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Episode 248: Cheers to A Lesson Activity for Busy High School Seniors  

Well hello there, my studio teacher friends!  Welcome to the Beyond Measure Podcast. This is your place for a weekly shout-out of music teaching solidarity. Christina Whitlock here, your host and Anytime Piano Teacher Friend, welcoming you today as we talk about what to do with those BUSY high school seniors. Of course, there’s plenty of carryover here to other overscheduled students, so I hope you’ll stick around, even if you DON’T teach high school seniors at the moment.

I want to give a quick THANKS to my SuperFriends over on Patreon, because they truly are the lifeforce behind this podcast. I couldn’t do this show without them. Our next session of Teachers Teaching Teachers will be on Friday, February 27^th, and we’ll be talking all about SCALES. Specifically, we’re talking about alternative ways to practice scales and how I keep my students engaged with their scale practice. So, if you’ve ever been curious about how to diversify your scale instruction, I’ve got your back on February 27^th. Simply join the SuperFriends on Patreon for $6 and you’ll be invited to the live discussion AND have access to the replay.  Head to ChristinaWhitlock.com/superfriends to learn more.

And now – let’s get on with the show!  You are listening to Episode 248 of the Beyond Measure Podcast.

Many of us know the pains of teaching students their senior years of high school. As piano teachers, it’s easy to plan the BIGGEST AND BEST YEAR YET… and end up disappointed when students fail to meet those ambitious goals.  We think THIS IS OUR CHANCE to accomplish big things… and students often feel the same way… but the commitments of Senior Year seem to multiply by the minute and it’s easy for average piano students to find less-and-less time at the piano.

That said, some students DO rise to the occasion, so don’t write your seniors off, either. I just wanted to offer a moment of solidarity today for those of us who find ourselves teaching seniors who aren’t living up to those big goals we set back in September.

Before I go further, I want to reference back to a few older episodes of this podcast.  Two of the most downloaded episodes I’ve released are called My Practice Manifesto, followed by Navigating a Lesson When Your Student Hasn’t Practiced. Those are episodes 51 and 52. I also have an episode from 2023 called The Forgotten Step in Teaching Teens. I think all three of those episodes are relevant to today’s topic, so if you’re looking for more ideas after today, I’d check out episodes 51, 52, and 148. Those are all linked in the shownotes at ChristinaWhitlock.com/episode248.

I’ve been teaching for 30 years, but because I moved a few times between high school, undergrad, and graduate school, it took me awhile to reach the point in my career where I was teaching students from early elementary years through their senior year of high school.

I remember my first two long-time graduates like it was yesterday. I had one darling girl who was my first student when I moved to Indiana. She was assigned to me for pedagogy class when she was in first grade and she continued with me until she graduated and moved out of state for college.  She came from a musical family, was very driven, very committed… and she DID continue to perform well through her senior year. She placed in several competitions that year, she put on a lovely senior recital… it was all great.

I had another senior that year who I’d been teaching for almost the same amount of time. He was always a fun and personable student. He was definitely more casual in his approach to the piano, but he was still a skilled player and a hard worker. By the beginning of his senior year, it was clear to me that he was NOT going to be putting in much practice time that final year. I remember being really conflicted: should I just cut him loose?  Was I just taking his parents’ money for nothing?  Was there any point in continuing to work that year?

We DID continue for the rest of senior year, and on through the summer before he started school.

I will tell you this: by the time we got to his graduation, I had NO more doubts about whether or not our lessons were justified. It was ABSOLUTELY the right call to continue lessons, and I will say – I think it almost always is in this case.

Here’s the thing about senior year: there’s ALL KINDS of sentimentality about it. And by the time you get to the end of the year, you WANT piano study to be there; to be part of that. I think there is something incredibly special about being part of that final celebration and part of the reflections of what they’ve accomplished thus far in life. I think – if we want to help solidify music study as a core part of who they are – there’s something important about remaining in the mix for those milestones like graduation.

Of course, we don’t always have control over whether or not they stay with us… sometimes they decide their time is done and there’s nothing we can do about it… BUT… assuming they ARE still committed to showing up, I think there are lots of things we can do with these busy Seniors.

Just this last week, I had a senior show up for her lesson and she’d forgotten her books. I have all kinds of things I do with students when they don’t have their books, but I had sort of a light-bulb moment with her and I thought I’d share it with you.

This is a student who I’ve had for a long time. She’s a good sightreader, and a lovely pianist. She’s not one for whom piano has ever been her highest priority, so we’ve always progressed at the pace that fits her life.  In other words, she’s not playing monster rep… but what she does play, she plays very well.

I’ve been hyper-aware with her this year that I am preparing to send her off into her big adult life, and – as with all my seniors – I keep asking myself, what do I want her to know?  I think this is especially true of our graduating seniors who don’t have plans to study music in college. In the end, what do I want her to have to show for her years and years of study?

