Shreyas has been learning and playing piano for the past 2.5 years. He likes to play the music of the songs that he has heard. He likes to recreate the music only by hearing. He does not look at the notes and play any songs. For the past year, it had been mostly online and the rapport with his master has gone down. Master asks him to do something and he does something else. Master gets annoyed. Master expects him to be able to read notes, but he says he doesn’t remember to read notes. Master gets annoyed. Master asks him to play at a specific tempo, whereas he likes to play in high speed. Again, the master gets annoyed. Master focusses only on Trinity grade level songs. Shreyas is not happy about learning to play only 2 or 3 songs from the book, for the sake of the exam. He says it is monotonous and boring to play the same songs again and again. Master is expecting perfection and Shreyas is seeking variety. He learned all the songs in his Trinity level 1 and 2 books by listening to the songs on YouTube. He loves to listen to some of his favorites songs and tries to play by himself. Though we spoke to his master about his needs and strengths, we did not see any change in the master’s approach. Finally, Shreyas wants to quit this class and join when it is not online anymore. He felt it is this way because it is online. When I and Shreyas were talking about this further, on whether he wants to join some other piano class or what other options are available, he told “amma, I do not want anyone to teach me how to play a song. I want them to teach me how to learn to play a song by myself. All I want to learn is how to learn and not how to play.”
Shreyas Piano – how to learn and not how to play
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