Quickly Progressing Student
Found in: Adult Students, Student Management
Emily D., Ohio
Here’s a problem that’s good to have—first of all, I have an adult student who is progressing quickly and absolutely loving SM! She’s feeling a freedom with this method that she never had as a child when she took lessons.
She just learned F1 “Ode To Joy.” When she came back the following week, she had it down and had also figured out the RH of F2. I want to encourage her and not stifle her, but I’m afraid she’ll learn things differently than the way we teach it and will have to re-learn. First, should I discourage her from going on, and second, if I should, how do I do it in a way that doesn’t stifle her? She also was playing around with “Jackson Blues” and came in one week playing the “humpty dumpty” variation to “Bishop St Blues” (which she hasn’t even learned). It was really pretty cool!
Cindy B., Illinois
I wouldn’t try to contain her creativity. If she’s in a group, she’ll motivate the rest to be generative, which is what her “excess” really is. Pure generativity (is that an official word?). If she’s in a private, she can go at her pace.
Your challenge is in presenting new songs. Is she figuring out things by watching the videos and listening to the audio recordings? Or is she making the F2 parts up based on what she already knows about Ode? Generally, from what I’m reading in your email, she’s doing, already, what you want, and if she comes up with a version of a song that isn’t strictly according to the book, you have to decide if it matters. I will sometimes, if the student has really altered a song, present the original as another version that I’d like her to know how to play, and if she’s really creative, I might ask her to incorporate her version with the original in a longer arrangement of her own. Since we use the original versions in presenting the various reading assignments later, you might tell her that since she’s played it differently from the original, she must write out her version, which is kind of a transcription exercise. Above all – encourage generativity!
Marlena B., Utah
I always want to encourage my students if they are learning things outside of class, as long as that does not mean going further with the videos. I believe that the freedom your student is experiencing is so valuable and should not be stifled. When you get to Ode to Joy in Level 2, then you can teach her the same way you would and have her experience the learning with different clues and I see that as a very exciting opportunity. You can have a deeper discussion about the difference in how she learned it and how she is now learning it- without judgment on either side- the learning just takes on a different shape, but I do not believe any value is lost.
This has been mentioned before, but I always encourage my students to take each song to a different place, change it up, add things, etc as long as they always remember the way it was initially taught.