Adult student can’t remember variations
Found in: Adult Students, Arrangements & Variations
Gabrielle K., Iowa
I have an older middle-aged student who is having memory trouble with the variations. He keeps trying to write clues for himself and I’ve stopped him multiple times and told him to trust the method, and that it’s a memory builder. I’m good at seeing territory issues; however, I do feel like at this point it is becoming aggravating to him as it’s been up to 6 weeks on some of them and he still can’t remember them. It’s my biggest battle.
He also doesn’t trust the method, which I think stems from him not trusting himself with remembering it.
Leeanne I., Australia
Lots and lots of repetition in small doses. Saying the instructions out loud and patterns on the keypad. And don’t worry too much about the length of time, it takes as long as it takes!
Rebecca G., Colorado
I’ve had students like this and have chosen to pick my battles, and arrangements/variations sometimes aren’t among them. When older adults come to me, I consider it my primary job to provide them with a joyful learning experience, even if it’s not as comprehensive as I might want for another student. It may be true that his beliefs about memory perpetuate the difficulty, but after a few gentle conversations about that, I’ve sometimes had to let it go and recognize that a piano lesson every week may not be able to conquer deeply-held beliefs that have been in place for decades.
Cate R., Australia
I find that sometimes the dosage is too big. Even though they say they’ve got it in the class they can’t remember it at home. Make it smaller, make it an exercise and not related to a piece.
Stephen R., California
This is also affected by the quality and quantity of practice time at home. I teach quite a few older adults, and some are really busy (a lot of kids/teens are too for that matter), but some of my adult students are not getting that longer practice that is required to remember and fully process variations/arrangements.
One of my adults tries to regularly battle me on arrangements, but I have the usual conversations about the process and exercising the memory muscle. She would prefer to just learn the Foundation pieces, but then she’s missing so much of the program. She has also been way too busy with her other activities. I have several adults that don’t listen to me regarding writing extra notes, but I’m not going to continue battling them on that issue. They will get out of this what they put into it, and there’s only so much back and forth with claiming territory I care to do. I try my best, but I also con’t want to lose them as paying customers.
Gordon Harvey, Australia
Memorizing arrangements is heavily affected by the length of time before the task is first attempted at home. Have you checked this? I find, depending on the particular task, that an arrangement project has about a 50% chance of being forgotten if not practiced within a couple of days. If I have concerns, I’ll ask the students to go through the task as soon as they get home after the lesson, or even before that on the car dashboard or the like.
Patti P., Hawaii
When I have a student who has difficulty, in addition to making the assignments small I try to remind them to play it as soon as they get home, then again before bed, then as soon as possible the next day. Frequent, brief repetitions help a lot in assisting that memory muscle.
Laurie Richards, Nebraska
During the lesson when learning a variation/arrangement, ask your student if there is anything HE notices about what he is playing that will help him remember. This is good practice for applying playing-based tools, and he will remember something easier if he comes up with it himself. Here are some examples from my own students over the years. I use these often with other students too – they come up with some good ones!
* Night Storm Accompaniment arrangement – to remember positioning, an adult student once put both her thumbs up and said “Aaaaaay” like the Fonz, because thumbs go on A. Doesn’t work for kids, but adults love it!
* Any adjacent black-white-black sequences or ‘Oreo’ (or b-w-w-b is Double Stuffed Oreo)
* Walking with Billy (Level 3) V chord – mom once said “I just think of this as the buffet chord” (B-F-A)
* Dreams Accompaniment arrangement – 2nd to last chord (the only different one) – I teach as 5 over 5, everything but finger 3 (C-D-F-G) – younger students have called it the ‘elephant chord’ or the ‘dinosaur chord’ – finger 3 being the elephant’s trunk or a T-rex’s long neck, the other fingers being the legs.
I could go on and on, but the point is, these are things students came up with on their own and which worked well. It’s hilarious what some will come up with. One young students almost always will say “It looks like Arlene’s teeth”. We have no clue what that means, but it’s become a class joke now!