Simpedia

Cindy B., Illinois

There are so many ingredients to getting and keeping students! I’m hoping some of the more successful studios will contribute to this particular discussion. I’ll share what I know. As far as them wanting to learn to read music – I believe that is a perfectly reasonable desire given that ALL music education has been approached from a reading standpoint for hundreds of years and is THE right way to teach music. We Simply Music students and teachers know better, but how to convince others?

Here is where our conversations make a huge difference. Conversations about the differences between reading and playing based. Conversations about your goals, and about the joy of being able to play the piano, anywhere, anytime, without having printed music with you. Also conversations about how Reading is taught in Simply Music – in a more effective, natural progression, AFTER the student’s playing skills are mastered, rather than before.

The conversation about teaching a preschooler to read before they can talk is a good one. Then, to back everything that you’re saying and promising up with a REQUIREMENT based studio! And of course, as soon as you begin your first accompaniment, point out the reading skills that they are mastering before learning to read a note!

Finally, YOU have to believe that the playing based approach is the best approach. There’s no need to be fearful or anxious – that’s a snowball going downhill that may actually produce the results you’re afraid of!

Nicole O., California

When I started teaching, I needed to transfer my students from a non-traditional method called Stewart.  My handful of students were okay with it, except one. I tried to sell this family on it by being really enthusiastic about it, had them come to an FIS and still it didn’t matter. They had been so happy with the results they had gotten from the Stewart method, that changing to something different wasn’t going to work for them. I lost that student and she started taking traditional lessons.

Fast forward five years and I’m happy to report that the same family called me a few months ago because they had purchased a gift certificate for lessons through their school’s silent auction. I started teaching my former student’s younger brother. He’s doing great, but I’m still coaching the mom whose not 100% convinced. Though she loves Simply Music and sees that her son is making great progress, she’s concerned that in our school district reading music is ESSENTIAL when they get into grade school.

I have asked her to explain this further to me, because in my understanding, the music teacher at the school will teach students how to read notes based on the instrument they choose to play. There is no conflict here with what we do. She admitted that she hasn’t seen any real conflict but that she feels that some students do better than others in the school music program and she’s convinced that it’s based on how well a child can read music.

For this mom, she’s having a real battle with what she “sees” her son enjoying and what she “believes” he is missing in this program. It was helpful to get clear about it, but I know that her inner conflict may mean I lose him as a student at some point.  As Neil has often said, “Simply Music cannot be all things to all people”.

Addressing your concern about losing this student because you need the income: it can be daunting and frustrating when you are excited about something and others are not, and it ends up being a negative for you financially. Over the last 4-1/2 years I’ve seen many students come and go, and I’m happy to say that the students/parents that are not completely on board with this program leave sooner now, making room for those who really “get it” to come in. Let them go and make room for more to come.

Cheri S., Utah

I’m new and I’ve had a few students quit already too. It does make you question yourself, makes you feel afraid. But people quitting is a natural part of the process, because not every student or coach is cut out for SM, and because we as teachers have things to learn. Don’t worry if you are learning as you go–everyone is. Learning from mistakes is how we all progress, in SM and in life. At the same time, just know that we all lose students! It’s normal.

I have a few ideas that might help allay concerns about the note-reading.

I wanted to pick up on one thing Cindy wrote: Starting with accompaniment songs, we begin the note-reading process. It may be helpful to be very clear with parents about all the steps we take along the path toward reading pitches. You can help them see that everything we learn not only builds the joyful and liberating ability to play without relying on music, but also builds a strong foundation for note reading. One of the many genius things about SM is the way it breaks skills down into one thought process at a time. Note reading is a complex task. SM breaks note reading down and teaches one component at a time, while building many other skills that support it.

Note reading skills are directly introduced with Level 1 accompaniment songs like Honey Dew and Amazing Grace. With these, students learn to visually track musical instructions from left to right as they play. As students expand further into the Foundation, arrangements, and accompaniment programs, they begin to build solid understanding of chords, chord progressions, patterns, sentences–all basic musical structures they’ll naturally recognize on the page when the time comes.

