The Pay-off of Being "In the Moment"

A couple of weeks ago, I sat down at the piano for my last practice sessions before heading to tropical St. Maarten. Even the lure of a week on sun-warmed beaches wasn't enough to quell nagging thoughts that I'd lose momentum in my practicing. Any skill that requires eye-hand coordination plus mental sharpness needs daily reinforcement to be at its best. There's that old saw about Rachmaninoff (or pick any pianist of note) who said, “If I miss one day’s practice, I notice; if I miss two days' practice, my wife notices; if I miss three days' practice, everyone notices.”

In practicing, the challenge is to pay attention to each note and not day-dream about, say, an upcoming sunny holiday. I've been very influenced by Jon Kabat-Zinn’s statement that if you aren't present here, when you get there, you won't be present either. The same challenge faces everyone who meditates: when trying to focus on one thing, the mind breaks off and introduces other thoughts. We can be two people – one who does the task, and one who watches the doing. In practicing and performing, keeping these parts together is the goal. So-called memory lapses occur when the split happens. In my experience, it isn't that notes are forgotten but that concentration falters.

I'm happy to report that I didn’t think an edifying thought the entire week in St. Maarten. I enjoyed watching the water, sun and sand, I enjoyed the pleasure of my friends, and I recklessly enjoyed the wonderful French food. It was pretty easy to stay focused in those moments! By week's end, my walk had changed from an energetic, get-from-here-to-there-as-quickly-as-possible gait, to a relaxed, loose-limbed saunter.

Now, I'm back in the saddle again, and I love it. After loosening up my fingers, I'm noticing that the practice I did before leaving has taken me to new, deeper levels. I'm feeling so refreshed and happy that my love of playing the piano is even more intense and rewarding, moment by moment.

Collaboration's time has come!

Jugglers were among the first to openly embrace sharing and growing. The spoken rule for jugglers is, "You teach me a trick, and I'll teach you one, and then we'll both know two!"

The idea of collaboration began for me with Dr. Suzuki, who encouraged all teachers to share teaching tips and stragegies through regular meetings of two or more teachers. Until then, the piano teachers I had known were secretive about their methods. The entire system was so competitive that the feeling seemed to be, "If I tell you my secrets, then you will know mine plus your own, and then your students will be better than mine," with the implied subtext, "and I wouldn't be able to stand that!"

It has been a joy to see how greater openness has filtered down to the students. Instead of having rival studios in which one dare not speak to another teacher's student, fellow students become best friends and root for each other to do well in competitions, even when they are going head-to-head in the same one.

We all win.

Re-framing: one of my most valuable tools as a teacher

It happens in piano teaching more often than one would expect: a child tries an activity for the first time, cannot do it perfectly and becomes frustrated and angry faster than the speed of light. One can tell almost immediately that this has happened by the sounds of the hands slamming down on the keyboard. Separating the child’s brain from the fingers (figuratively, of course) seems to be a powerful aid to relieving the frustration.

I talk to the child about his or her wonderful brain that has a clear picture of what needs to happen. At this time, though, the fingers have never attempted this action before. The brain is sending messages to the fingers but, since they are inexperienced at the activity, the fingers don’t always understand what they are being asked to do. This is why we need to ask them over and over until they really know what is required. It means, then, that the child’s brain needs to be kind to the fingers because the fingers are doing the best they can and the brain needs to help until, again figuratively speaking, the fingers turn around and say to the brain, OK, we know how to do that now.

The children respond wonderfully to this strategy, feel great about themselves and display real patience and compassion for their fingers. That is why re-framing is one of my most valuable tools as a teacher.