Keys and Cords: A Comparison of Piano and Vocal Teaching Strategies

Renske Luijten

The profession of a music teacher has developed over the past years in a way where teachers are required to be more versitale and not focussed on one specific element. A lot of collegues of mine, including myself, work at a music school where they teach children not only their main instrument, but also a secondary instrument, in my case piano. This brings up interesting challanges as a lot of teaching strategies overlap, but there might also be approaches that differ between various instruments. In this research, we explore how private vocal lessons compare to private piano lessons and what the specific teaching strategies are of these instruments. Following up on this, we analyze how these finding inspire my own teaching practice and how one instrument might benefit from the teaching strategies of the other instrument. This research includes a dive into already existing literature, interviews with Conservatory teachers who specify in vocal and piano pedagogy and interviews with private school teachers. Additionally, observations were made of multiple vocal and piano lessons given by myself as well as the other teachers mentioned above.

6. Discussion

While the aim of this research was quite clear from the start, there were a few hiccups along the way that made writing empirical research more difficult. Apart from that, this chapter focusses on future possible research and the implementation of results.

6.1 Size of the study

As already mentioned earlier, the quantity of teachers that contributed to this study wasn’t overwhelming: six teachers in total participated. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we cannot conclude something, but it should be mentioned as a sidenote. This research gives a first glance into the possibilities of doing this research with a bigger group of participants.

The focus of this research is very broad. No specific subject was highlighted and there was no explicit focal point. When looking at future research, one of the teaching elements as harmony or lesson structure that came forward, could be dived deeper in to, similar as Burwell (2006) did, as she looked specifically at the communication and student-teacher relation.

6.2 Teaching strategies have evolved

Some of the research read and used in the literature dates back from 20 years ago. Also, my presumptions of the outcome of the research were based on my life experience as a musician and as a teacher, collecting thoughts and observations from 20 years of making music. Looking back at the conclusions and the results, my hypothesis and my initial presumptions feel a bit small minded. Thinking that vocal teachers are expressive, attentive, inclusive regarding personality and emotions and able to really touch something, while piano teachers focus on notes and coordination between two hands, appears to be outdated. There has been a lot of research in how to teach inclusive, attentive and with focus on mental and physical wellbeing, and with this, the music teaching world has improved a lot. The stereotypical piano teacher who closed the piano on the fingers of the students when a mistake is played, doesn’t exist anymore. In both instruments, attention for constructive feedback, care for body and mind, implicit motor learning and relationship with the teacher was found, all ways to improve the learning environment. In the interview with teacher CV2 we talked about how the teaching world improved in the last 20 years and that the teaching differences I was looking for in the beginning do not exist anymore. Society is changing and the view on the role of the teacher and student with it.

6.3 Difficulties of observations

When I first started this research, I had already thought about this topic for quite some time. The differences between vocal and piano teaching strategies felt very familiar and I almost had the feeling that I knew all the answers already, just by thinking and analyzing the way I teach both instruments. When starting the first phase of the research, I found it very difficult to be objective and not only look at the lesson element that I already presumed would be interesting. By writing down everything and later on analyzing what I wrote down, I helped myself to not be biased when observing. Even though this helped, it continued to be a focus point during the research to be aware of.

6.4 Implementations into my own practice

During this research, I found a lot of interesting result. Unfortunatly, I wasn't able to implement all these findings into my own teaching yet. However, this is something I'm definately planning on doing. When I compared my own teaching observation to the results, there were some interesting conclusions that stood out. My teaching practice will for sure improve when I implement these findings and I look forward to realising these concepts.

6.5 What could be interesting teaching strategies to implement from the other instrument?

The conclusions above outline the differences between the examined teaching strategies. As already stated, one of the sub-questions was formulated to see whether lesson elements could be implemented into the other instrument. The interesting teaching strategies have already been discussed in the results, but as this topic has not been researched, and the results are only presumptions, this chapter is put in the discussion and not in the conclusions. As already written, lesson elements as warmup, mental check, approach of repertoire, harmony and improvisation, studying, position of the teacher, use of lyrics, goofiness and the asked preparation are interesting to look at. All these elements were substantial for the instruments it was seen in but wasn’t found in the other instrument. Of course, there were more elements that were seen in only one instrument, but, for instance the use of both hands in piano lessons, probably won’t have a valuable addition in vocal lessons.

Further research could focus on the named teaching strategies and see whether these topics could and should be implemented or not. Burwell (2006) suggested that mainly vocal teaching strategies would be interesting to implement in other instruments, but I think that it could work both ways, who knows what the benefits will be. The connection with the body and emotion on one hand, and the focus on practice, harmony and improvisation on the other hand already sound as promising implementations.

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