ABRSM Teacher Development
Teaching & Learning Principles
Engaging a holistic
approach in your teaching
It would be easy to dismiss attempts by modern writers, such as Paul Harris in his book Simultaneous
Learning, to distil best practice in teaching. For although such philosophical ideas may seem obvious to us
when sat in the comfort of our home, rarely will they come instinctively to the inexperienced teacher. We can
all use a little guidance from those whose wisdom and expertise outmeasure our current level of awareness
– and this includes teachers who may have lost a little of their resourcefulness or drive as the years roll on.
Teaching is perhaps a little like gardening – it is never
fully under control, despite our best efforts to keep ahead
of the challenges. Reassuringly, a teacher’s energy and
stoicism will frequently win through in a lesson. It seems
pupils often prize enthusiasm and passion even more
highly than what a teacher may or may not know. This,
in turn, can lead pupils to take a more creative, intuitive
approach; as a result, they will begin to take greater
responsibility for their own learning, and this marks a vital
turning point in any pupil’s journey.
Among the skills an effective teacher will call upon are
adaptability and a willingness to respond to the needs of
the moment. The most certain thing in teaching is that
you need to be prepared for anything. Understandably,
teachers can become wrong-footed by the unpredictable
nature of a lesson. Pupils have a habit of not having a
habit! In other words, they are not following a set script
for their learning, no matter how dependable their
pattern of behaviour may seem over the longer term.
This frequently requires the teacher to switch tactic
without hesitation, or perhaps to postpone parts of the
lesson content until later. One positive aspect of this
is that pupils tend to remember with fondness, those
lessons which deviate from the predictable. For it is in
these lessons that a spark of insight may spontaneously
ignite ideas latent in the pupil’s imagination, or else allow
a troublesome aspect of playing to gel unexpectedly. Far
from being an argument against planning or structure in
our teaching, this cautions us to be alive to what may be
working less well.
Teachers frequently comment that they learn a great
deal from their pupils, and arguably it is during the more
spontaneous moments in a lesson that both the pupil and
teacher have most to gain. Discussion arising from the
chance discovery of an unusual pedal effect, for example,
can turn into a rewarding mini-lesson, perhaps moving
into the realm of improvisation or impressionism. Such
detours are best seen as opening up a treasure trove, even
though they may have altered the intended trajectory of
the lesson. Usually it will be desirable to put across the
musical essence of such concepts to the younger pupil,
rather than risk becoming bogged down in theoretical
matters. The pupil will often respond positively by
opening up in surprisingly articulate ways, or perhaps by
grasping some entirely unrelated facet of playing that has
so far proven elusive.
By way of example, search on Youtube for a piece by
Rekov, called Der Tag ist Vergangen (‘The day has passed’).
The piece leaves open interesting questions over matters
of expression and nuance, not to mention pedalling.
These are marked into the score in the most important
places, yet the music could easily accommodate a
more generous supply of personal touches. Done well,
with a careful ear for balance, voicing and rubato, the
music could conceivably earn its keep as an encore in
a professional recital setting, especially given the calm
resignation suggested by its title. This in itself presents a
valuable topic for discussion. To what extent is a pianist
able to expand upon the expression built into the piece to
make it their own? How might playing the piece in a larger
room affect how it feels to play it, or how it will impact on
the listener? These and related topics are touched upon
helpfully in Gyorgy Sandor’s On Piano Playing: Motion,
Sound, Expression. The use of a colourful descriptive
vocabulary may well encourage the conversation to
move down other valuable avenues; ideally, these will
connect together the broader topics of performance
and interpretation. This complex, though rewarding area
of study has been captured by John Rink in two recent
collections of scholarly writings: Musical Performance: A
Guide to Understanding, and The Practice of Performance:
Studies in Interpretation. The pupil could be encouraged to
explore just how far their own ideas might take them, for
example, in relation to phrasing. It would undoubtedly be
enlightening to discuss the extent to which an audience
might appreciate hearing the pupil’s ideas on rubato. This
opens up a vast area of study, conveniently brought under
one roof by Anthony Williams in his recent book, The
Piano Teacher’s Survival Guide.
