A Debate Swirls

The question: Teaching popular music as well as classical music to piano students is good.

Since this is my blog, you are going to read my opinion on this topic. We would, of course, like very much to hear your opinions.

When I was 12, I heard, over the radio, Jack Fina playing Bumble Boogie, loved it, and managed some time later to acquire a copy of the score. It is a challenging piece, both to read and to play well and is based on the fabulous Flight of the Bumble Bee by Rimsky-Korsakov.

I was a good student but, as you know from previous blogs, a poor sight-reader. One of my biggest lacks was the ability to work out the rhythms with any kind of consistent underlying beat. So anyway, I bashed my way through it, sort of. There were many places where I was too inexperienced and sloppy to be able to manage the complex rhythms. No adult I knew was willing to help me with the difficulties I encountered. The attitude at the time was, “That stuff is junk and if you want to play it on your own time, OK, but we’re not going to help you with it.”

The result was that I played about half of the piece, always to great acclaim from the listeners, but only at private gatherings. I wish I could say that I learned all of it by the time I was an adult but the truth is that I didn’t learn it properly, totally, until I taught it to one of my students. I told Jamie, who had heard me play it in the cut version, that I wanted him to be able to play it better than I did, so I would help him if he would agree to work carefully. Deal. By this time, I did know how to count and work out the rhythms so both Jamie and I learned it completely and well. I play it as my encore now at all concerts because everyone loves it so much.

My attitude is that students learn a tremendous amount about resolving rhythmical challenges from playing popular or jazzy music. You have to count to be able to do it! Besides, teens need to have something to wow their peers with. First you have to get their attention, then it is possible, and I have heard about it over and over again from the kids, that they can then play their Bach and Clementi Sonatinas and their friends love hearing what they can do.

I would opine that the Royal Conservatory of Music agrees with me, since they now permit wonderful arrangements of popular music to be used as studies as well as eight levels of jazz pieces by Christopher Norton.