Intermediate Students
What determines an intermediate student for you?
Is it a song? A skill? Time in lessons?
I recently had a mom tell me her 9-year-old child was at an intermediate level when trying to find a class here for him. He’d been playing for 2.5 years.
They came over to meet, check out the studio and have him play for me.
I should not have been surprised, but It always shocks me to see how little progress some students have made after so many private lessons. It took some effort to mask my emotions as we talked.
He was only full-fledged beginner in my book. Thank heavens I didn’t just take her word for it and place him in a class where he would have not fit well.
He had played partial chords a time or two but didn’t know what they were. He hadn’t played sharps or flats, and he could not read very much at all in the first octaves.
His timing was great. He had learned to count well so at least he had one skill to build on.
I put him in a beginning class, one that was only about 9 weeks along. That’s where he fit solidly.
Within 4 weeks he began playing music 2 and 3 times more advanced than he had been accustomed to getting and because he wasn’t bored or using baby songs, he really took to them. I have great plans for his progress. Wish his previous teacher had been more effective. Thankfully, he hadn’t quit.
Sadly, I see this regularly. There just aren’t standard benchmarks for teachers and anyone who plays often feels qualified to teach. I guess I fit that description when I was 13. Maybe I still did at 17. But once I grew up, I recognized just using method books was not a very effective way to teach piano.
No one has the same interests, strengths or abilities
My small group lessons bring out obvious strengths. I look for them from the beginning. The beauty is that one person’s strength can lift another. Even weaknesses can be beneficial. One person’s weakness can turn into a strength for the class as we work together to help the weakness.
My Intermediate students are playing a wide repertoire of music across lots of genres. Not all students love every form of music so I introduce lots to find those that speak to them. I can teach chording, patterning, reading, dynamics and technique in any style. I don’t live and die by the method books.
There is a great need for teachers who can rescue the students who have played for 2.5 years with little to show for it.
Want to see how advanced the music is that my average student is playing after 5-6 lessons? Enter your email below for a link to the music.
