Well hello there, studio teacher friends! Welcome to the Beyond Measure Podcast. Christina Whitlock here: your host and self-appointed ANYTIME piano teacher friend. Thanks for joining me today for another Encore Replay of a previously-aired episode of Beyond Measure.

Last week, I shared episode 109 with you, and it seems fitting to go ahead and share episode 110 with you this week. Episode 109 focused on the structure of our lesson time, and Episode 110 ties right into that by taking a deep dive into what I call Replay Strategies. This is yet another piece of the puzzle when it comes to re-framing our Piano Teacher Obsessions with “passing” pieces.

That’s all I’m going to say for today so we can get on with the show! Thanks for listening – and re-listening – to the Beyond Measure Podcast.

In last week’s episode, I started unpacking some strategies to help pull you from the usual rut of what I’m calling, Assign-Practice-Pass-Repeat. If you missed it, I hope you’ll go back and listen. Basically, I am on a mission to help teachers realize there are OTHER options out there besides our go-to routine of assigning something, hearing it the next week, passing it, and repeating the process. Assign-practice-pass-repeat. Assign-Practice-Pass-Repeat. Yawn.

Hear me, now: it’s not that there’s anything WRONG with that strategy. It might still be the most effective plan for you MOST of the time. But I DO think there are occasions where it pays to shake things up and approach our students differently.

And THAT’S what I want to talk about today, and probably for the next episode or two: how can you change up the lesson experience on an occasional basis that will allow for an optimal learning environment?

Let me give you scenario that will be familiar to many of you:

Let’s say little MaryAnne arrives for her lesson and as you are getting ready for her lesson, she immediately sits down and begins playing a piece she played in last year’s recital. Just fiddling around… now that you’re thinking about it, maybe she OFTEN sits down and plays that same piece. Most of the time, teachers will say something like, “Listen to you go! I’m so happy you remember that. Okay… now it’s time for THIS WEEK’S MUSIC.” And, surely, there are times when it’s appropriate to do that. BUT – every once and awhile – when you notice a student consistently revisiting the same piece… why don’t you tell them you want to hear it? As in, the whole piece, with their full effort (not just half-heartedly wiggling their fingers through it while you run to the kitchen to get a glass of water or whatever). Most likely, your student is going to be surprised. Like, REALLY surprised…

“you want to hear THAT?” But they’re also going to feel SEEN. If you say, “well, sure! I mean, listen to how great that sounds. Of COURSE I want to hear it today. I need a pick-me-up.” They will feel excited, and they will also know you are invested in THEM and what THEY care about.
Now – can you do this every week? Probably not. But once in awhile? Of course you can! PLUS – letting them play this revisted piece for you will give you an opportunity to re-infuse it with SOMETHING new, right?

I am a HUGE advocate of revisiting pieces. And that goes for our students, and also for ourselves. Have you ever returned to a piece you once performed years after the fact? It is SUCH an eye-opening experience. Most importantly, there’s ALWAYS something new to be learned or considered. You know more today than you did the last time you performed that work, so OF COURSE it makes sense you have a new perspective on it.

The same is true for our students! They will have a new perspective on pieces today than they did a year ago. So if little MaryAnne often sits down and plays through last year’s recital piece, let’s give her an opportunity to infuse it with the skills she’s gained over the past few months, shall we?

Can her dynamic range be wider? You bet. (it always can, right?) Can her tempo be more even in that one passage that used to get a little wonky? I’d be willing to bet so! Is the whole thing a more enjoyable experience now because it’s had that irreplaceable element of TIME to percolate around in her brain? Absolutely.

Again – revisiting previous work is a big deal to me. Time for a new scenario: Let’s say little MaryAnne comes in for her lesson, and she is on the last piece in her method book. I have a few … rules, we’ll say… about wrapping up a method book.

First of all, I frame the final piece as the students’ chance to show me they’ve learned everything they need to learn to pass that book. It’s a final exam, of sorts. I give them pretty much NO introduction to the piece at all. I tell them they should now be equipped with everything they need to learn the piece independently. My students love this. They like the chance to “prove” themselves and I like the independence they take on to learn it alone. Granted, my students learn the majority of their method book pieces independently already… but I do provide a super-sized build-up around THE FINAL PIECE OF YOUR METHOD BOOK.

Anyway – fast forward to the next week. Since the piece was learned independently, and because there’s always plenty of artistic flair to explore in those final pieces, there’s a good chance we’ll spend a a LOT of the lesson working through that final composition. Right? With that in mind, it’s often the case that we will wrap up that final piece with just a few minutes left to spare in the lesson.

It feels like too much of a rush to all of a sudden drop them into a new book, right? Even if the first piece IS a review piece… it still just feels like too big of a jump.

So – do you want to know what I do? I almost always assign a Replay Week, where I tell my student I want them to spend their practice time refreshing, say, 10 pieces from the book they just finished this week. Of course, you can tailor the number to the individual. It’s going to vary. I give them a sticky note or a notebook page with 10 blank lines and tell them to make a list throughout the week of the pieces they are ready to play from that book next week. They don’t fill it in during the lesson; we don’t have time for that, remember? But they use it as their record for the week’s practice. Then, when they show up the next week, I choose a few of them to listen to before we get started in the new book.
Over the years, my students quickly learn they can expect this routine to come at the end of their method books. This is one way predictability and routine really DOES work in our favor. Students enjoy the change of pace, even though it’s also somewhat predictable.

