Students’ Concerns About Appropriateness of the Program
Found in: Adult Students, Claiming Territory, Other Methods, Practicing & Playlists, Student Management
Kerry V., Australia
Hi all,
One of my students has mentioned that she, and her class mate, have talked together about how their classes have been going. She mentioned that not to take over class time she will send me an email and if I can respond. Before I respond to them, I would like very much to share it with you to get a better insight as to what would be the best thing to say in response to her email. Many of the things she says is not new to me but a little background for you:
They are two female adults sharing a morning lesson. They have been with me for a year, just started Level 4 and we went on to RR last week. One is a singer and wanted to learn so she can get to the point of playing the music sheets her singing students come in to her lessons with. She has taught herself chords and had found the Accompaniment helpful but easy. After speaking to her about the philosophy of SM and the teaching she agreed to give it a go. However, often comes in and says she has not had time to practice, watch the videos, etc. After often speaking with her about the importance of practice and using all the tools she still doesn’t practice as much as one would expect with this particular goal. Her focus is to play from reading (forgetting that that does take time). We had a long conversation the other day and I explained that no matter which method she went to learn through, it would still take time and effort on her part to be able to play from music sheets. She decided to continue with me.
The other is one just wants to play. She has to do everything fast, has to be somewhere before you are there (if you understand what I mean). Has always questioned everything about what we are doing although she has constantly said she likes our way of teaching. Her main gripe has been that we have gone through slowly. Again, I have constantly explained that slowing the process is much better than going too fast. She has even proved that to herself by going ahead on the video once and not being able to play it properly afterwards. Her playing chords has been a different journey to the other student but has got a pretty good grasp on them. She also goes into other ways of learning too, searching the internet and using chord programs etc.
I find too that I cannot go ahead with new materials if they don’t do the practice!
I think that covers the background. In the body of the email it is mentioned that the process is taking too long. I feel that they don’t realise that it would have whether they went through SM or any other method, anything takes time, so may be an expectation.
“All I do is teach what Neil shows on the video”, I don’t think they really listen to what I tell them about their concerns and the conversations for each song. There is absolutely no malice in any thing she says and I don’t have any relationship issues with them. I wonder if it has to do with claiming territory?
The student’s email:
I have a few concerns on how the music lessons are going for me and generally whether this ‘method’ is for me.
There are a few good things about it : the “hands on” approach i.e. learning how to play before learning how to read music notes and the approach on learning rhythm.
However, if I may, there are a few concerns and I don’t think we should be discussing it during our music lessons. It is in yours and the school’s interest to address our concerns – I am at the stage where I wondering whether this process is right or whether it is going to take too long, and whether I am going on to the next term. I know how you stressed about not going too fast too soon but if we are going to come all the way for lessons and all you do is teach us what Neil is teaching us on the video, then we might as well be learning from the video. Fair enough, we should play and you can then point out the mistakes and guide us on how we should be playing. I think the pace of the last 2 lessons is good.
A few questions:
- Has any student (having no musical background at all) of Simply Music progress to being a pianist (able to pick up any music sheet and play)?
- You talked about “teaching us the tools” – how long is this going to take, transferring this knowledge to us? I know it depends on the individual but how long would it take to transfer these tools to a student who have had some music lessons in the past? I understand there are 18 levels. Would you be able to give us an idea of what lies ahead on these levels?
- I am practicising what’s in the books but I am taking them as exercises in fingering, timing, etc. At the end of the day, I have no intention of playing any of these songs to anyone else. I want to be able to able to pick up a sheet of my old favourites and be able to play, and not just the chords either.
Sheri R., California
Her point #1: “Has any student (having no musical background at all) of Simply Music progress to being a being a pianist (able to pick up any music sheet and play)?”
Umm, I think I’m more of a pianist than I used to be now that I can play and not just read. By the way, did you ask her what she means by “any” music? Rachmaninoff? Certainly students become readers, and the potential to become a better reader is very great–rhythms are way easier for me now and reading the notes above high C and below low C are much easier now than days past when there was much more stumbling around. The bottom line though is having the playing-based tools to be able to lift the music off the page and take it with you wherever you go. Does she know that is what all these playing-based tools in the preliminary levels are all about? (Simply Music doesn’t promise students will be great sight-readers.)
Her point #3: “I am practicing what’s in the books but I am taking them as exercises in fingering, timing, etc. At the end of the day, I have no intention of playing any of these songs to anyone else.” It sounds like she needs to get clearer about the tools, not necessarily fingering and timing, but HOW is she learning the songs? Controlling the events, external speaker, slowly, mapping, fragmenting–that is where the magic is! It’s not really about the songs–it’s about the tools that will enable her to eventually easily play the songs she loves. And knowing these songs will enable her to see music much more deeply which will enable her to learn more complex songs easily as well as improvise and compose.