When she showed up this past week without books, I randomly decided to teach her the A section of Fur Elise. Like many of our students, she’s plenty capable of the A section, but not quite ready for the demands of the B section. So, we’ve never studied it. And yet – when someone has taken 12 years of piano lessons – it seems like they should probably have at least some familiarity with the theme of Fur Elise, right?

…so it got me thinking…

What famous themes would come in handy for our students to learn?

When I started thinking about it, I realized: MOST of the “top hits” of the piano literature start off with more accessible themes, and then evolve into something more complex.

If you look at Fur Elise… Rondo ala Turca… Moonlight Sonata… Clair de Lune.. all the most-requested pieces in the literature: the most-recognizable parts of them are, actually, pretty simple. The exceptions coming to mind are Joplin rags like Maple Leaf Rag and the Entertainer… but there are plenty of arrangements out there that simplify the bassline and take out the octaves so they can be accessible, too.

I think this is a perspective worth considering as piano teachers.

My SuperFriends over on Patreon have heard me rant about this multiple times in Teachers Teaching Teachers, but I’ll bring this question to you now:  Why are we, as piano teachers, so avoidant of learning excerpts?

Other instrumentalists spend a LOT of time on excerpts. That’s often what they’re asked to play for auditions, so they often focus on key moments of the orchestral repertoire and assume they’ll learn the rest when the occasion presents itself.

Many piano teachers – myself included – avoid teaching certain pieces because of isolated sections that are too difficult for our students. I’ll admit, I’m still not keen on having students present only one section of a piece in public performance… but we study all KINDS of repertoire in lessons that never makes its way to the concert stage. Why AREN’T we okay with teaching excerpts for everyday exploration?

Anyway – that should probably be its own episode, but today I want to suggest this the next time you are struggling with a senior – or a busy teen in general – who isn’t logging the practice time you’re hoping for.

Assuming these students have built up a basic fluency at the instrument, I think there are a lot of choices you could look into.  Of course, these themes don’t have to be classical, you could also look at Clocks by Coldplay, River Flows in You by Yiruma, or Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.

When I was in undergrad, my professor required us to memorize the chord progression to the C Major Prelude from book 1 of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, and that was a very useful exercise. It’s great to study how harmonies move through tonic-dominant relationships – and – of course, that’s an easy crowd-pleaser that can really pay off to be able to play in a pinch.

So here’s what I’m proposing: If you have a senior who is CRAWLING their way through their assigned repertoire, there’s no need to beat them over the head with guilt for their entire lesson. Instead, consider taking 10 minutes of each lesson and studying a small snippet of a popular theme for the piano. There is so much to choose from.

I shared some advice with my senior and we got quite a kick out of it this last week. I once heard master teacher, John Perry, say never underestimate the power of the phrase, “and so on…”

Meaning – if you can play the opening few bars of a piece, you can often totally get away with playing those and then saying, “and so on…”.  It’s funny, but true. We all know 21^st century attention spans are SHORT and most of the time, when people say they want to hear you play something, they do not actually mean to sign themselves up for a 3-minute piece.  I think a few bars of Beethoven are often enough to appease the request, and then you can use Perry’s phrase, “and so on…”  😊

(I’m not saying this is a GOOD thing; it’s just often true. By all means, play your 3-minute piece when given the opportunity. The world needs more good music in it.)

Phew – okay – my original goal today was to give you SEVERAL things you can do with busy High School Seniors… but I got a little carried away on this one idea.  How about this:

NEXT WEEK I will share a few more ideas of things to do with your busy teens. Sound like a plan?  In the meantime, I hope you will consider how we can help our students graduate our studios feeling like they’ve had exposure to ALL the pieces one would expect after years of study.

While I have your brain spinning with that, allow me to offer you a toast:

Studio music teacher friends from all around the globe: Today we remind ourselves a successful lesson does not have to hinge on how much a student has practiced that week.  As our students get older and begin to think about life beyond their high school years, may we be ever-aware of what we want them to take away from our instruction. May they never encounter a moment where they think,
“12 years of piano study and I never played Beethoven?” Boo. What a travesty. 😊 Cheers to you, my friends!  Hear, hear.

OKAY: As I’m talking, I’m realizing I have a few OTHER past episodes about seniors, which I will also link in today’s shownotes.  Phew!  Apparently after 248 episodes I’ve said a lot of stuff! Be sure to check out ChristinaWhitlock.com/episode248 for all the details on THOSE episodes, as well as those I mentioned earlier. Don’t forget about February’s Teachers Teaching Teachers, all about SCALES and alternative ways to practice them with your students. I’m excited about that one, so I hope you’ll join us. Once again, ChristinaWhitlock.com/episode248 will give you all the info. Thanks so much, my friends!  Onward and upward into another week!