I once saw some buttons which said “I played it better at home” and would love to get some. Anyone know how to find them? It would be fun to give them to students when they say it. Just to show them that the feeling is so common that it’s even on a button!
What teachers do about this comment varies fairly widely. I’ve heard of two basic responses: one is that “I played it better at home” is purely an excuse, that there should be no excuses, and that the teacher should turn a deaf ear to it.
The other response is to view it as an honest wish that they could have played the music as well at their lesson as they had played it at home, that it deserves some empathy because home is more comfortable, without the tension of playing for a critical audience focused on their every movement (and for piano students, playing on a different instrument).
Some take the middle ground, recognizing that not playing as well at a lesson is certainly understandable, but that if the comment is made every week, it starts to become merely an excuse.
Some teachers simply ask the student to play the piece again, with a comment such as, “That was a good warm up, now play it for real.” Or even to give them a few minutes to practice it without teacher comment and then perform it.
Sometimes saying “I played it better at home” is a plea for the teacher to cut some slack. There can be moments in a lesson when there has been a lot of intense focus on learning new things, and I can see that a student is trying but choking a bit on all the new efforts. That’s sometimes a good moment to have to “go to the bathroom” and let them work on something without the teacher present.
In general, when someone says they played better at home, I like to point out that getting through the music at home is just a start, and that if they get to know it well enough, play it solidly enough times, they will insulate themselves from distraction. If they make the music more their own, rather than just follow the instructions from their last lesson, they will start to know the piece on their own terms. They’ll want to play it, say it, communicate it, and not just do their “homework” to show me that they can get through it. This opens the door to the richness of learning music in depth, and puts in perspective the consumer mentality of wanting to learn as many tunes or pieces as possible.
In fact, in one sense, the urge to say they played better at home can be barking up the wrong tree entirely. It suggests that a student feels they prepared for the lesson but failed to perform. I like students to feel that playing music, whether at home or at a lesson, is all part of playing music. It’s all kind of an experiment in teaching oneself everything about one’s instrument. Playing in different places, for different people, and with different people, is all part of the experiment and the joy of discovering music.
We’d all be interested in hearing how you have dealt with those who “played it better at home.” Just add a comment at the end of this post.
by Ronnie Currey — Thu Dec 6, 2007 @ 9:20 am
by Geneva — Tue Feb 12, 2008 @ 1:11 am