In the way I teach piano lessons, the size of the practice workload a student takes on between lessons is the result of an agreement at the end of each lesson between the student and myself. Following this, I generally send a practice list via email. I also ask students to handwrite a practice list as I am writing the email; this gives students a list to follow if I don’t send a practice list. Also, it has been my experience that students can have more clarity on the practice list if they have both their own version of it and mine. Agreeing to the practice list at the end of the lesson indicates the student is committed to practicing everything on the list.
Students can also respond to the practice list email to propose adding items to or removing items from the list or making other kinds of changes. In most cases I approve these changes; in other situations, I may propose a compromise. In a smaller number of cases I am not able to approve proposals, but in these cases I generally suggest other options. Changes to the practice list should not be a personal, private decision that the student makes alone, but should rather be the result of communication between the student and I. Although what is on your practice list can be negotiated from week to week, there is a required minimum amount of music you need to have prepared. For students taking private piano lessons through UVM, this depends partly on how many lesson credits you are taking. For all students, the practice list is the most important representation of the minimum amount of work required.
A key element in making a lesson productive is being prepared to play most or all of the music on your practice list. If you are having your first or second experience of not being able to practice everything on your list, I encourage you to come to your lesson anyway. A ‘rebuilding’ lesson, where rather than you playing the music on the list, we work on clarifying and possibly revising the list, discuss practice techniques and do a limited amount of practicing together, can be valuable for a limited number of lessons. If not practicing everything on your list, or practicing significantly less than everything on the list, or not practicing at all becomes a recurring pattern, it becomes less and less valuable to have a ‘rebuilding’ lesson. To put it another way, the more ‘rebuilding’ lessons a student has, the less valuable those kinds of lessons become to the student. This is comparable to the way in which multiple consecutive lessons focusing on only one shorter piece (a situation which I as a teacher work to avoid) can quickly become less and less beneficial. In these situations, it may be more advisable to cancel a lesson (with advance notice – please see my studio policies) or in some cases, to consider withdrawing from lessons. In my experience, this kind of situation can be avoided by students taking an active role in building the practice list at the lesson and, when necessary, communicating after the lesson to propose changes to the the practice list.
While finding time and motivation to practice and what to do with your practice time are important challenges that I can help with to some extent, these issues can’t take up the majority of lesson time from week to week. While I am willing to spend a limited amount of time discussing these challenges, the value of spending lesson time on these issues decreases as more lesson time is spent discussing them. In my experience, students arrive at better solutions to the puzzle of how to find time and motivation to practice when they engage in that puzzle on their own. As a student, you know all the ‘pieces’ of that puzzle (what conditions help you focus, how to minimize or avoid distractions and interruptions, what times of day you have available for practicing, etc.) better than I do. Also, my expertise is in music, not motivation, psychology, personal scheduling, etc. If we are spending most of the lesson talking about how you can find time and motivation to practice, I am not offering you my best expertise. If you are ready at the beginning of the lesson to play the music on your practice list to the best of your ability, I’ll be able to give you the kind of help I’m most qualified to offer.
While a search for musical ideas to inform your own compositions is an important activity for a composer, it can’t be the main goal of piano lessons. That kind of search is a worthy goal, but it can only be peripheral goal of piano lessons. Composition, theory and music history classes are important sources for those ideas as well.
The main focus of jazz piano lessons is always on the creative and technical aspects of learning great jazz compositions by great jazz player/composers, with the goal of being able to perform them not just at a proficiency level (the right notes and rhythms at a steady tempo) but also a performance level (which includes attention to important musical parameters like dynamics, phrasing and articulation.)
Students sometimes reach a point where they ask me something like: ‘I’m finding some [or all] of the music on the practice list is not so interesting for me. Can I choose my own pieces to practice and work on in lessons?’ Here are some of the ways I respond to that question:
– I will generally advocate replacing some of the pieces on the list with one or two new pieces we agree on rather than abandoning the entire list and coming up with a completely new list
– While I’m not willing to replace pieces on the practice list with pieces chosen by the student on their own (i.e. without consulting me), I am willing to have the practice list be a combination of pieces the student chooses from options that I offer and pieces the student suggests and which they and I agree to add to the practice list. In both cases, it is important for everything on the practice list to be a challenge appropriate to their ability level and relevant to the goals of lessons. While it can sometimes be a good idea to postpone or abandon a piece if you find yourself less interested in it or find it challenging in a particular way, these are not always good reasons to postpone or abandon pieces.
– In these kinds of situations, I often ask students to share with me a list of pieces they would like to work on in lessons (something I often ask new students as well.) Rather than proposing one piece at a time, I encourage students to send a range of options (between 5 and 10 pieces) they’d like to propose. Proposing only one piece, or a list of 20 or 30 or more is generally less helpful as I don’t have time to look through that many pieces. A short-ish list gives me a chance to go through it and identify pieces that are best suited to the goals of lessons. As with proposals for revisions to the practice list, I will respond to approve or propose other options.
– Music notation is an important part of how I teach piano. One crucial element I always need in order to agree to add a piece to the practice list is a version of the piece notated on grand staff (treble and bass clefs) or a lead sheet (single note melody line on treble clef with chord symbols above). Because of this, it’s helpful if the students can include links to not just recordings but also notated scores for the pieces they propose. If you propose a piece for which you don’t have a score, we will need to find one in order to work on it in piano lessons. In some cases, depending on the length and complexity of the piece and my availability, I can also transcribe from recordings, however, this involves an additional fee (at the same rate as lessons) for my additional time. One of the best sources for notated scores of pop and jazz tunes is musicnotes.com. I always encourage students to buy the PDF version of the music as well as the version printed with the printer, as this allows for multiple copies.
– Pieces also need to be at an appropriate technical level for the student. With pop and jazz pieces, for example, it may be possible to ‘scale down’ the technical level of a piece.