Her other comment “I want to be able to able to pick up a sheet of my old favourites and be able to play, and not just the chords either.”
When I was 5 I just wanted to pick up War and Peace and be able to read it, (not really!), but still, what a nuisance to have to learn the alphabet before I could read a book. I have recently memorized 5 pages of Ray Charles’ Rockhouse–it’s great fun by the way. I am much more of a pianist now than when I would have struggled through reading it–there are not breaks in rhythm, the notes are all correct, I’m improvising now too after having learned the notes as written–this is the beauty of it all and it doesn’t take long to get there as long as she lets you guide her. Some people just have more difficulty trusting that you are leading them to a glorious place. We all know she wouldn’t get there sooner, if at all, in traditional lessons but she seems to be resistant to your authority and expertise. That happens sometimes.
By the way she said she may as well just learn from the video since that is all she is learning. I would certainly be teaching her arrangements, composing, and improvising too!
I hope she calms down a bit! I have two women as well who have their own agendas (both in different classes) but I just keep saying what I need to say and I don’t go ahead if they haven’t done what I’ve asked.
Joanne J., Western Australia
It is an issue of trust! These are concerns often expressed by adult students who have reading as their goal. Once we have gained their trust we also gain their commitment to the process. We must be absolutely positive in the way we answer it – ie no question in our own minds about the success of the results when the process is followed faithfully. I myself needed these questions answered when I first came across Simply Music even though I could read music – I truly needed reassurance of this aspect. If Gypsy, Gordon or Neil had been at all ‘wishy-washy’ about it I would not have believed in it enough to make the commitment required and how sad that would have been for me. (I thank them all from the bottom of my heart, but back to the subject!)
I always point out, and no doubt you do too, that learning any language takes time and effort on a very regular basis which after all is how we all learn to read our native tongue. While there is not as much vocabulary to learn in this instance, a commitment to regular, daily practice is absolutely essential to become fluent and it appears that this lady has not taken this on board nor is she taking responsibility for this. I am constantly reminding my students of this ilk that they are missing the diamonds when they don’t give full value to the tools and the importance of using them daily as it is these tools that we will be applying to the written music to ‘map’ it onto the keyboard. It is imperative that they understand that it is not just the cognitive understanding of it but the actual daily DOING of it that brings the promised result.
From someone who had to play from music for 50 years before finding SM I can assure her that it is the most wonderful set of tools and it is the process by which we learn to use them that brings about the understanding of how to apply them – that that is what the whole process is about from the first song in level 1 to the last song in level 11 (as that is what we have at the moment) plus the supplemental programmes. It is actually designed to maximise the likelihood of her success in achieving the outcome she is wanting IF SHE APPLIES EACH OF THE TOOLS DAILY AS THEY ARE DELIVERED in her lesson. Nothing less direct than this is effective although having said it several times but this stage I usually lighten it up a little with ‘have I mentioned that it must be done daily to maximise the likelihood of your success???’.
My experience has been that when these particular students ‘get it’, in other words they Trust the Process, they transform and so does their lesson time – much less emotional energy is required because the undercurrent of doubt is not there!!
Carolyn C., Western Australia
Perhaps Annie should read the blog Neil posted of the interview with the 16yo. I think with Simply Music, students are able to enjoy the journey as much, if not more than the destination (as if there is a final destination). The journey is full of excitement and expectation. This is true of everything in life, whether traveling long distances, learning new skills or doing the same thing day after day. It is all a journey and if you only focus on the end there will be a lot of your life that is boring or disappointing. It is a conscious effort for most people to learn this skill.
Kerry H., Australia
Kerry V.’s email raises many issues. I will address them separately. However, without a more detailed conversation with Kerry to ascertain exactly what has been said and what hasn’t been said to the students, it is impossible to gauge exactly which conversations are necessary. Ultimately, the teacher must ask him/herself, whether the conversations have been adequately covered or not. Only the teacher knows all the subtleties of a particular situation and in the end, only he/she can be the best judge about whether this is the case or not.
1. Kerry V. wrote:
One is a singer and wanted to learn so she can get to the point of playing the music sheets her singing students come in to her lessons with. She has taught herself chords and had found the Accompaniment helpful but easy…. After often speaking with her about the importance of practice and using all the tools she still doesn’t practice as much as one would expect with this particular goal. Her focus is to play from reading (forgetting that that does take time).
