Another tip!

In general, I wouldn't consider myself a super affectionate person.  I'm not cold, but I definitely refrain from being overly huggy and touchy with people, even with friends that I've known for years.  Guess that's just one of my quirks!  For the longest time, I also refrained from being even remotely affectionate with my students....it's just not my thing.  But having taught young kids for several years, I've learned a couple things.  One, little kids are rather friendly and affectionate naturally.  Two, I've come to realize, especially with little boy students, a simple touch on the back can help to reel them back into what's going on in the lesson.  It seems like as adults, we've lost the permission to do this, because we've been trained in other ways to maintain attention for our conversations, work, and tasks.  But this is a whole other topic altogether.  From these observations, I've learned that being a bit physically engaged with a student can be very helpful.  For one, oftentimes if I'm trying to explain how a student should place their fingers on the keys, sometimes explaining is not enough.  It's best to just help their little hands out and place their fingers where they need to be.  And two, engaging in this type connection can also help in another way.  For example, when a student has a tough time feeling the tempo (which happens a lot, tempo and rhythm might be the hardest things for students to feel innately), I have noticed that this technique can really help their understanding how to play in tempo.  For one student who understands rhythm, but sometimes has a tough time feeling it, I tried tapping her shoulder while she was playing.  I had tried other things before that but thought that since rhythm and tempo is something that we feel more than think about, it would make sense to communicate the tempo in a way that her body could feel versus having it explained verbally to her.  Well, after tapping the tempo on her shoulder while playing a piece, she made a huge improvement in understanding how to play according to the beat I was giving her.  I told her dad about the technique and suggested he could also try it, and the following week he told me that it worked when he tried it as well.  This just goes to show, sometimes its a good idea to break out of one's box and not be afraid to try new things, as well as get that human connection back....sometimes it yields great results!  Happy Piano-ing!