EPTA Germany’s autumn conference theme is Das Klavier als Spielfeld (The Piano as Playground) and my talk is on how we can react to student “mistakes” in a playful way.
Instead of just saying “that’s wrong” and teaching them how to play it as written, we investigate the difference between what they’ve played and what’s written, then explore making similar changes in the rest of the piece.
Doing so gives students an opportunity to deepen their theoretical understanding and introduce them to the world of musical creativity.
It’s a much more productive approach than seeing mistakes as simply something to be “fixed”. In too many traditional lessons, the teacher plays the role of “fixer” and the student plays the role of the fool who constantly makes error that need fixing. This approach turns that paradigm on the head because both teacher and student collaborate to explore the music together.
The talk, which I’m giving in German, is titled Spielerischer Umgang mit eingeübten Schülerfehlern: Möglichkeiten, Theorie zu erkunden und kreativ zu werden (A Playful Approach to Memorised Student Mistakes: Opportunities to Explore Theory and Get Creative).
There will be lots of practical examples in which I’ll explore common mistakes like forgetting key signatures, misunderstanding rhythms, pausing at barlines, confusing treble/bass clefs, misreading intervals, etc.
The rest of the programme looks great — bravo to EPTA Germany for putting together such a rich mix!
I hope to see you there!
