Simpedia

Vicki L., New Zealand

I have an 86-year-old student who also comes with previous organ experience, i.e. all her chords have previously been played with the left hand – a great skill to have, but hard for her to reverse after so long.

This is a challenge as are the clues we give on the page. I think it’s such a foreign concept to older people. The young will soak up anything, but older people take a little more time to adjust, and we just need to go with them, rather than let it be a problem.

I have had the same problem with the diagrams and I believe my student may have peeked at the music book, though she hasn’t admitted this! However, she seems to finally be “getting” the idea that the diagram is there as a minimal guide, so in fact her eyes are more on her hands and the keys, which is what we want, isn’t’ it? Sounds like your student is doing that too.

I also find all my students are so different in their processing, and that I need to keep an open mind with this.

Rebecca G., Colorado

I have adult students who’ve been in lessons with me for several years and play well, but have never understood the diagrams. I just don’t worry about it – I go over them but don’t use them as ongoing tools if they cause frustration. Everyone learns and takes in information differently; I believe the trick is to help the student figure out what HER system is for remembering what to play so she can do more of that in the future.

With students like this, I may spend extra time making sure they can vocalize what they’re doing (patterns, chords, etc.), and if they can’t remember Neil’s way, I ask/help them come up with another way of remembering. I see the diagrams as an initial help for some students but don’t expect them to retain the information from them unless it’s particularly helpful to them.

Gordon Harvey, Australia

I would agree that the diagram is a minimal guide and that looking at the hands rather than the diagram isn’t necessarily an indication that she hasn’t understood the diagram. If, on the other hand, she was always trying to play while looking at the diagram, it could indicate that she’s using the diagram as a substitute for notation, which would indicate that she’s actually misunderstood the purpose of the diagram (BTW, I appreciate that you’re not saying that’s your expectation). I think of the diagram as a memory-jogger, not an instruction per se.

The most important thing is that she’s understanding the overall process. A good idea would be to ask her to describe the strategy for a piece. If she can describe it along the lines of how we teach it, except without the diagram, at least you know she’s getting the general idea. The only problem is that she’s not developing the skill of representing learning clues in the simple visual way that diagrams do. To help with this, you could give her the occasional project of creating her own diagram. Choose a small task that she might find a little challenging and ask “how might you represent this visually?”. Praise her for whatever she comes up with and maybe offer her an alternative that’s more in line with SM thinking. For example, you could ask her to represent the RH of Alma Mater Blues as a diagram. Maybe she’s come back with a list of finger numbers. You’d say, “great, and here’s another way…” and maybe draw a curve that follows that path the notes take. Neither is ‘correct’, but yours is more in line with the SM approach.

Like you always do, if a student struggles with something, give them a smaller or simpler dose. It may not conform to the exact scheme of the diagrams in the book, but perhaps enough of this approach would give the concept a chance to sink in over time. Don’t make a big deal of it, or use it to sell her on the SM diagrams, just make the whole diagram thing a natural, regular part of the learning process.