Keeping it Interesting for Teens
Found in: Accompaniment, Coaches, Students with Prior Experience, Teen Students
Lorraine
I have just taken on a student with 6 years traditional experience. She’s 13. Her mother says that getting her to practice and attend her traditional lessons was becoming a bone of contention within the family and she is rebelling. She basically hates piano and doesn’t want to do it any longer.
Her mother said she could quit her traditional lessons if she took lessons with me instead.
She’s had 3 lessons with me and, aside from going through the first 3 level one foundation songs, plus some arrangements and making up lyrics, etc I also started her on the accompaniment program too, so that we could get to a point rather soon where she could play songs that she likes (her knowledge of chords is not very good, despite 6 years of traditional).
She likes to sing and so I thought I’d steer the lessons more towards getting her to a point where she could compose her own songs and perform them. I’m basically trying to put in her mind the view that you can use what you have learnt to date and what I’m teaching you and make something wonderful out of it and that it’s not piano for piano’s sake.
Jane P., Nebraska
Sounds like you’ve made progress, and surely the accompaniment program will give her a lot of potential if she sticks with it. I remember some time back someone mentioned Kelly Clarkson’s song “Break Away” used the same or similar chord progression as one of the foundation pieces.
Last October I had the wonderful fortune of inheriting two girls with 2 or 3 years of traditional lessons with the same negative experience, wanting to quit. Dad is a very talented musician, plays jazz piano and drums, and is so excited about SM that he is seriously considering becoming a teacher! He owns a successful floral business, but was already considering teaching some drum lessons in his shop after hours.
His daughters LOVE SM, and are willing to learn the SM way – NOT cheating and looking at the music book (should have kept it) but they are all the PERFECT SM family. Dad improvises jazz stuff when they play their blues pieces and helps them do the same. I have another adolescent girl that these popular tunes could help motivate her a little, I think, toward practicing more. The accompaniment program is just amazing. Good luck, and I hope we can get some more ideas or tunes that will expand and enhance the learning experience for these students.