Generally I think people imagine note reading very narrowly–and incorrectly–as the ability to read pitches. In fact, fluently reading music involves multiple complicated thought processes. Imagine how much easier it is to read and play a complex classical piece if you’re able to immediately see a sequence (in SM terms, a musical sentence repeated several times on different pitches), a familiar chord progression, or a repeated FSS pattern. Reading note-by-note makes these sorts of things look really intimidating. But these are exactly the kinds of patterns SM is built around.

By Level 3 we begin the Reading Rhythm program. This is an even more obvious part of note reading. Again, SM is breaking a complex task down. Instead of learning rhythm and pitch simultaneously, we learn one thing at a time. This is note reading–just in a much easier and more natural way. Then, in Level 4 we add pitch reading. By then, students are equipped with all kinds of skills that make the process much more natural.

I talk with my students starting in the Introductory Session about how SM models its teaching after the way we learn language. Learning to read words, sentences, paragraphs, and stories is so much easier when we already have lots of experience with all these things. Long before we start learning how to read these on a page, we have a pretty large vocabulary, we know how to speak in sentences and tell stories. And knowing all these things makes it a lot easier to recognize words and sentences on paper.

It can also be helpful to remind people how long it takes traditional students to be able to really play piano independently. I used to teach traditionally, and I’d say even the most gifted students took 3-4 years before they could play regular sheet music (as opposed to “Big Note” or “Easy Piano” versions).

On an entirely different note, I’m wondering about students finishing Level 1 in two months. I don’t have a lot of experience, but that seems pretty fast. I have a class of teens who’ve played piano for several years and can all play from unsimplified sheet music, and they still took about 3 1/2 months to finish Level 1, because we stayed busy with composition, variations, arrangements, and beginning the accompaniment program along the way. They usually learned just one new Foundation song a week. I think these experienced students especially need to see the bigger picture of SM right away–that it’s going to contribute a lot more to their musicality than just playing some songs. In general, I think it’s better for all students to take the Foundation a little more slowly and develop depth through the other SM programs.

Leisa B., Georgia

I tell/teach my parents that they ARE READing now. Patterns, not notes. They learn to READ by patterns, then in Accompaniment, they learn to READ chords. Next they learn to READ Rhythm. Then they naturally progress to READing notes.

I think the word ‘READ’ is the commodity this kind of parent likes to bank on. Maybe they just need to be told in these terms rather than SM terms of ‘Playing Based’. Sounds just WAY too easy!

READing notes will occur in a natural, progressive way when the student has mastered the piano, as someone mentioned before. Learning how to compose, arrange, improvise & accompany are not even considered with traditional beginners.

Having my students learn Christmas music was a big ‘seller’ for me. They played for family & friends all through the holidays and one mom told me yesterday at her daughter’s lesson, she has 3 referrals for me.

Sue C., Australia

These days when I get an inquiry phone call I tell them fairly soon after a pleasant chat that SM is a playing-based method and the student will be immersed in playing and will not start reading until level 3 or 4 which maybe a long time.

I then say that they have to be happy with that. l may direct them to the SM website to answer other questions they may have. I also say that I do not prepare students for examinations. Some say that this is what they want and I book a Student Info Session. To the others I ask them to get back to me if they still want to go ahead after visiting the website.

This approach decreases frustration as I only get students who want to play with the SM method.

Ethel S., Arizona

I have found that the more clearly I can spell out what is going to be expected for a student, the better results I have. That being said, it also means that I have fewer students sign up. I am finding that most parents today are not used to being heavily involved in their child’s learning and they don’t really care/want to learn piano themselves. It’s hard to get them to see that they need to encourage their child to keep going and to oversee the lessons. Most parents still see music instruction as an “extra,” so if the child gets discouraged with the life-long process, they just let them quit.

On the positive side there are students who have a natural love for music and who have the natural trait of determination. These students really excel in this program.