How many of us have been in this situation: your piano student rushes into your studio grinning from ear to ear, brandishing a piece of sheet music bestowed upon her by a well-meaning family member. She’s desperate to learn how to play it; pumped up by her family’s excitement about the piece. You open the book and your heart sinks. It’s about 3 levels too difficult.
I’m betting you’ve been there several times (and possibly even several times a year with some students). Your professional opinion tells you it’s nothing but a minefield of misery. Your heart tells you you should take full advantage of your piano students’ enthusiasm. Your head tells you that you’re going to need to find some way to appease both child and family in any case.
What to do?
Making the Most of Incorrectly Leveled Sheet Music
The key in solving this problem is two-fold; you want to keep your piano student brimming with excitement (after all, we spend a heck of a lot of time trying to ignite this spark ourselves… we need to take what we can get!) and secondly you want to avoid un-doing the careful progression of learning you’ve worked so hard to achieve; no one likes to spend months hobbling through a piece that never gets finished. Here’s how to find a balance:
1. Avoid any discussions of it being too difficult. Children automatically hear this as “You’re not good enough” and that can be a confidence crusher. When first looking at the piece, talk about what your student likes about it, why the family member chose this particular piece, where they have heard it before… make connections with the music in the most basic of ways.
2. Take stock of what makes it too hard. Is it a rhythm thing? Is it the key signature? Is it a matter of coordination, speed, size of chords… what is it that is making you balk?
Once you have sized up the monster, it’s time to attack. And you want to attack immediately (before the well-meaning family member attempts to “help” at home).
1. Cut it down to size: If it’s a pop song, eliminate repeated verses, the bridge, and all but one verse and two repetitions of the chorus. If it’s a classical piece, find a place where it could “make sense” to stop (once the main theme has been repeated and slightly developed, and at a place where it resolves nicely or could be resolved nicely with a drawn-in cadence). Block off the rest of the song using post-it notes.
2. Eliminate Left Hand Difficulties: Most pop songs are difficult because of the left hand rhythm and coordination required. If they aren’t there already, write chord symbols for the left hand progression above the melody line. For the first bit, your student can simply play held 5ths based on these chord symbols as they master the right hand.
3. Encourage “By Rote” Learning of Right Hand Rhythm: We discussed this aspect of pop music playing while chatting with Jon Schmidt of the Piano Guys; much of what makes pop music difficult is the rhythm… and it’s okay for your student to learn this through imitation rather than through weeks of frustrating counting and reading. Students can often play better than they can read and, as long as it’s not the way you approach every piece, it’s okay to play upon this ability in this case.
4. Ease Key Signature Stress: This is the most difficult of the issues to remedy. However, it’s also a great opportunity to approach key signatures in a “This ain’t scary, you can do this!” fashion. I grew up petrified of key signatures with more than 3 sharps or flats… simply because I wasn’t exposed to them very often. Early exposure means that your piano kids are more likely to take it in stride. Use a color-coding system to help (for example, if she is used to playing in D major, but the piece is in A major, highlight the G# to help her remember the additional black key). If it’s way way too difficult, then it’s always best to suggest the purchase of the same song in a new key (musicnotes.com offers basically any song you could dream of with the opportunity to transpose and at a cost of under $7… well worth the avoidance of frustrations).
The Best Laid Plans
Was this particular piece in your plan for piano student? Likely not. Is it easier to nod and smile and tuck it back into her music bag in the hopes that it’s soon forgotten? Perhaps. However, I prefer to look at these moments as massive opportunities for your students’ growth. At some point she is going to want to learn to play a piece on her own (we hope!) and if you can give her the tools to tackle something she loves (even it it’s way too difficult) you open up a whole new world where she has the ability to explore music of her choosing. Capitalizing on enthusiasm is never a bad idea.
Did You Know?…
Did you know that an $8 a month membership to PianoBookClub means you’ll have motivating music *at the right level* for all students in your studio? We vary the level of our book releases each month meaning you’ll build a library that has something for everyone – and it’s all studio-licensed so you can print forever! Check out some of our last year’s releases below.