And you know what else? Students LOVE Replay Weeks. First, they get to CHOOSE the pieces they are playing. That’s a win. Second, they get the assurance of working on pieces they’ve already learned in the past. That security? The break from the constant unknowns of learning new repertoire? THAT’S a win. Third, they play a LOT of pieces that week. THAT’S a win. Fourth, they are cross-applying the new skills they’ve picked up over the course of the book like CRAZY… so that’s a win. Fifth… does it give you an extra week to ORDER the next book in case you forgot to? Yes… yes it does, and THAT can be a win. Anyway. I could go on and on… but if you’ve never assigned a Replay Week (or whatever you want to call it!), I can’t suggest it highly enough.

Truly – it doesn’t even have to come at the end of a book. If you find yourself in a pinch and don’t have enough time to adequately introduce new work for the week? Replay week it is! You can pick old rep for students to revisit, or you can let them choose. They will love it.

Re-visiting Christmas music in July? Or, in even in May, after the big studio recital? Absolutely! Replay away.
Is your student going to 5th grade camp for 4 days next week and won’t get a lot of practice in? Replay week to the rescue!
In my episode on a Less-Conventional August, (that’s episode 38, by the way), I mention the fact that I always do a Throwback Week of group performance classes – where students are allowed to bring a piece they studied more than a year ago to play for the group. It is ABSOLUTELY a favorite week in my studio, and I find ALL KINDS of pedagogical opportunities in that class. Students think they’re so entertaining by choosing pieces back from their earliest years in lessons, but actually, they learn how FUN it can be to perform music well-below their current level of study, which is a whole soap-box I will avoid for the time being.
That’s the magic of the replay week.

Let’s look at one last scenario… and this is one many of you are getting ready to step right into this time of year…. Let’s say little MaryAnne is slated to play in her upcoming local piano Festival. She needs to play two contrasting pieces for the event. You probably know where I’m going with this… but it’s the bane of the piano teacher existence: How do we avoid the TRAP of sweet little MaryAnne ONLY PLAYING TWO PIECES FOR THE NEXT 2 MONTHS?!

Well, that could – and probably should – be its own episode… BUT, guess what, friends… REPLAYS TO THE RESCUE, AGAIN!
It’s such a bind to be in, isn’t it? We often spend so much of the spring cleaning and polishing a small number of pieces and our teacher hearts can’t help but sink when we realize MaryAnne has very little to show for several weeks of study. At the same time, MaryAnne is getting SICK of those two pieces.

Of course, you ALSO don’t want MaryAnne spending a lot of her time on other pieces because she needs to play those two pieces however many weeks from now, and her cross-hand arpeggios are still a total mess, right?! 😊 How can you POSSIBLY assign additional pieces?

Well, replaying previous pieces are an EXCELLENT way to help cross-apply concepts, and keep MaryAnne enthusiastic about what she is doing at her instrument.
Does she have any previous repertoire with cross-hand arpeggios? It’s time to pull that one out! Was there a piece this past year where she executed her dynamics exceptionally well? Assign it alongside her festival selections. Are you working on lifting gently at the ends of her phrases in one of her contest pieces? You know what to do….
This way, you ALL get the benefits of hearing different repertoire these next few weeks, MaryAnne gets to PLAY a variety of repertoire these next few weeks… yet the skills you need her to improve on will continue to get better. That’s a pretty giant bonus, right?

Okay, friends, it’s time for a toast, but I hope today’s ideas have encouraged you to find opportunities to have your students revisit previous pieces. If you can’t tell, I feel like this can be a REAL game-changer for you (and your students). Here we go…

Music teacher friends of the world, let’s raise those glasses to the fact that we are doing good work in the world! We are professional innovators… and, among other things, that means we are thoughtful about this experience we deliver our students. I’ve said many times on this podcast that I never want my students’ experience to feel like a series of checkmarks. I don’t like this idea of just crossing off pieces and never visiting them again. It feels…empty. And, frankly, I don’t like it for MYSELF either! There are MANY pieces in my musical past that are just too fun to leave behind. And – just because I can play bigger, more complex pieces now – doesn’t mean those earlier pieces are useless to me now. That’s ridiculous. I don’t want it to be true for me, and I don’t want it to be true for my students. So, here I am… rallying you to a similar cause. Let’s all vow to incorporate some element of revisiting or refreshing SOMETHING in our lessons this week. Are you up for the challenge? I know you are. And with that, I raise my glass to you – my professional innovator teacher friends – here, here.

Thank you, thank you for listening in to Episode 110, friends! One of the many reasons I love writing this podcast is it gives me the chance to really solidify my thoughts on these concepts and – I have to admit – I’m really loving this current examination of what we do in the lesson. I hope you are too. If you could do me a favor today, will you please share the podcast with some friends – maybe even a group of friends? – who might benefit from it? Your recommendation is not something I ask for lightly; but I’ve worked with a lot of teachers and I just KNOW there are many who will benefit from rethinking this cycle of Assign-Practice-Pass-Repeat. Would you share this episode with someone today? I don’t take your support for granted.

ONWARD AND UPWARD, STUDIO TEACHER FRIENDS! Let’s stay in touch this week. Find me on Facebook and Instagram @ beyondmeasurepodcast, and never hesitate to email me at [email protected].
See you next week!