Let’s Play!

“Hey! You wanna come over and play?”

That’s what my piano says to me when I walk by. Sometimes I’m too busy, but . . . sometimes I say, “Sure, I’ve got a little time, let’s play.” Pretty soon, time has passed, I’ve played a couple of Sinfonias, I feel great and I remember that I LOVE to play. Who doesn’t like to play! Play is that moment when you forget about all your worries, forget about the clock, forget that you need to get something done and you just enjoy the moment. Play makes you feel good.

This summer I had an “aha!” moment as I thought about play and practice. So often I see a frowning face and a parent expressing frustration that their child doesn’t practice enough or a student drags themselves to the bench, with a pained expression (a sign no practicing has gone on this week).

I did a little research. I asked my students how they felt when they looked at the piano. The ones that didn’t practice said the felt bad when they looked at the piano. They felt guilt for not being able to play, for not practicing enough, for not being a good reader, for making mistakes, for not trying hard enough, for being lazy . . . etc., etc., etc.

This cut me to the core. Here, I am looking at the piano as my playmate and my students are looking at it as their taskmaster, their judge, their enemy! Ow!

So, I’m changing my tune! My goal will be to discover my students’ playful side; really listening to them, to hear what music they want to express and then making sure they know they have the tools to play their music. I want to have my students look at the piano and realize that they can take a break from the pressures that seem to fill their lives and have a respite of “play” that rejuvenates them and fills them with confidence and enables them to carry on with the rest of their lives. This may go against the ‘concert pianist’ model that I think many envision, but when I think about the students I have taught, only a tiny fraction chose that path, and there was no stopping them. The rest of my students have ended up in so many different places (dance, singing, band, orchestra, law, medicine, teaching, to name just a few) and yet I know that music has informed and enriched their lives. So let’s not
“practice” . . . let’s “play”!

Posted by Lois Jensen