Angie Tse says
Fab post, Andrea! I just had a beginer bring in Hedwig’s Theme… I’m glad that we did several of your suggestions above (simplify key, by rote for some sections and LH chords). I was just wondering if I made the right decision – but he was ecstatic when he skipped off after lesson last week! I’m glad you are suggesting that we plough ahead. Incidentally, I have your Fearless Fortissimo book… Going to ‘unleash it’ soon… 🙂
Sandra Bougeois says
I had visions of a Fearless Fortissimo Recital. Mostly boys…but each plays a song in the stories order…and there is some narration… it is fun!
jeannie myers says
Two years ago I did a Fearless recital — this was before Fearless #2. Kids made costumes. It was quite successful! I put the pages that went with each song on the projector.
Loni Spendlove says
Hedwig’s theme must have been the popular Christmas Gift because I just had a student bring it 2 weeks ago as well! Will be implementing many of these ideas because this is the first piece of music this student has been excited about for a while (though he likes Fearless Fortissimo, he doesn’t have a lot of parental back up at home)
Andrea says
Hi Loni – glad the suggestions may be helpful to you! 🙂
Robbin says
I love these comments! I generally find that the type of music students bring in is pop music – and I think it’s harder to learn than more classical pieces.
That said, I agree that we should never discourage students. I had a student this spring who had only learned two notes on the staff. Her cousin was going to Festival, and she insisted that I give her two pieces so she could go too. I did and (Horrors) actually wrote in the names of all the notes. She learned the pieces and performed very well last weekend. Last night we went back to learning the notes on the staff. I’m sure the strides she made in enthusiasm far outweigh my allowing her to play with note names written in.
Jamila Sahar says
Great post! I often get students come in and specifically want to play the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, can barely reach an octave or barely read the notes. Sometimes I explain that although this piece is slow and sounds like it is simple that there are some technical things they will have to learn first like arpeggios etc. Then I will play some excerpts for them and show them what they will have to do. If they are still excited to play the piece I help them start to learn it, and once they get to that first cadence that changes the triplets every beat, they begin to realize it is not so ‘easy’. So to continue to encourage them, I tell them I can give them specific exercises and other repertoire which will help them build up the necessary skills they will need to play this sonata.
Milla says
I ‘ve been rewriting songs for my students, simplifying rhythm and transposing. Quite a job, but it was worth it.
Mary says
Same here, Milla-this year one student wanted to learn the first movement of Beethoven’s 5th-I wrote up a part for him-the first part which is familiar was fine-the next part, not so good-we’ve shelved it for the time being until his skills improve enough to finish. I highly disagree with the so called Easy Piano versions of pop songs-not accurate!!!
Bethany says
My most advanced (early) student came to me a few months ago with Rachmaninov’s Prelude Op3 No2. She loves the sound of it but it really is much too difficult. I wasn’t as optimistic as you. I told her we could give it a go but that it would require a lot of work. She dropped it after a couple of weeks. I suppose I could have followed some of your tips and I think I will revisit it with her in the fall. Thanks!
Joy says
Thank you SO much for this post. I’ve been looking for these hints for a LONG time!
Caroline Quinn says
Excelllent article and spot on!!! It’s like you were reading my mind. One more idea that I learned this year to simplify chording and use just the primary chords in major songs is simply to leave out the minor chords. It will still sound fine. I recently taught Rainbow Connection to a girl that brought her grandmother’s copy. We changed the key…..thank you musicnotes.com and crossed out all the minor chords and she loves playing it. Thanks for your wonderful posts…..I love, love, love reading them as I start my day. Keep shining brightly!!!
Kathy G says
Great suggestions. I have to retrain myself not to cringe when students bring in stuff like this. A few weeks ago a beginner — barely playing simple hands-together pieces brought in a huge Taylor Swift book and another of songs from Frozen, bought by well-meaning parents. Aieee. We settled for learning some simplified chords to play, and learning the melody to sing. This girls father is actually a rather well-known (in Canada) country-western singer, so she hears the sing-and-chord style all the time.