Kerry Hanley’s comment:
My sense from this student’s comment, is that she is not completely clear about the Accompaniment Process and about accompanying in general. I am a strong proponent of the importance of Set-Up Conversations in everything we do with students and often find that when I have not covered something satisfactorily in a Set-Up Conversation, then it always comes back to ‘bite me’ and that the student has concerns about what I am doing. Likewise, if the Set-Up Conversation is not followed up with constant reminders with subsequent conversations justifying and explaining what we are doing and why, then students can forget the great Set-Up Conversation we had.
When I first introduce the Accompaniment Process (at a Free Introductory Session, if they attend one), one of the many things I explain, is that this is the type of playing that people do when they are playing keyboards in a band. I usually ask if students have heard of people like Delta Goodrem (a very popular Australian female vocalist who accompanies herself on the piano, who is also known by children here), or of Billy Joel or Elton John? I explain that when these people are playing the piano and singing, they are not playing what they are singing, but an accompaniment to what they are singing – that is, something that goes along with what they are singing. When playing in a band or an orchestra, every instrument has its own part and if everyone played the same part, it would sound very boring. The job of the piano player is not to repeat the melody that is being sung or played by another instrument, but to build a bass (LH single notes) and a harmony (RH chords) that go with the melody.
I also think it is important for students to understand (or be reminded) that most people who learn with a traditional approach, even after years of traditional lessons, never learn how to accompany and that often even the most advanced classical players, if you asked them to play an accompaniment, would have no idea where to even start. Not only that, but if you were going to learn how to play an accompaniment with a traditional approach, it would involve learning extensively about the theory of music – scales, chords, key signatures, etc. to be able to do this. The Simply Music approach short-circuits all of this theory knowledge and has students being able to accompany themselves or others from the very beginning.
Now I understand that a singing teacher may want to be able to play the melody for their student (who is unable to read music), so they can learn to sing it. She would be able to do this once she has learned to read the music.
So this brings us to the issue Kerry’s student raises in her questions about the reading of music:
Has any student (having no musical background at all) of Simply Music progress to being a pianist (able to pick up any music sheet and play)?
and:
I want to be able to able to pick up a sheet of my old favourites and be able to play, and not just the chords either.
I always explain to students that there are common misconceptions about the reading of music. Many people ask, ‘when will I be able to just pick up any piece of music and play it?’ The first thing to understand is that there are two types of reading music – one is called ‘sight-reading’, where you can sit down with a piece of music you have never seen or played before and just play the piece, using the correct notes, key signature, accidentals, time signature, rhythm, fingering, expression, and pedaling as is written on the page. And many students believe that they will be able to do this. In my case, I explain that I have been playing music all my life and that I have always been surrounded by musicians and yet I could probably count on one hand the number of people who are able to do this. I cannot do this. Now there are pieces of music that I would be able to do that with, depending on the complexity of the piece of music, but there are definitely many, many pieces that I would not be able to sight-read. We do not know of any faster way of getting good at sight-reading, other than by doing lots and lots and lots of music-reading and sight-reading. And this is not the thrust of the Simply Music program.
There is another type of music reading. That is the kind of reading, where you take the music and you decode and decipher it, practise it and then be able to play it. This is the goal for all of our students, as stated in the last of our 4 specific goals:
Developing the ability to self-generate. i.e. the ability to progress independently. This includes developing a strong foundation in music reading and theory.
Personally, I have never had a student who continues through the reading process and who follows my instructions not achieve this. But if a student is to achieve this goal they must follow exactly the instructions of the coach (the teacher). If they leave anything out, or add anything to the Simply Music Method, they would not being doing the Simply Music Method, but their own version of the Simply Music Method. I would also explain (or remind) the student, that everything in this program builds on a previous step and that every step is building something. Sometimes they may not understand fully why we are asking them to do something or why we are asking them to do it in a particular way, because sometimes those things can only be fully understood in retrospect. A nine-year-old cannot fully understand why they need to learn their Times Tables. You can give them some reasons, but it will not become totally clear to them until adulthood, how their Times Tables were building a foundation for almost everything they do in life. (Another excellent analogy for this is in the 1984 movie: ‘The Karate Kid’.)
2. Kerry Verdon also wrote:
The other is one just wants to play….Her main gripe has been that we have gone through slowly. Again, I have constantly explained that slowing the process is much better than going too fast.
and the student wrote:
I understand there are 18 levels. Would you be able to give us an idea of what lies ahead on these levels?
