Teacher feels out of depth with gifted student
Found in: Practicing & Playlists, Special Needs & Learning Differences
Michelle H., Australia
I have a student who is very naturally gifted with composing his own songs. His songs are good enough to be on mainstream radio and his father is recording his songs at the moment through a sound recordist to mix and produce it.
My issue is that me teaching him SM seems a bit counter-productive. He struggles with the learning strategies, hand positions, and learning. He also plays by ear and picks things up quickly but doesn’t seem to retain any of it from week to week even though he’s practicing very regularly and marking his playlist. When I watch him play the SM songs it’s very stilted and with no expression at all. Just loud, heavy, and fast. Yet when he played me his pieces it was like listening and watching two different students. His music can be breathtaking, soft, building, slow, fast in tempo, different key changes, etc.
I feel I’m stifling his learning and feel he would be better suited to a teacher who has far more playing, performance, and recording experience and who can further develop his natural composing gifts, but I’m not sure if that’s the best thing to do or not due to my own limited playing (4 years) and teaching experience (less than a year).
In my opinion he’s probably on the spectrum. He gets finger numbers confused easily, uses odd fingers to play even though I go through this at almost every lesson with him along with starting positions, verbalizing/story telling to assist with memory. He’s very ear dominant and I have tried learning pieces with no sound and keypad only. He tells me he doesn’t understand and can’t do it without the sound, and can’t seem to follow even simple patterns. It changes when I have the sound on but only slightly.
I give him a range of projects to work on. He can be very hyperactive at times and easily distracted, so I’ve had to clear out things from near the piano, close blinds, etc, so I have some chance to deliver his lesson and have him stay with me while I’m teaching him. I’ve learned that he does better if when he arrives he plays me something he’s been creating of his own during the week. Just 3-4 minutes’ worth. Seems to settle him down but he has a lot of problems remaining focused. I only teach him in small amounts at a time as well.
Can anyone offer any sage advice or has experienced something similar? I’m out of my depth with this student. I’m feeling frustrated as I can’t seem to crack some kind of routine with him that works for longer than a week, and it seems like I do three times as much preparation for this student compared to my other two students.
Leeanne I., Australia
I have a similar student. She has been improvising and composing for a while (her grandmother taught her). She came to me to learn new skills and I am guessing that’s why your student came to you too. Firstly, you need to relax and trust the method. I’m no concert pianist either 🙂 I often joke with my students that they can play something better than I can! Any new song will be stiff and monotone; remember we have to learn what to do first. I can’t put mood and nuance into a song when I first learn it either. Make sure the student is reviewing the material with the video, using the keypad, and saying the instructions out loud. Get him to slow down. Once the student really knows the song, go back and address the mood.
Patti P., Hawaii
Have you asked him what he wants to get out of taking piano lessons? There may be plenty he wants to learn from you. I would make sure he doesn’t replace his composing time with pressure to prepare for his lessons though.
There can be a time to help a student find another teacher, but I would really want to clarify what his own goals are first.
Also, once he has learned a SM piece, set him loose to arrange and alter it if he wants. I have a very creative student who loves to do that.
Michelle H., Australia
He just wants to play his own music. He’s only 8. He spends most of his spare time playing and making up his own songs. With each new SM song he learns, he comes back the following week with his own arrangement of it, without me even asking him. Sometimes with more than one arrangement of a song!
In the past few weeks he’s done little to no weekly practice, so I think it’s more a question of me having “the talk” and getting a recommitment from him and his life coach so this can work, otherwise I’m okay with letting him go to be honest. He also doesn’t watch the videos very often.
Patti P., Hawaii
It’s definitely a talk with the parents too with one this young – what are they hoping for? He may just want to play and not see the value of learning others’ music as well. If you keep him, I’d suggest letting him show you plenty of his own stuff at each lesson, and just have small assignments dealing with the Foundation material so it doesn’t push out his creative bent in any way.
Gordon Harvey, Australia
If he can play his own works with expression, there’s no reason he can’t play the SM pieces with expression too. Have you actually asked him why this is happening? You might tease out an underlying attitude issue, or at least get a sense of where he’s coming from and whether he is happy with what you’re teaching him and is willing to go along with you. You could ask him if he knows why he can remember his own pieces better than the SM ones.
There is no doubt that you can teach him valuable stuff just by presenting the SM curriculum. It would be helpful to be mindful of ways that he can apply his learning to his composing, maybe by asking him questions about his pieces. Can he identify the chords in them? Can he relate them to chords as he has learned them in the accompaniment process? Maybe give him a project of how he would teach one of his pieces to someone else.
Ian B., California
This is an interesting problem to me because I was that student! Only my experience was in traditional lessons. Ultimately it was when I saw how learning to play other composers’ music enhanced and strengthened my own ability to compose that brought me motivation to continue. Sounds like you’re in a sustained “valley” or “plateau” with him at the moment. But everything you’re doing is right. He needs your patience, persistence, and his Life Coaches’ discipline until he finds a groove or routine that works with you. His skill set is unbalanced and will require him to sacrifice his “composing” play time in order to focus more time and effort on his actual playing skill set.
Kerry V., Australia
Have you started Mark Meritt’s Tune Toolkit? Have you asked him to teach YOU his pieces the SM way? That could show you how much of the SM method he is taking on board.
I had a student who was amazing with his work. He would play something that he ‘made up’ that would last 10 minutes or more. We used to share how he would be a playwright. He is into it now. Problem is he has arm pain so has had to stop playing. However, we came to a deal, that he would practice the SM stuff and balance it with his ‘stuff’. Of course the peaks, valleys, etc came into it but overall it was a great learning experience for us all. He is a brilliant player and musician.
Jeanne W., Connecticut
You’re only doing him a favor to teach SM because it teaches the fundamentals of music and musicianship that he needs in order to develop his improvisational and composing skills with the knowledge of what he’s doing, not just what he’s hearing. I had a similar student who could play almost anything by ear from the radio or internet.Once she learned the theory about what chords she was playing, the chord progressions, how all the music was based on chords and patterns, the theory launched her to a new level of understanding and ability to play and read more advanced music and make her own compositions.
Unmani U., Australia
I am in a similar predicament with it being day and night between the Foundation 1 pieces and my student’s own work – what he gets from YouTube and his compositions. The Foundation pieces are wooden and fast and the strategies are a struggle. So were the starting positions until I made a fuss about them. I am going to blitz him with the Accompaniment program as soon as we restart next week and try to do the trade-off “You do the stuff you like if you do some of what I want you do as well”.
This student has got a lot of issues with interpersonal self-expression. I want to get some sort of enjoyment balance in his lessons too. Tricky with trying to offer the gems of the curriculum.