Creative Piano Pedagogy
This podcast is an enriching resource designed specifically for piano teachers and music educators working with out-of-the-box students: students with disabilities, physical or learning differences, gifted and 2-E learners and neurodivergent students. Each episode delves into innovative teaching strategies, offering insights and practical solutions that promote creativity, inclusivity, and approaches teaching from a positive and student-first environment.
Pedagogue, researcher and music educator Dr. Elizabeth Davis-Everhart will demystify topics such as technique, communication, piano methods, understanding behaviors, autism, ADHD, dyslexia and much more- all with a focus on encouraging teachers to meet the diverse needs of their students and inspiring them to embrace new ideas and cultivate the musical potential of every learner.
Creative Piano Pedagogy
Embracing Change: The Art of Adaptive Piano Teaching
Unlock the secrets to becoming an adaptive piano teacher in our very first episode of the Creative Piano Pedagogy Podcast, hosted by me, Dr. Elizabeth Davis Everhart. Ever struggled to keep up with the ever-evolving needs of your students? Together, we explore the art of adaptation in teaching—an essential skill that transforms both educators and learners. Join our conversation as we delve into the Oxford Dictionary's definition of adapting and how it beautifully aligns with the dynamic world of piano teaching. Drawing from my own experiences with managing a home office and music storage, and inspired by Kendra Adachi's practical strategies from The Lazy Genius, we'll explore how embracing change isn't just necessary but can be incredibly rewarding.
Find the full transcript, show notes or links mentioned in the episode here!
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Welcome to the Creative Piano Pedagogy Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Elizabeth Davis Everhart, and together we will journey through the joys and challenges of music and piano teaching and discover innovative approaches for our wonderfully unique students. This podcast is a virtual piano pedagogy class, but better- because you can listen in your pajamas. In each episode, you'll find out-of-the-box solutions for teaching quandaries, all through the lens of viewing our students as our greatest teachers and using research-based approaches to help us discover, cultivate and encourage the music potential of every learner. Today is a momentous occasion here- because, after years of being a podcast guest on lots of people's podcasts, it's my first episode here at Creative Piano Pedagogy's own podcast. This feels like a huge day and thank you so much for tuning in, for subscribing, and for just being here in this community. It means so much to me. I thought for this first episode we would talk about what creative piano pedagogy is and what it means to be an adaptive piano teacher.
Elizabeth Davis-Everhart:Adapting is something that we all do in our everyday lives, separate from piano teaching, even, but I was curious to see what does the definition of adapting really mean. What does the definition of adapting really mean? Oxford Dictionary defines it as the quality of being able to adjust to new conditions or the capacity to be modified for a new use or purpose. And I'll be honest, I'm not sure what you were thinking of when I said adapt or adaptive adapting, but that's a little different than what I was thinking- in a better way. Piano teaching is like breathing- it is a living, active thing. It's not stagnant or stale, and even music itself is a live organism. And when we are teaching another human being in our studios, we constantly are going to be in the state of that organism. And when we are teaching another human being in our studios, we constantly are going to be in the state of evolution, of evolving, of changing. What we're doing to adapt with the other person, just like a really beautiful duet. Performance is like a musical conversation between two people. That's what it's like to teach in a studio, or with someone else as well. And if you taught for any amount of time, you know that after a while, adapting and adjusting to your student just becomes second nature, something you don't even think about. You notice these little tiny things in your students, you observe behaviors and you simply adjust. It's just what you do. And, contrary to what you might think, adjusting is not a four-letter word. However, here's the thing: To adjust means that something is no longer working for us, and that can be kind of a difficult thing to think about in our own lives as well as in our piano teaching. But our students are in a constant state of growth. Their mental states, their knowledge is constantly growing, their emotions are constantly changing and growing and since we are interacting with them each week in piano, we have to adapt along with those changes, along with those changes. So, yes, adapting means that something is no longer working, but a good sign is that the student is growing in some way, that they've outgrown what used to work. So that's a positive aspect of adapting. It's not a four-letter word. It's actually a good thing.
Elizabeth Davis-Everhart:For me personally, I am always having to adapt my own schedule here at my home office. I'm constantly finding things that used to work well or routines that used to work that no longer fit my current season, and I gain a lot of insight about that from Kendra Adachi over at the Lazy Genius. So if you don't follow her, make sure to follow her. She has wonderful tips about this, but very simple things like my music storage. I realized this was not working for me, and if you are anything like me, you have more music than you know what to do with. But it's very difficult to part with any of it or to think about getting rid of any of it, because, oh, I love my music and I'm sure you do too. But I was realizing that having so much music around the piano was just not working. Uh, with the current students I have, I just I need to keep as little as possible there. So I have spent a lot of time the last few months rethinking how can I adapt my music storage to make it work for me.
Elizabeth Davis-Everhart:So something I decided on was a little cube storage that has shelves and I can have baskets there. And now I have a basket with all of my students' current music, so method books or supplemental repertoire, classical music, anything I'm using in week-to-week lessons that I want to reference, and this is for my in-person students as well as my virtual ones. I love having it right there by the piano so I can reference and plan or think ahead. Then I have another basket for kind of the catch-all music, anything I think I might want to supplement with. This year I keep extra music in there because I have students that sometimes come really prepared to lessons and they're a few steps ahead of me. So I want to have extra music in case that happens. And then, of course, I have all of my rote music. That's in a little different place, but just going through that process of thinking, okay, what is not working about this and how can I adapt and change it, that has helped me so much in that very small area of my music storage.
