The greatest challenge of a piano teacher is balancing what students want with what they need.
Students want to have fun with music. They want to play their favorite tunes, and sound amazing doing it. Their parents want it to be an enjoyable stress-reliever (most of the time).
Students need to learn certain things to be able to do these things. They need to learn:
- how to sit at the piano
- healthy technique
- to develop their ear
- to develop their sense of rhythm
- to read music, or read chord charts
- to practice efficiently
- to enjoy process over the results
- (the list goes on...)
The challenge is when students dig their heels on certain needs in the name of certain wants.
Sacrificing learning to sightread so they can learn this one piece now.
Or tabling music theory and literacy because the student just wants to get to playing.
Much of the time, this doesn't last forever. Because the student eventually hits a wall, still won't budge on the essential "needs" that need to be addressed, and then they decide to take a break and explore less stressful things.
It's hard for us teachers, because we want to find ways to make addressing the essentials fun for students. Even if they're not inherently "fun" to begin with.
It's like going to the doctor for a checkup.
I go to the doctor because I want to be healthy.
I'd prefer to be healthy eating whatever I want, and not having to do uncomfortable exercises.
But what do I need? To eat healthier things...and to do uncomfortable exercises.
It wouldn't be in my best interest for the doctor to say, "You can keep eating pizza and fries every day if that makes you happy. Just walk for 10 minutes a day and maybe you'll see some progress."
At the same time, eating healthy and getting daily exercise is hard for everyone. The challenge is to figure out how to make those things possible and enjoyable.
But it all starts with recognizing that, regardless of what I want, there are certain things that I need.
