And if they do approach it, all that is in their repertoire is a few crammed pieces
that are hard to remember, and nearly impossible to play from sheet music.
Because they never learned to read from sheet music.
And now with the Soft Way to Mozart anybody CAN teach and learn in a soft, GENTLE manner! JOIN US!
Sincerely yours,
Hellene Hiner