Elizabeth Davis-Everhart:So, when it comes to teaching, how do we know we need to be on the lookout for a new way of doing something, something that we need to adapt? I think there are some pretty clear signs that we can observe when something is no longer working for one of our students. Maybe your students are showing signs of boredom at the piano, which could be bored for a lot of different reasons that don't have anything to do with you, but for just the sake of talking about adapting Boredom, they could have some new attitude or behavior concerns that are negatively impacting the lesson. That's something really good to observe. Your students could be very quickly finishing their pieces. Maybe they're accomplishing everything you want them to do with their stylistic interpretation, with their pedaling, their articulation. All of it's coming together much quicker than you anticipated, so that's a good clue. It's time to adapt.
Elizabeth Davis-Everhart:Maybe you have students who are doing the opposite, which could be that they're really struggling. Pieces that are on the level that they used to read very easily is really coming hard for them right now. They're struggling to coordinate their fingers to play all of the notes. Maybe they're having some meltdowns or showing obvious signs of frustration. Maybe they're having change in just their attitude toward piano. Maybe they used to be very excited to play a certain genre and now you notice it's a real struggle. All of those are signs that your student is in a growth time and needs an adjustment, different approach.
Elizabeth Davis-Everhart:So when it comes to adjusting and adapting, honestly it comes down to us, the teachers. We don't really need our students to adjust and adapt. It's more about us realizing what did the students need in this new season? As the students are growing and changing, how can we best help them cultivate their musical potential? Now, don't get me wrong. Adapting is not people pleasing, so I'm not talking about, you know, constantly changing up your students repertoire to fit their every whim, or the kid who knows they can get out of playing Bach minuets by saying, oh, I really wish it was Mario or whatever it might be, and I do love teaching Mario music, by the way, but I'm not talking about people pleasing. This is truly a look at how is my student growing and am I growing and changing with them adjusting as we go? It's a constant evolution in teaching.
Elizabeth Davis-Everhart:Music is such an alive experience and I always remember this when I'm traveling. I love seeing musicians who are busking on street corners or playing music. It's like the whole atmosphere changes. I had the experience to the opportunity to experience that just recently and this gentleman was playing the most inventive music on a street corner, and I don't think I've seen people so excited to hear music, even at really large concert halls where everyone was dressed up in their finest. And here we were on a street corner just listening to him play. I was absolutely enthralled. He was playing a banjo and guitar with a harmonica and then also a drum set. He had it all rigged together and it was so cool, like a folksy acoustic blend with a little grunge and almost a little like Harry Potter slash Sherlock Holmes theme in there. I know that sounds weird but trust me, it worked and all of us on the street corner were just absolutely captivated, and that's what you want music to be. You want it to be that kind of experience that draws you in.
Elizabeth Davis-Everhart:So if you notice or observe that your students are not being drawn in, that's your clue. Something needs to adapt. So I want to challenge you what do you want to adapt this week? Now? You don't need to change everything about your teaching. You should not change everything about your teaching. We just want to look for these signs in our students. So this week, look for one of those students.
Elizabeth Davis-Everhart:Think about a student that's been really a challenge to teach. Maybe it's their technique. It's not happening with the music they're currently playing. What can you adapt or adjust to help make that more seamless or to fit better with where your student is right now? Think small little changes. And if your student is right now, think small little changes. And if your student is struggling with technique, one of the best things you can do is teach it away from the music page, remove the musical score. Teach them something by rote that they can just focus on the movement of their fingers, something like that, something very small. Or maybe for you as a teacher, it's still kind of the beginning of their fingers, something like that, something very small, or maybe for you as a teacher, it's still kind of the beginning of the new year, I'm going to say it's still the beginning of 2025.
Elizabeth Davis-Everhart:Maybe there's something in your studio and in your routine that's not working. The best way to figure out what to change is to think about what's not going so well, and that's kind of the fun part of being a teacher, isn't it? It's the problem solving and getting to put on our detective hat. I love doing that and figuring out what works for each student, but I'm sometimes not as good at doing that for my own routine and schedule as a teacher. So I want to encourage you to do that this week to think about something that's not working maybe something that is working and figure out what have you adapted or what should you adapt in the future. It's actually kind of a fun situation to be in figuring out what works and kind of going with it and seeing what the result is. Music teaching is kind of like a living experiment that just keeps on going and as we adapt and adjust, we find more ways of doing things, and to me, that's one of the most fun parts of teaching kids. I cannot believe it, but the first episode is a wrap. This has been such a fun start to the journey and I cannot wait to continue this journey with you.
Elizabeth Davis-Everhart:If you have any questions about today's episode or have suggestions for future episodes, I'd love to hear from you. You can always reach out to me on Facebook or Instagram at Creative Piano Pedagogy, or just send me an email at creativepianopedagogy at gmailcom. Thank you so much for joining me today. For a written transcript, links or materials or anything else from today's episode, please visit my website at wwwelizabethdavispianocom slash podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean so much to me if you would subscribe and leave a review on your podcast app. I'm so excited to hear what you think about the episode and this will also encourage others to tune in. Thanks again for joining in and see you next time for more creative teaching tips.
