Happy almost-Halloween! Apologies that this month’s newsletter is coming in a bit late. It has been a busy month. My experience leading a classroom at the Waldorf school here in Napa this month was so interesting and I learned a lot which I am incorporating into my piano teaching. More on that, but first…
We are three months in, and I am getting nit picky about technique! For my young ones, I’ve introduced a new exercise where the children form little “beaks” with their fingers. It starts out just as finger play to build coordination without the worry of playing the right keys. We later progress to the keyboard, where a melody is accompanied by words, and we use the structure of the music/poem to talk about form, which I have been drawing out in shapes and colors. For older students, technique is combined with theory through our exploration of scales, and I am taking my lead from the Suzuki Method in assigning one key in one octave per week, as we—key by key—reveal the magic of the circle of fifths!
As our material gets progressively more complex, it is my responsibility as a teacher to make sure I am introducing material in a way that is organized, reliable, well-paced, and clear. One thing I got out of leading the Waldorf classroom this month the validation that it’s okay to work methodically through information, even though it might mean our pace is slower. I appreciated the structure assigned to every detail in the Waldorf method. With visual art in particular, the way a single stroke is performed and communicated to the student really matters, as well as the rhythm in which it is conveyed. This is also so true for music!
To this end, there’s another technique from my study of the Suzuki Method that I am utilizing: the “step” concept. The “step” is an incredibly simple, but powerful conceptual tool that underlies the approach. It basically isolates one aspect of what is being learned for the student to work on and master at home that week. A step will look different from student-to-student, even if they’re working on the same piece, depending on what challenges them. On one hand, it is up to the teacher to ensure the steps assigned are achievable in a week’s time. What is an achievable step? It is one which can be mastered in a week with daily practice. Daily practice is the other side of the equation: the student’s responsibility.
Straightforward tools like the “step” help create parameters in which to identify problems, and encourage proactive seeking of solutions—so important when working with material that can feel a bit abstract, like music.