Category — Pass the Content Please

Theodor Leschetizky (1830-1915) was a great piano teacher of the late 19th century. His teaching impacted his students so much that they became the biographers of his life. Leschetizky wrote very little about his own teaching strategies. But thanks to his pupils, we can gather information about his teaching philosophy and put it to good use in our own studios.

For me, one of the most impressionable statements about Leschetizky came from Ethel Newcomb’s (1875-1959) biography Leschetizky as I Knew Him (1921; reprinted 1967). According to Newcomb, and confirmed by other students, Leschetizky had no method. Newcomb credits Leschetizky to saying: “Don’t have a method; it is far better to leave your mind blank for the pupil to fill in. You will discover more easily, in this way, what he needs.” She goes on to express how strongly Leschetizky felt about abandoning a specific method as he would say “Write over your music-room door the motto: ‘NO METHOD!’”

I cannot speak for Leschetizky’s exact definition of a method. But his motive was to resist teaching one method for all. When I first read about Leschetizky, I was a graduate student in pedagogy, and these statements puzzled me. I wondered how any teacher could really teach without a specific method. What a challenge that would be! His rationale seemed extreme. But the more I teach, the further I am from depending wholly on a specific method. Today, our method of choice comes as a set of texts ranging from beginning through late intermediate levels. Teachers are closely attached to, and often dependent on, the methods that are commonly found in the hands of our students. But do we really “need” this method? And to what extent should it be used in the lesson? Finally, at what point in the student’s training should the teacher abandon the method system?

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From teacher, to student, to teacher, to student.  Have you ever thought about your former piano teacher’s pedagogical lineage?  If you are a teacher, then you had a teacher, who also had a teacher, who had a teacher, and so on.  My most recent piano teacher is a fourth generation student of Beethoven!  I had another teacher during my undergrad years who could trace her teacher’s lineage back to Liszt!  Its amazing what legacies can be passed down through generations of teachers.  Whether your lineage is famous or not, there are certain ways that you teach because you had a teacher who taught you the same way.  Recognizing how to transfer this information can be a powerful teaching technique. [Read more →]

A fellow piano teacher called the other day with several pedagogical questions. This phone call was one of several conversations that the two of us have had regarding our piano students. I certainly don’t have all the answers. But no matter what the question– coming from a friend, or even from myself– I draw from my pedagogical training and make use of that knowledge in the most practical way. This transfer of information can be credited to one thing: CONTENT. We all have content to draw from. Whether it be the content we received in our own childhood lessons, content gathered from a specialized degree program, or content that we build up through personal experience. [Read more →]