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.

5. Conclusion

I started this research to get more insight into the different piano and vocal teaching strategies. It interested me because I was wondering if my own teaching was influenced by the teaching strategies of the other instrument. Moreover, I wanted to know what the specific strategies of both instruments were and how they related to each other. In addition to this, I was as well interested in differences between the different institutes. I wanted to compare all these observations to my own practice.

All the conclusions written below form the answer to my research question: What are the specific vocal and piano teaching strategies of expert teachers that can inspire my own teaching practice? The specific teaching strategies have been found and compared to each other. My own teaching practice has been analyzed according to these results.

It should be kept in mind that this study didn’t include a whole range of teachers. Only six teachers participated in this study, and thus, the conclusion cannot be drawn for the whole vocal and piano field. However, the participating teachers can be considered as expert teachers. Four of them are teaching piano and vocal pedagogy at the Conservatory, so it can be expected they have been reflecting on teaching and learning more than average. Giving their experience, the other two teachers have expertise as well.This research might give a first impressions of what would be found when conducting this study on a larger scale.

5.1 What are the strategies of expert teachers regarding vocal lessons and piano lessons and how do they differ from each other?

When we looked at the piano and vocal teacher strategies, a lot of interesting topics emerged. For vocal teaching strategies, the personal aspect of teaching is important. The mental check, the connection to the body and the emotions, the goofiness to ensure the safe learning environment and the mental and physical wellbeing all played a central role in the vocal lessons. Additionally, there was also a lot of focus on the implementation of the voice use, as the instrument itself is not visible. This complicates coming up with specific instructions or feedback and makes it harder to find the right learning curve for the student.

For piano teaching strategies, the diversity of the lesson structure plays a big role. Alternating between different ways to approach the repertoire, improvising, figuring out the new repertoire together, playing by ear and diving into the sheet music makes the lessons diverse. In addition to this, the emphasis on how to study is part of addressing the repertoire. The use of small steps to coordinate the two hands and to make the connection between hand and notes are also important.

The most important differences between piano and vocal teaching strategies are spread across different topics. When looking at the elements in the lesson, the difference in use of warmup, improvisation and the connection to harmony stand out, as well as the physical position of the teacher. Because piano students play both harmony and melody, harmony has as big as a role in the lessons as the melody. Logically harmony plays a smaller part in the vocal lessons, as the students only sing the melody and not the harmony. The presence of sheet music in the piano lessons and the lyrics in the vocal lessons is also a clear distinction. In the choice of repertoire, the difference is obvious. The use of method, including a predetermined learning curve, brings more ease into the search for repertoire, which can be a challenge in the vocal lessons. Although, both lessons do have repertoire input from the students. The goofiness of the vocal teachers is a very specific vocal teaching strategy, as described earlier, as is the necessity to accompany the students on the piano. Of course, piano teachers also accompanied their student while teaching, but as piano is their main instrument, this isn't as big of a challange compared to vocal teachers accompanying their students on the piano. Lastly, there is an interesting difference in the way of preparing a new song. Figuring out the first notes together and letting the student learn their new song at home are two quite different approaches which were seen when starting a new song.

Even though these differences, a lot of aspect were actually found quite similar. The similarity in the use of metaphors is distinguishing and even though Burwell (2006) found the use of metaphors more present in vocal lessons compared to instrumental lessons, the results do not show such distinction. The overall structure of the lessons also quite overlaps. In both lessons, small steps while giving instructions is emphasized, maybe both for different reasons, but a similarity nonetheless, as well as the focus on mental and physical health. Even though vocal teachers put more emphasis on the correct use of feedback, there is not much distinction between the two instruments.

5.2 What are the differences between conservatoire teachers and private studio teachers?

The private teaching realm is closer to my own teaching practice than the conservatory realm, and thus the comparison between these realms is a pleasant addition to the conclusion, to make the picture for my own practice more complete. Use of method and implementation of improvisation are the most noticeable differences. In the piano lessons at the conservatory, no learning method is used, while in the private lessons, a lot of the repertoire comes from these methods. The conservatory teachers did state that, because they have taught already for so long, they developed their own methods ‘in their heads’ as they know so many pieces they can choose from. Nonetheless, this was a remarkable difference. In addition to this, improvisation was used a lot in the private piano teaching lessons, but never in de conservatory lessons. The difference in warmup in de vocal lessons was also obvious. Teacher AV explained that she almost never uses vocal warmups again, only when a student specifically requests it. In contrast to this, the conservatory vocal teachers always used warmups and also emphasized the importance. As teacher AV implied, warmup took a big part of her lessons, and it wasn’t that meaningful. Maybe the conclusion can be that with private teaching, the lessons are less frequent, so the time should be well spend. A final conclusion looking at this topic is the use of text in piano lessons. Teacher AP used a lot of lyrics in her piano lessons for beginners. Some songs were only thought by lyrics and ear and not by notes. This could be a difference between beginner and advances students, but it’s still interesting to keep in mind.

5.3 What can improve my own lesson looking at these strategies?

The conclusions above outline the differences between the examined teaching strategies. In the results, we already compare this data with my own teaching practice and see what the differences are. As written, some of these findings do not correspond with the observations of my own lessons and may imply room for improvement. As there hasn’t been any research into these improvements effectively enhancing my teaching, this conclusion is about the possibilities for future development.

Many of the found piano and vocal teaching strategies correspond with the observations in my own teaching. This is a reassuring confirmation. However, more use of expression in the piano lessons and more varied use of repertoire in the vocal lessons could be valuable additional teaching strategies. I will definitely try to implement these lessons elements to see if I notice improvement.

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