Kerry Hanley’s comment:
If a student is complaining that they feel it is going too slow, I would be asking them what they mean by that. What were they expecting? What exactly do they feel is ‘too slow’. Without knowing their response to this question, it is difficult to determine exactly how you would respond, but we can look at a couple of possible or likely scenarios.
Firstly, have they seen or have they revisited the Curriculum Overview recently? Given the question about what lies ahead, it seems not. In the very first lesson with students, I always set it as a project, to download the Curriculum Overview. In the 2nd lesson, I ask each student if they did this. If they didn’t, I would have all the necessary conversations to make sure that they did this and then follow up with them the next week. The Curriculum Overview will give them a good idea of where they are heading with the Method and approximately when they will be commencing the various programs. If they haven’t looked at it recently, it would be good to ask them to revisit it. However, it could take someone 6-10 years to get through the existing program.
Secondly, did you tell them/remind them that they would begin the reading process when they had around 35-50 songs in their Playlists (usually after about 12 months of lessons)? I think it is important to let them know however, that this whole process will unfold over a period of time and that it will be a little while before they are actually drawing from the music as the source of instruction about what to play. Up until this point they have had 4 basic streams or categories of music – contemporary, classical, blues and accompaniment. The reading/theory will become like a 5th stream and we will spend only a few minutes of each lesson on this stream. It is then up to them to do the required work at home, to get fluent with each assignment. Perhaps you need to remind them of the reasons why we delay the reading process until they have a large repertoire of songs that they can play thoughtlessly – not just adequately.
I explain that I often get students who, after years of traditional lessons, say that they have trouble reading notes in the Bass Clef, and/or that they have trouble reading notes on leger lines – that is, very, very high notes, or very, very low notes. I explain that with our approach to reading music, our students are able to identify notes in any part of the music, just as easily as any other part and that they can look at notes that are on 4 leger lines above or below the staff and instantly know where it goes on the music and on the keyboard. I have had traditional students in my studio who after 15 years of music lessons, said that they would have to ‘count up’ to work out a note like that.
Our approach is always to use single-thought processes (STP’s) and that this applies equally in the reading process. We have students acquire an ability to play the instrument first, then we teach them to read the rhythm (which is where human beings are already highly developed), lastly, we teach them to read the notes.
I regularly get students who have had traditional lessons, who say that our approach to the reading process has helped them to read better. The other day I had an adult student who is currently in the reading rhythm process and clapping and voicing rhythm tracks, who commented that with her traditional lessons, even though she knew the theory of the rhythm, that she could never have taken a passage like the ones in our rhythm tracks and clapped it with such ease and confidence.
3. Kerry Verdon also wrote:
She also goes into other ways of learning too, searching the internet and using chord programs etc.
and:
I find too that I cannot go ahead with new materials if they don’t do the practice!
Kerry Hanley’s comment:
In my view, these are Claiming Territory issues. I would not allow students to be using other methods to develop themselves in this area. They need to be willing to do it my way, or it is best that we go our separate ways. If an Olympic Athlete had a coach, but wasn’t following the coaching of that coach, and was then contacting other coaches and trying to get their suggestions, I’m sure the original coach would not allow it and would ultimately terminate the relationship. They absolutely must follow my coaching, including doing the practice. How can they expect the results if they are not doing what I have asked? I know how to get them to attain our goals, but any time they are not following my coaching, they are doing their version of the program and we cannot guarantee them success with their version.
4. Kerry Verdon also wrote:
[that the students wrote] “all you do is teach us what Neil is teaching us on the video, then we might as well be learning from the video”
Kerry Hanley’s comment:
This seems to suggest to me that they need to be told/reminded that the videos are an edited or summary version of what happens in the lesson. This is something that I explain to students in their very first lesson when I ask them not to move ahead on the video – so this is another Set-Up Conversation. I tell students that on the videos, Neil does not go into all the details of the Learning Strategies as I do in the lessons. Because we are teaching students a ‘way of learning’, this is what is critical. I tell the students that they could potentially go through and use the The Student Home Materials (SHM’s) to learn the songs on their own, but they would not be learning them using all the Learning Strategies. I also explain that they can never re-capture the experience of learning the songs using the Learning Strategies as the very first experience of learning the song. An analogy I use, is that it is like going to see a movie when someone has already told you all about it. The SHM’s were never designed as a Learn-At-Home Program, and cannot replace the instruction of a teacher. The Learning Strategies that we are training them in on the keyboard, will then be used in the Reading Process and mapped onto the page. A version of this conversation may be necessary, or need to be repeated.