Emily is playing "Für Elise."
There was a time not so long ago that I would have done anything to avoid teaching this piece, but recently I have had a change of heart. I can almost hear my colleagues scoffing, quick to recite the list of overplayed works that they will never teach. And maybe it is indeed a sign that I'm softening, redefining my priorities and pedagogical values. Maybe time and years are mellowing my hard, stubborn edges.
My student loves playing "Für Elise," as I did when I was her age. Just because I could gladly go to my grave without ever hearing it again isn't a good enough reason to rob her of the pleasure, the utter joy she is having learning these oh-so-familiar passages. Her happiness is a good reminder that my job is not to censor her learning, but to expand her knowledge, so that there is no end to the repertoire that she longs to play.
The question of repertoire has been on my mind lately. It is so easy as a piano teacher only to teach a tried-and-true list of favorites. These are the pieces that show up often at bi-annual studio recitals and during monthly performance classes. My students look forward to hearing this familiar music, and younger kids are frequently inspired and motivated to work towards a piece they have heard an older student play. Although there is certainly the danger of getting into a rut with my pedagogical repertoire, mostly I find a studio rep list serves us well.
Expanding Our Musical Horizons
It would be totally understandable to stop there and assume that as a pianist, my job is to teach piano music, period. But I think that would be a mistake. “The more you know, the more you love, and by loving more, the more you enjoy,” said St. Catherine of Siena, her words gently nudging me out of my pedagogical complacency. If the evidence in my studio is any indication, then there is plenty of proof that students love music they recognize. Or, as my yoga teacher reminds me, our nervous systems gravitate towards the familiar. If we music teachers want our students to love our music, we need to introduce it as systematically as we teach scales. This means not just our specific instrument or genre, but to teach students to identify a wide and varied list of great music: pieces like Beethoven’s 9 th Symphony and Haydn’s Surprise Symphony for starters. "Can-Can" by Offenbach, "Lullaby" by Brahms, "Spring" by Vivaldi, "The March of the Toreador" by Bizet, and "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" by Tchaikovsky are good ones, too. And then there are plenty of non-classical pieces that deserve our attention: "Maple Leaf Rag" and "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin. "Let it Be" and "Hey Jude" by the Beatles. "Bridge over Troubled Water" by Simon and Garfunkel. "Over the Rainbow" by Harold Arlen. The possibilities are endless. The more you know, the more you love…
Yes, this takes teaching time. On a practical level, this means I introduce music and drill students’ knowledge of pieces and composers in almost every lesson. I break up other lesson tasks like etudes and arpeggios with something off our listening list. I have students match composers and pieces using stacks of index cards scribbled with names and titles. I play recordings as kids are coming into the studio or as they are leaving (If I can get two kids in the exchange of coming and going, all the better.).
Fostering Music Appreciation
In monthly performance classes, we often play a game called “Name That Tune” where students shout out the name, composer, and any extra “fun facts” about pieces I play. It’s a little like the old “Drop the Needle” tests many of us were subjected to in college, back when every music classroom had a turntable. Unlike those infamous tests, however, the studio game is loud and a bit wild. “Swan Lake!” hollers one student. “Or maybe it’s The Swan?” another student wonders. “Haydn wrote 41 symphonies!” “No!” someone calls out, “that was Mozart.” Sometimes we divide into teams; other times kids insist on showing off individually. There is no bad way to do this. I figure if a six-year-old successfully identifies “In the Hall of the Mountain King” in the course of the hour, I’ve won.
Last spring I had several young students playing in a recital hosted by our local music teachers' association. A student in another teacher’s studio played Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca, ripping through it with great abandon. My students were thrilled, turning to me excitedly and in a loud stage whisper saying, “Miss Amy! It’s Turkish Rondo. I love this!” Just last week a mother told me they had attended the symphony because “Jack found out they were playing Dvorak’s New World Symphony and he insisted that was his favorite piece.” I loved that.
Even when kids mix up the pieces or composers, it’s all good. Once I played the first two phrases of “Ode to Joy” and a small child squealed: “I know this! It’s ‘Funeral March’.” Maybe depending upon whose funeral it was, I thought to myself. Another time, I overheard one student quizzing another about the composer of William Tell Overture. “ Come on ,” Michael said to Henry. “It sounds like a pasta.”
He was right, Rossini does sound like a pasta. And from now on, I will always think when hearing the theme to the William Tell Overture:
There goes William Tell on his horse eating a bowl of Rossini. The more you know…
