The Teaching Life: Classical or Improv? (Part II)

Part I

Over the next few days, I wrestled with this whole “improv” concept. All my life, I’ve been naturally drawn to improv-type music. But you’d have never guessed it watching me in the classroom last year. In fact, last year was the most disharmonious, non-improv teaching year of my life. Why?

The answer hit me randomly while I was standing at the baggage carousel in Chicago, O’Hare airport, waiting for my family to arrive. It struck me so hard, in fact, that I began to tear up. (My family thought I was especially glad to see them, which I was, but…!)

I’ve defined my teaching in terms of my classical training, in which I equated errors with failure. 

Piano competitions were the worst. The Friday prior, my parents made the required one or two hour drive to the concert location so I could spend five minutes practicing on the actual piano to “get a feel” for its touch. The day of, I sat for hours, chewing my fingernails down to the quick, listening to dozens of other amateurs destroying the same song I was soon to desecrate.

As I waited, and while I performed, error-focused messages played through my mind: “Don’t screw up. Don’t make an error. Okay, don’t make another one….”

No matter how hard I tried or how much I practice, I could never be as flawless as Daniel Lau. Take a moment to listen, and then tell me: How do you follow that? All I wanted to do after hearing Danny’s ever-perfect gold-medal winning performances was crawl under the chairs to the door and run home!

One year, I did accidentally end up with an “honorable mention” at a Bach festival. As I gave my pre-performance bow, I saw my brother in the audience, making a ridiculous gargoyle face at me. I started to giggle and couldn’t stop. Realizing that all hope was lost before I even began, I relaxed, sat down, and surprised everyone (myself the most!) with a reasonably good performance.

But all other years, everyone else swept the gold, silver, and bronze medals, while I collected more memories of making errors. I felt like the “special needs” mascot of the group; there were all my teacher’s award-winning students…and then there was Cheri.

My final recital proved this beyond doubt. Since I was one of her “senior” students, my teacher put me right at the end of the program. Big mistake. After twelve years of piano lessons, my crowning achievement was starting over not once, not twice, but three times…each time 2/3 thirds of the way through the piece. I finally ended the communal torture by stopping, standing up, walking out the front door, and never looking back. I was done with piano.

After all those years of lessons, all those years of practice, if I could screw up that badly, the only possible explanation was that I was a failure.

Last year, error-focused messages played through my mind all day long, “Don’t screw up. Don’t make an error. Okay, don’t make another one…” I started each class period with hope, but the first error made me cringe, the second error made me tense up, and the third error — especially within the first five minutes of class! — triggered my survive-’til-escape reflex.

After several months of maxing out on errors multiple times a day, I began to despair. After nineteen years of teaching…after dozens of seminars and classes…after reading hundreds of books…after so much hard work, if I could still screw up this badly, by making so many errors, the only possible explanation, from a classical frame of references, was that I was a failure.

Part III