Empower Piano Lessons through Play
Learn how to make a Caterpillar Counter here.
As you prep for a fresh piano teaching season, now’s the time to consider what will empower YOU through the year. It’s natural to be concerned about student motivation, but it’s important to plan for YOUR motivation, YOUR self-preservation!😉
I know I’m a better teacher when I have plans in place and things organized so that’s a start. I also know that slumps are real, and I felt the need to pull myself up and out of one this past month.
Recently, I listened to Christina Whitlock’s Beyond Measure Podcast Episode #128. The title “Cheers to Contemplating Change” caught my attention. Turns out that it’s part of a three-way “podcast takeover or swap” featuring Christina, Nicola Canton, and Tim Topham. They tasked each other to answer the same question:
“What are three things you would change right now if you could?”
Nicola shared her answers on Christina’s podcast. One thing, in particular, struck me as I listened to Nicola’s answer. She has something that she personally wants to change in her teaching. Something not announced to students, more like a secret or underlying mind shift. Tune in to hear the change she has in mind and her two other changes. Of course, you’ll want to listen to everyone’s answers in each podcast!
Links to each episode are provided below.
Nicola’s idea of a personal change resonated because I had been reflecting on what I could do to revitalize my teaching. Marie Lee gave me a nudge to collaborate on a studio theme called Mission is Possible to boost me out of my slump. I don’t think I’ve been this jazzed about a studio theme since the Spanish theme I borrowed from Samantha Coates.
Along with this re-energizing mission, I determined that my secret or personal mind shift is to ensure plenty of playtime in lessons. Playtime at the piano counts but also play–the opposite of work. In fact, the true opposite of play is depression!
I learned that definition after listening to a TED talk given by Stuart Brown. I stumbled across this week thanks to a newsletter from Austin Kleon, the author of Steal Like an Artist. (Click HERE to read my blog post about how that book steers my creativity.)
Stuart Brown is working to better understand the significance of play at the National Institute for Play. His TED talk is called “Play is More than Just Fun.” His research shows…
“Play is not just joyful and energizing–it's deeply involved with human development and intelligence.”
Stuart’s premise is that humans are designed to play through an entire lifetime. The basis of human trust is established through play signals. He mentions a sophisticated word–neoteny–which means the retention of immature qualities into adulthood.
“We are, by physical anthropologists, by many, many studies, the most neotenous, the most youthful, the most flexible, the most plastic of all creatures. And therefore, the most playful. And this gives us a leg up on adaptability.”
Brown ends his talk with these words:
“So what I would encourage on an individual level to do, is to explore backwards as far as you can go to the most clear, joyful, playful image that you have, whether it's with a toy, on a birthday or on a vacation. And begin to build to from the emotion of that into how that connects with your life now. Or you'll be able to enrich your life by prioritizing it and paying attention to it. I would encourage you all to engage not in the work-play differential -- where you set aside time to play -- but where your life becomes infused minute by minute, hour by hour, with body, object, social, fantasy, transformational kinds of play. And I think you'll have a better and more empowered life.”
Hmm….perhaps you have a good rapport with students, you get off the bench to move with the music, and you occasionally play games with your students. But sometimes, there may be a tendency to skip the play and get carried away with meeting an agenda?
How often do you lean into your neoteny?
Thank you to Karen T for sending me this pic of her students at play with toilet paper wigs to celebrate Baroque music.
No time like the present to ask the question below.
How do we put Brown’s “play principles” into practice in our lessons?
Gamify practice at lessons first so students can continue with them at home with Caterpillar Counters as described in this recent article about practice.
Embody the music before students play it as Paul Myatt promotes in his Whole Body Learning approach.
Encourage students to play by ear or by rote before they see the score. See how I do this with the timeless Anna Magdalena Bach Musette, here.
Dig through the games you have in storage (I bet you have some!) and play them during a lesson–not just during off-bench time. Find plenty of games here.
Commit to the Mission IS Possible theme. Use Marie’s practice “missions” and reward and even bribe–yes-bribe–students with trinkets for their I Spy Bottles when a mission is accomplished. Learn more here.
Roll the dice to spark improvisation in minor keys–an activity also part of the Mission IS Possible theme.
Open up lessons with Drink Carriers for an unexpected novel start. Novelty and play go hand in hand!
Go Baroque and wear toilet paper wigs and dance the minuet.
Explore rhythm and counting aloud with can carriers and lids. (Watch the video below to see them in action.)
Watch the video to see how this teaching moment turned into curiosity and play.
Instigate play by the way questions are asked
If you feel that you don’t have the time or energy to make play happen with clever themes, manipulatives or props, then reconsider the conversations you begin at lessons.
Put on your playfulness suit, make curiosity a playmate, and reframe questions.
I wonder if you can add a “better” ending to that piece?
Before you open your book, I wonder how much of the piece you can play from memory?
What did you have for breakfast? Now clap the rhythm (blueberry pancakes) and now play that rhythm using pitches of the scale of your piece.
Start playing one of your pieces, and I’ll guess the title.
How many different ways can you finger that passage?
Please teach me how to play that pattern you just created!
What story is the composer telling in this piece?
Learn more about talking with students here: How to Talk with Our Students.
One more thing…consider using few or even NO words when teaching! One of my favorite quotes from a good friend:
“Use words when you have to.”
There are countless ideas I could add here, and if you have some in the spirit of play in teaching, please share them below!
Here’s to a year where YOU and YOUR students embrace your neotony! Where your teaching…
“Becomes infused minute by minute, hour by hour, with body, object, social, fantasy, transformational kinds of play.”
May YOU have a “better and more empowered” teaching life!
