{"id":1867,"date":"2014-11-10T18:15:54","date_gmt":"2014-11-11T02:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/?p=1867"},"modified":"2018-03-03T18:17:08","modified_gmt":"2018-03-04T02:17:08","slug":"ready-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/archives\/1867","title":{"rendered":"Ready or Not!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Curmudgeon curmunicates. \u201cWhen I was still posting to that teachers\u2019 group, somebody asked, \u2018Why are the \u2018Path\u00e9tique\u2019 and \u2018Moonlight\u2019 so hard to teach?\u2019 And I answered, \u2018Because so few students are ready to learn them!\u2019 This offended some teachers; I can\u2019t imagine why. I mean, I love salmon in pastry, but I don\u2019t expect to learn in one day how to make it: I can barely boil an egg! And a student who can barely boil a pianistic egg may love those sonatas\u2014I\u2019m glad if so!\u2014but can\u2019t reasonably expect to learn in one day to play them. But some do expect it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This started me thinking about what \u201cready\u201d means, as in \u201cready to learn a given piece of music.\u201d As we know, the process can be very different for different students. For Student #1, learning and memorizing the \u201cPath\u00e9tique\u201d may take only a few days. Exploring the depths of the piece takes time, but #1 quickly conquers the initial learning.<\/p>\n

Student #2 may take eight months to arrive at the same point, learning the notes more slowly, and also having to identify and master new problems in technique and musicianship. How to play the right hand melody pianissimo in the \u201cMoonlight\u201d first movement, with the triplet accompaniment in the same hand not covering it. How to play the left hand tremolo in the \u201cPath\u00e9tique\u201d as fast as marked, yet delicately, so the right hand can remain expressive.<\/p>\n

With these or other difficulties to be solved, a piece may act as, not a mere addition to repertoire, but a kind of \u201claboratory\u201d for improving one\u2019s playing. And how rewarding this is!<\/p>\n

But say Student #2, given a piece that will indeed take eight months to prepare, is assigned a recital date only four months away. (Ready or not!) What will happen? Perhaps the student will improve so radically that the performance will be successful. The reason might be a new teacher, some potent new personal motivation, a sudden gain in musical understanding or physical command. This can<\/em> happen\u2014and isn\u2019t it thrilling when it does!\u2014 but it\u2019s once in a blue moon, and best not counted on.<\/p>\n

More likely is that, being unprepared, #2 will give an unsuccessful performance from which nothing will be learned except, \u201cI hate piano.\u201d And that will be a sad failure of pedagogy, for the student will have learned wrong notes, wrong rhythms, wrong synchronizations. After all, every passage that isn\u2019t yet right is\u2026sadly\u2026wrong. And it ain\u2019t the student\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n

Can we stop assigning students pieces for which they\u2019re not ready? Can we define \u201cnot ready\u201d? Let\u2019s say it means there\u2019s a good chance the eventual performance will have built-in defects.<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

Suppose a student insists on learning a piece for which s\/he\u2019s \u201cnot ready\u201d? That is a completely<\/em> different story! See a future blog. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Curmudgeon curmunicates. \u201cWhen I was still posting to that teachers\u2019 group, somebody asked, \u2018Why are the \u2018Path\u00e9tique\u2019 and \u2018Moonlight\u2019 so hard to teach?\u2019 And I answered, \u2018Because so few students are ready to learn them!\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1868,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867\/revisions\/1868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}