When playing the melody in different parts of the
keyboard, a pupil could be encouraged to notice how
this changes its mood or meaning. The music’s sedate
pacing leaves ample time for making these kinds of
interpretive decisions as one goes along. A question
always worth asking a pupil is ‘how well do you feel
the composer has suggested the title of the music?’
They need not feel their initial decisions are final, more
a springboard for further discussion and adventure.
Dynamics need shading at the more refined end of the
spectrum in this piece (there’s nothing marked above
mf throughout, and this happens just once), especially
if the music’s rather special sound world is to reveal
itself. The skill of listening for subtler details could lead
neatly into the subject of tone; it is certainly not too early
to be considering such refinements. For a penetrating
investigation into piano tone, why not dip into Tobias
Matthay’s The Art of Touch in All its Diversity.
These are all quite sophisticated topics; there again,
the piece itself follows a grown up theme. Nevertheless
this can tap valuably into a younger pupil’s thinking and
playing; pupils continually surprise teachers with their
insights and ideas, and indeed a beginner musicians may
well be capable of advanced musical understanding. A
willingness to ask the harder questions about what a
piece means, or how one might tackle parts of it from
an interpretation angle, can move to how imagined
sound turns into a reality. For example, is it really
possible to play legato on the piano, even with pedal?
What happens to the sound if we use the una corda
pedal? How does the mood of the music change as it
continually shifts around the piano register? This piece
will of course suit the more thoughtful, sensitive player,
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but equally it could be given to the young musician who
has yet to discover just how quietly and poetically the
piano can have sound coaxed from it.
Realising the potential for a more innovative approach
in the lesson could encourage the teacher to devise
a bank of activities in advance. Copying out brief
passages by hand, or switching melodies from the
right hand to the left, for example, might prove
an interesting alternative approach. Along similar
lines, one could isolate a few of the music’s ‘golden
moments’. Reinventing little sections in duet form
could also prove lucrative, if only to demonstrate how
each hand plays a distinct role in this music.
Unlocking the mysteries of this music requires the
teacher to be inventive and alive to the music’s
more intriguing ambiguities. An eye-opening way of
approaching a piece is to write it out by hand or with
the aid of scoring software, while omitting every single
performance clue. The pupil can then have fun penciling
their own ideas into this ‘blank’ score before comparing
these with the teacher’s thoughts, and, of course, the
composer’s own. This approach is developed in detail in
Mark Tanner’s The Mindful Pianist. The pupil should be
encouraged to ‘feel’ the easy motion of the music and be
in no hurry to reach the final enigmatic D minor chord.
The teacher could pose questions which tie together
structural and expressive matters, without necessarily
getting into the music’s more formal qualities directly.
For example, ‘do you feel the final chord resolves the
music in a definite way? What is your favourite moment
and why is this’? Could you imagine the melody
or harmonies working equally well played by other
instruments, which would you choose? What would
happen to the character of the piece if you played it even
more slowly or rather faster?” Alternatively, much could
be gained from asking a pupil to sing the tune out loud
while playing the accompaniment. Chopin felt listening
to singers to be an indispensable aid for the pianist –
for a thorough survey, see Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger’s
fascinating book, Chopin, Pianist and Teacher.
Finally, why not have some visual aids preloaded onto
your digital device ready to broaden the conversation
further, asking for example, ‘which of these images
best captures the music’s atmosphere? Now play the
very last bar for me as sensitively as you can. Can you
create a musical story for me, based on it? Make it as
long or short as you like.’ In short, the piece is an ideal
vehicle for exploring how the instrument ‘works’ at a
more subtle level, and how well the musician is able
to respond to the many challenges and questions left
open by the composer.