beginning to create

I am not a piano teacher. I have no illusions.

However, I’ve taught piano to a number of people and currently teach piano to Naomi, a middle-schooler who lives in my neighborhood. I have tried (earnestly) to persuade her dad to find Naomi a better, more experienced teacher, but he insists that Naomi and I have great chemistry (this is true).

Perhaps because I’m not really “qualified” to teach and hence don’t know the rules, or perhaps because I think children are quite the brightest people on the street, Naomi is learning the whys of music:

• why technique is important (you don’t want carpel tunnel, honey)
• why to linger on a V7 chord (to make the listener ache for it to resolve, subconsciously of course)
• why fingering–this exact fingering–is the best (so your fingers aren’t like so many crickets jumping around the keyboard)
• why, even, to learn Hanon exercises (which takes more than a half-sentence to explain)

No pabulum here.

Naomi’s also learning to improvise: just a simple arpeggiation of the block chords found in her early-intermediate lesson book. That small departure from the written page signals the beginning of creation and, in Naomi’s case, is a springboard for something new to her: composition.

At her last lesson, I wrote a limerick for her on some clean staff paper, and asked for a tune. I admit this was partially motivated by my wish that my piano teachers would have given me assignments like that. But it’s more primarily motivated my desire that Naomi create. I want her to love creation. To love making something herself. To get away from using her eyes and learn to trust her ears. To become a musician.

I am not a piano teacher at heart. I have no illusions.

But in spite of that, or maybe because of that, Naomi is becoming a musician, not just a player of pianos.