I have suspected for a long time that my former students who still live nearby hide when they see me coming. I have even been in the same room with a talented piano dropout, and I swear that she managed to be behind a post or a friend or in another room the whole time I was there. Not a word of greeting after four years of one-to-one lessons.
When I did a kind of survey for a piano teachers’ magazine some years ago, I figured that I had taught close to two thousand students, not including my college piano classes or students who dropped out before six months. The average length of study was about 3.5 years; the longest was 14 years; the average drop-out age (which will come as no surprise to other teachers) was 12.
Since many of these potential pianists still live in my small town, you would think I would encounter them on the street or in the stores once in a while, but I don’t. I think the answer is guilt. They think they should have practiced more; they think they should have kept on with their lessons.
“Why did you let me quit piano?” is a complaint parents seem to hear frequently from their children. "Why didn't you MAKE me practice?" I have heard this one from my own brother and mother. "You made Mikie practice piano; why didn't you make me practice?" (Of course, I have to add that Les grew up to be a trombone virtuoso who practices and performs all the time.)
Granted, piano lessons are not for everyone, and I have more than once discussed with a student getting him or her off the hook when the lessons were the parent’s idea and the student really didn’t care for anything about it.
So I have come up with the idea of the graceful exit, something a friend once advised me when I thought the way to stop using a computer program was to turn the computer off. If a student lets me know he or she will be terminating piano lessons, I update their Repertoire list, write down what level they have achieved, and note any special accomplishments or abilities they have shown. I list the beginning and ending dates of their lessons and tell them they are welcome back at any time, whether to study or just visit.
Occasionally, a student given this kind of exit will come back to lessons, but whether or not this happens, I hope it does something to reduce what seems to be piano guilt.
Guilt is not our friend. It is a vain regret. I am really against guilt. The pianist Gary Graffman wrote a book called “I Really Should Be Practicing”, and I have said this to myself more times than I care to admit. Of course, the answer is to get over to the piano and start to work, but many times a former student would rather feel guilty than to practice. In this case, I suppose I must be a reminder of a failure, a kind of Jiminy Cricket (Pinocchio's conscience).
Another dismaying phenomenon in music is Resistance. Pianists hit walls of resistance just the way long-distance runners do. They don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Doubt rears its ugly head. They get discouraged. Very often, this will happen after a big surge in musical achievement.
I think such a wall of resistance is a period where we are assimilating new information. It is a time to review old repertoire, to listen to recordings of our favorite players, to go to the Wiki Public Domain website and download some new sheet music. I have hit this wall more times than I can say. My teacher, Mr. Sheldon, once said to me “You’ll be a good piano teacher, because you will never encounter a problem in a student which you have not had yourself.”