On the classical music end, I was amused at a recent festival, to hear the reactions (by other teachers) when a student performed only the A and C sections of Fur Elise. She just skipped the horrendous B section and was happy as can be. Teachers were so shocked — “can she do that?!” But worked, and the student can go back and learned the dreaded B section some other time. Or not. Let’s face it — the A section is the best part!
Kathy L says
Right on! My student wants to learn Canon in D. I just gave her the first page, before it gets faster and more complicated. We talked about that she could already hear the tune in that part, so I think if she masters that much, she will feel good about it, and we can pick up the rest later. Thanks for the musicnotes.com
Trish Moore says
I agree we want to tap into the student’s enthusiasm. I cut the piece up and the student gets the first line. We tap it; I have them try each hand separate, then HT. They figure out that the piece is at a level they’re really not ready for, but if they want to keep going (this piece becomes the extra along with their regular stuff). they get another line.
By cutting it up, they can’t see the rest of the piece and it doesn’t seem as daunting as seeing the whole piece (the mountain). I always say we’re going to break up the mountain into mole hills, and that makes them happy. I do this with recital pieces too because if I don’t, the only thing they will practice is the recital pieces and their regular music is nowhere to be found. We start them early so we have time to work on them slowly.
In most instances the student that is really determined to learn the piece will keep going. Most will decide to learn the piece when they get to that level.
Charlotte says
I had this happen with a 4th grade boy. He was so excited about a piece so I helped him learn the right hand, did a bit of creative/selective cuts and made it a duet with me playing left hand. He loved it! We still play it at times. It was a great springboard for additional learning.
Deanna says
I can’t wait to use this tomorrow with a beginner who wants to play soundtracks!
Edna Bloom says
Great post! It seems like there is usually one part of these kinds of pieces that is the “hook.” If you can figure out what part has hooked the student, then you can usually narrow down the initial efforts to that part – using your great suggestions, of course!
anna says
So true, why does it usually seem it’s the ‘auntie’ who gives them the pop books? haha! 🙂 Thanks for reposting this since I hadn’t seen it before.
Michelle says
Thanks for all your help. My 2nd year student loves Undertale and of course wants to learn to play all the themes… Some of them are at a very advanced level.
Christi says
I have a beginner who was wanting to play pieces from Undertale. I looked up some music from then and thought there’s no way.
I gave him Chrissy Ricker’s book “Let’s Quest” which is music intentionally composed to be good piano student music at a late beginner level, but inspired by video game music. He was thrilled.
Benita says
Perfect timing for this blog post! I have a beginner teen student who has only done one year of piano. She wants to learn only pop songs. Her request is “Havana”. Eeek!
Benita says
Perfect timing for this blog post. I have a beginner teen student who wants to ONLY learn pop songs she knows. Eeek! Her next request is “Havana”.
Stephanie says
Wonderful post! I have a tween student I’ve taught for nearly two years who is playing two Beauty and the Beast songs that are of late elementary level. Most of the songs have hand position changes and the thumb passing under the third finger, both of which she’s not had in her method book yet. It took a bit to figure out alternate fingerings for both songs but we managed.
Julia West says
I was trained to play piano by a Russian concert pianist and I learned to play at a very high skill level. I would NEVER HAVE DREAMED of taking a piece of music to my teacher that was not in my assigned curriculum. I had complete trust in him as the professional who knew how to assign me the proper sequence of exercises and repertoire for my level. I was there to maximize every moment of his priceless teaching. I WOULD NEVER have asked him to take time to teach me something that wasn’t at my skill level. I understood(from a very young age) the concept of delayed gratification. I knew that I must first do the hard work and practice before I could play more difficult pieces. The ability to master each piece he assigned was intrinsically rewarding and the real excitement came from the anticipation of what he had planned for the next lesson. Perhaps the real gift an aunt, parent or relative can give is to encourage commitment and discipline and the 10,000 hours of deliberate practice that it takes to do anything well.