Simpedia

Laura Lee, California

I feel that all across the board, keeping the playlist alive and well for students from Level 4 and beyond can be challenging, both from the standpoint of the students themselves finding home strategies that can be workable and consistent, as well as from the standpoint of myself being able to make this requirement of my students while seeing that it is indeed a big challenge for many of them.

I have recently been utilizing several strategies that really are making a difference in my studio and making it more fun in lessons as well!

1. Have students regularly assess their playlists, marking numbers 1-3 in the boxes to indicate how well they know the song (#1 being it is easy and fun, #2 being it is not flowing yet, to #3 I forget how to play it). I ask parents to help in this assessment about 1-2 times per month. If a song is marked #1 it only needs to be played as many times per week or month in order to not have it become a #2! If a song is a #2 it should be played daily until it becomes a #1, and if it is a #3 the student video needs to be review and the song re-learned until it moves up in rank. I ask my students to only work on one #3 per week, or until it becomes a #2, and then start on another #3. Then, when I look at the playlist, I can easily see the numbers and assess their playlist at quick glance, looking for the changes in the numbers (hopefully all becoming #1’s over time).

2. My students write lyrics to ANY playlist song EVERY week, choosing a different song each week. We all LOVE this assignment and students can’t wait to have their lyrics sung as they play the song. This accomplishes two things: creative lyric writing and playlist review! It also opens up a window into your students’ lives and thoughts, it is really fun, parents love it, it only takes a few minutes of class time, etc…We always choose a theme as a guideline. It’s very fun to hear how differently the themes are played out. (I have a new adult class, one of whom refuses to write lyrics…funny thing though, after his classmates played their lyrics for the first time this week, he enjoyed it so much…I have a feeling he’ll “relent” and come in with some of his own next week!)

3. I just started this one last week, and already I’m getting great feedback from parents: I’m having all my students review every first song from each foundation level that they know. At the lesson, I randomly choose one student to play any one of the songs. That’s it. All students prepare all songs, not knowing if they will be chosen to play in the lesson. Next week, they will all prepare the second songs in each level, followed the next week by the third songs, etc…

This week, everyone said they had prepared them all, and the parents are finding that the students are voluntarily doing this assignment with enthusiasm! (To choose the student this week, I just closed my eyes, asked them all to “scramble themselves” so I didn’t know who was standing where, and then I just reached out and whoever my hand touched, was the chosen one! I have already thought of different ways to choose–like combining it with another game like Pictionary where they have to identify part of a reference page and whoever guesses first, gets to play, OR asking any number of music and song-based questions etc…) If it is just a class of 2, the students need to know that you may not pick every other student every other week. That way on the week they think they will not be called to play, they may not practice! So it will ALWAYS be random.

With a student like the one you described, I’d be VERY careful to both let her know your expectations and requirements, but to also find inside of yourself where you will have flexibility and creativity in order to help her remain excited about the piano. I have a very similar situation with a student who I almost lost several times due to her erratic playlist and less than 5 days a week practice routine, but she is indeed a VERY fast learner, she composes, she writes lyrics, she remembers arrangements and chords, she helps mentor in the class etc… When I let go of my attachment to her practice routine or playlist marking, her stress lessened and she began to blossom again. It became very clear to me that this particular student needed to feel the freedom and joy that her piano playing was giving her without the rigid requirements. She just gave me a valentine yesterday that says on the back “piano rocks!”

Elisa J., New Jersey

There was something Nancy Reese mentioned during the symposium about playing.  It went something like this. “Can you play your piece correctly all the time?”…the answer…”Well, I can play it correctly about 50% of the time.” Nancy’s reply, “If your truck can only make it 50% of the time, would you get in it?” I don’t know if it helps but I thought that was such a great analogy. Thanks, Nancy!

Sharon R., Australia

I love Laura Lee’s ideas and have a playlist that may also help. I devised a colourful playlist that requires the student to practice the current level 6 days a week, and previous levels pieces get practiced once per week.

For example, if today is Monday (Monday’s colour is light blue), for all previous levels the student runs down the “Monday” column and sees that one or sometimes two pieces in a level are coloured light blue. Only the pieces coloured in that day’s colour need to be practiced. This has been great for my students as they don’t feel so intimidated by a seemingly endless playlist.

At the beginning of each month I use my Teach List Overview to highlight the current level pieces that we’ve covered, print each student’s playlist out and give it to them. It doesn’t take long, and it gives me a great “snapshot” of each student’s progress in the previous month – which I can act on if I need to! If you have a huge studio this would be cumbersome, but perhaps you could email the playlist to the students.

Mark M., New York

I created a method for managing the playlist that I called Play It Forward.

It takes the basic intention of the playlist and repertoire — practicing current projects daily until they don’t need it anymore because they’re considered repertoire pieces, and then practicing those as often as they need to stay alive but pushing them to decrease practice frequency in order to continually free up time for the increasing size of the repertoire — and builds in a simple mechanism to keep track of all of it. It ensures that the best results can be achieved with the least amount of work.

I haven’t required that my students use this method, but, absolutely, those who do have a much easier time keeping their repertoire solid. It’s not foolproof, because I’m not sure anything other than over-practice can be foolproof at ensuring all pieces stay perfect, but it does a really good job. And in the end, it’s actually pretty easy to do and practically runs itself.