Piano - My Musical Foundation
Saturday, September 30, 2023 by Billy Roberts | Piano
Piano has always been the foundation of my musical journey. I just finished an eight week course in elementary piano pedagogy and am looking forward to studying intermediate pedagogy over the next two months, but the greatest takeaways from this course were personal. Although the practices of studying, working with students, and reflection provided many useful tools for teaching beginning piano students, my most important takeaway was in simply recognizing the numerous benefits that I gained from studying piano at a young age. My understanding of musical theory alone gave me a huge advantage in both singing and horn playing. As a music major in college with piano as a secondary instrument, the applied piano lessons that I took further enhanced my musicianship in ways that horn playing alone would not have.
My second key takeaway was in developing realistic practice expectations. Although I advise beginners to practice 5 days a week for 20 minutes, practicing three days per week for an hour at a time works better for me right now. This allows me to spend 20-30 minutes on fundamentals and get myself warmed up well before diving into music. I realized that doing short chunks of time so that I could split playing time between horn and piano actually proved detrimental to both, because I need good blocks of time to focus. So, for now I have three separate hours per week to practice horn and three separate hours devoted to piano practice. I do spend a good deal of time playing piano on the days I’m not practicing, though.
Finally, I learned that taking care of fundamental issues, even if it means slowing down a lesson and taking time away from other things that could be addressed, can actually create space for other aspects of technique to be worked more fully later. I’ve seen this happen several times in the past two months as I’ve worked with my two children and also the beginning piano student in my studio. Whether it’s putting a lesson on hold to address unfinished theory assignments or choosing not to worry about every piece to be played at a lesson so that one trouble spot in the music can be addressed, there are times when dealing with a specific issue clears a major roadblock to a student’s success. I actually encountered this in six years of tutoring math before I decided to dive into teaching piano lessons, and it carries over to all of life. Sometimes the greatest roadblock to success is simply the pressure of time and the inability to stay in the present moment.
