"Tell me about what you just played. Did you include the dynamics?"
"I don't know."
Have you had a similar exchange in your studio? This is all too common with my students. They play for me; I make some comments, praising them for what they did well and addressing one or two things that need work; and then they try again. Then they look to me for my approval.
But I don't want them to always look to me; I want them to notice if they have accomplished what they set out to do. I want them to listen.
My goal in piano teaching is to create independent learners. I want my students to play well technically and express themselves musically, but I also want them to eventually be able to learn music on their own. In order to do this, I will need to spend a number of years with them building up their technical, musical, and reading skills. I also need to teach them to listen.
How is this accomplished?
When students first come to us, their movements are often crude and unrefined, and they are so intent on pushing the keys that they forget to listen. But that doesn't mean they can't be taught! This is why we begin teaching them how to count, drawing their attention to when notes move higher or lower - aurally and visually and kinesthetically. It is why we teach dynamics and the difference between staccato and legato playing. As they grow, we talk about phrasing and making the music sound like a conversation, or a story. We introduce concepts like rubato.
We need to teach students to pay attention to what they are doing at the piano.
One thing we can do to help our students begin listening to themselves is to have them play through a piece once, working out movements and fingerings, and then ask them to play it a second time with dynamics (or articulation, or whatever it is you want them to attend to). The physical won't always be isolated in practice, but it is often this way when we approach a new piece.
We can't toss out body mechanics. Students still need to move their fingers, control the force of their arm weight, and so on. And so much of their work in learning to play the piano is focused on controlling their movements. But as they work out technical difficulties, they ought also attend to the sound.
I remember learning in this fashion for many years - practicing to master playing the instrument with each new piece I was given - and then my teacher would start asking me to "add expression."
As pianists, our goal should always be to play musically. The movements our bodies make are just a means to an end. If we, or our students, can play all of the correct notes but lack any shaping of the phrase, articulation, dynamics, or rubato, what are we doing?
I like to tell my students that the piano is a musical instrument, not a computer!
Pressing the right keys doesn't make music. Shaping the sound with the way we move, breathing between phrases, listening to how notes rise and fall, and making adjustments to the tempo and dynamics does!
Here are some things we can do to train our students to listen so that they can become musicians at the keyboard, not merely piano "players":
1. Demonstrate what we want them to do. Have the student sit in your "teacher chair" while you play. Talk about what you are doing. Then, have the student try to imitate your playing. Praise their efforts. Discuss how they can manipulate their movements to achieve a certain sound.
2. Record the student and play it back to them. Tell them what to listen for. When students are physically removed from making the sound, they can listen more intently.
3. Play recordings of other pianists, either audio or video, for your students and encourage them to listen for a specific thing each time.
As students mature and become more self-aware (and better listeners), they will develop the ability to play more musically. Their desire to make music will grow, and they will begin self-correcting their mistakes and adjusting their movements to create the kind of sound they want to hear.
As you welcome students to lessons this week, consider how you can encourage them to be better listeners as they play!
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