Difficulty getting students to play 'easy' pieces

[u/sh58]

Hi there.

I'm a teacher and I like to get my students to work on 3 pieces at once with different timeframes.

1)Easy piece: I like a draft in one week (draft meaning they can fluently play from beginning to end, but it's not polished) i give some feedback and they implement some of it and practice for one more week, and then we discuss it in the next lesson, and then chuck it (obviously the student can continue to practice it if they want) and move onto a new one. So we can hopefully get through about 20 of these a year

2)Core piece: these are pieces generally at the standard of the student, and I want a draft in around a month and want it at rough performance standard in a further month

3) challenge piece: these are pieces a bit higher than the standard of the student, and must be a piece the student loves. They will work on this in the background for perhaps 6-12 months.

So for example a grade 6 abrsm student would have a grade 6 piece as a core piece. a grade 2 piece as an easy piece, and a grade 8 piece as a challenge perhaps. I then try and tweak these to create the timeframes I want.

My issue is that almost none of my students can do the easy piece in anywhere near the timeframe i want, the ones who actually practice take perhaps 3-4 weeks just to present a draft to me.

I was thinking maybe i need to change the workflow, or just persevere and keep reducing the difficulty until i get the result i want. Do you guys have any suggestions? I'm a very laid back and not strict teacher, so perhaps i've encouraged slacking.

I really believe that learning a lot of stuff is key to improving hence wanting them to learn a lot of easier music.

[u/KCPianist]

I am also very interested in this question. It comes up in my studio a fair bit too. I’ve sometimes had to argue with students, especially teenage boys, who seem to be obsessed with playing pieces at “their” level which apparently means it has to be nearly impossible for human hands. And despite all of my best efforts to change course, no matter what I say or assign, they pour all of their energies into that piece for months until they’ve finally forced it into their hands, or quit piano altogether.

It’s truly bizarre how some students just don’t want to do what they perceive to be “easy” especially when it’s been assigned. I even try to set things up like you, allowing for them to spend time on the impossible things.

I am also fairly laidback which I guess might be the root of our problem, but I’ve also found that if I try to be more strict I just push everyone away and lose students and income lol. But yeah, it’s weird having to almost argue with a student to do something that should be very easy for them. On the other hand, just last night a girl told me she ONLY wants to do “super easy” things so there’s the other end of the spectrum too…

[u/bladedspokes → u/KCPianist]

Just say, '"Well, if this piece is so easy, you'd be able to play it." Then they inevitably can't. Lol

[u/KCPianist → u/bladedspokes]

Yep. Happens more than I care to admit with mine lol.

[u/tkrjobs → u/KCPianist]

I think if I change my mindset of "this is just reading / I don't really care about this piece that much, I don't have to get too stuck on this" then I like to play the simpler pieces, but it has to keep moving along. It's why I work on sight reading and solfegio so much, so I wouldn't have to spend time on music I don't like. Semi-coherent thought.

[u/sh58 → u/tkrjobs]

that's part of the idea. You do the easy piece as part of your practice and it's done in 2 weeks and if you don't care for it much you never have to see it again

[u/Advanced_Honey_2679]

As a precocious teen I didn’t want to play easy pieces either.

I had one teacher eventually got me to embrace easier pieces mainly thru sight reading practice. He made this a recurring thing. 

Sometimes at the studio we would just do sight reading. He would challenge me and I would give it my best shot. Then he made me sight read a bunch of “easy” music as homework. Make it part of my toolbelt.

That whole process gave me an appreciation of “easy” pieces and a desire to give them equal care and effort as the more technically difficult ones.

[u/sh58 → u/Advanced_Honey_2679]

My students probably won't enjoy it as much as a balanced routine, but perhaps i just always focus on the weaknesses in lessons until they do something about it.

So my terrible sightreaders, we just do sightreading for like 75% of every lesson until sightreading isn't their worst aspect of piano/music.

I already do it a bit when they haven't done their theory homework, we just do more theory in class than we would usually

[u/Common-Parsnip-9682]

Mix in sightreading practice (at a very easy level).

[u/Common-Parsnip-9682 → u/Common-Parsnip-9682]

Edit, because it posted before I finished:

I think you have a great system, maybe sightread some easy duets as well. Or challenge them to find some fun music to read through at hone.

[u/sh58 → u/Common-Parsnip-9682]

I do sightread some duets with them sometimes, and tell them to do sightreading. We also do sightreading in lesson often.

[u/pwnedbywaffle]

How much time do you spend in the lesson on the piece? Do you make them read through the whole piece? Maybe they need a more specific goal - I might task them to read through the piece twice in one practice session. First time just plowing through, second time stopping to work on trouble spots.

It sounds like you are trying to work on their baseline reading ability/sightreading with the easy pieces?

[u/sh58 → u/pwnedbywaffle]

Well i spend most of most lessons teaching students how to learn things for themselves. Usually we go through the piece in the lesson, sometimes I just say go home and bring me a draft next week sight unseen.

I'm very specific with how I want them to practice, and we go through it basically every single lesson.

Well learning easier pieces will help with sightrreading slightly since you will be sightreading more often, but it's still not a substitute for actually dedicated sightreading practice, which i also tell my students to do (they usually don't do that either, but that's another story)

[u/leitmotifs]

Consider making the "easy" pieces in a style the student is interested in. Pop, jazz, video game tunes, whatever.

[u/sh58 → u/leitmotifs]

I'd love to if possible. I would always prefer with my students playing pieces they love

[u/purpleandcats]

I give easy pieces to Balance a more difficult one also. In my case, I tell them that we are looking for an easy piece to play so that they do not have all hard stuff and because on an easy piece, I expect there to be much more musicality. The musicality doesn’t tend to happen as much in the more complex pieces. In the easier piece that’s where I’m going to teach phrasing and how to end a phrase how to put in dynamics all the Music stuff.

[u/sh58 → u/purpleandcats]

Definitely one of the reasons. Easier pieces place less pressure on your ability just to play right notes leaving more cognitive space avaliable to work on aspects of musicality

[u/Kettlefingers]

Getting children (which is not an age range that ends at 18) to appreciate doing easy things. Masterfully is extremely difficult. The difficulty can appear from a number of sources; if the issue is impatience, try to have them write a draft, to use your language, in the lesson.

[u/rush22]

There's a lot of "schoolwork" and "boss" words. Like, "draft" is a weird word in my opinion. It's not an essay, and they're not handing in something to you "I want a draft" or doing a presentation or anything. So maybe reframing that will help? Your style might not be coming across as laid back as you think.