Jonathan's slightly less boring-but-useful site

Pianists are music specialists, that’s why you hired them, so use this to your advantage (why buy a dog and bark yourself?). e.g.

• “I want something like this…how do I ask for that another time?”
• I’ve lost track of my counts, can you play the music for me while I go through the exercise in my head?
• I think I may have asked for the wrong kind of music, can you play me something else and let me see if it works better?
• I wanted a polonaise for this, but I can’t remember how they go, could you play me one?
• What do you think would be better, two in or four in?

The more you ask for help and involve the pianist this way, the more likely it is that they’ll feel open to ask you questions about what you want, and that’s how great collaborations and friendships begin.

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Find out what your pianist does best, and work with it, because there may be things they simply can’t do well – like improvisation, jazz, reading complex music at sight, or playing virtuoso solos. Don’t show them up in front of students by asking for things that they may not be able to do, or look crestfallen when you find out that they’re not Ashkenazy, Art Tatum, Jamie Cullum and Prokofiev rolled into one person.

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Trying to control a class and music that is suddenly too fast or too slow can make you anxious. An anxious facial expression can often be misread, and understood as aggression or intimidation. Practise smiling in a relaxed way when you need to communicate urgent commands.

I learnt this one off the very lovely David Shrubsole, an experienced conductor from West End musicals. During a band rehearsal that I was in charge of for a show, he saw me wince at another player when they came in in the wrong place. It was a knee-jerk reaction from me, and not meant unkindly. In the kindest way possible, David advised me that it’s a good to try to avoid such instinctive grimaces, because the person who’s just done something wrong in a performance knows perfectly well they’ve done it, and they feel bad enough already – so there’s no point in making them feel worse.

What you want is for them to feel better, and to come in in the right place next time. What’s happened has happened, so good humour and positive support is the order of the day. The minute he’d said it, I knew he was absolutely right and I vowed never to do it again, but wincing at wrong notes is such an instinctive reaction, I’d never given it a second thought.

Of course, if they’re really bad players, that’s a rather more difficult matter…

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If you won’t need your pianist for more than five minutes, let them know. Sitting in one position for a long time is uncomfortable, and they may be glad of the opportunity to move around or leave the studio temporarily. At the very least, it means they can relax and know that they don’t have to be looking out for a signal from you for a few minutes.

It’s not a huge issue – it’s no big deal to sit in the corner of the studio when you’re being paid to sit there. But if you can remember to release the pianist when they’re not actually needed, the payoff for the teacher is huge – you’ll get their complete attention when you really need them, and they’ll instantly think of you as someone to collaborate with, rather than to work for.

By contrast, “Oh, I’m so sorry, are you still there? I don’t actually need you” or “Oh what a shame, you could have gone home early if I’d realised” suggests, even if it’s not true, that the pianist and their role is so minimal that you could easily forget they’re there at all, like those people who stand by the doorways in art galleries.

Thank goodness I’m not a dance teacher – I’m sure I’d be terrible at this kind of thing…

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It is good manners and good professional practice to give a musician the option of having time to prepare a piece of music if they need or want it. If you want to do something without preparation, try saying something like “I want to do a piece of repertoire from the ballet X – do you know it, or shall we do it next week?”. Don’t assume that because the pianist ‘always seems to cope’ that they are capable of doing everything with no preparation at all, or enjoy living on the edge all the time!

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The most useful learning experiences come from analysing mistakes and things which could be improved. Talk these over with your pianist outside class-time, and treat finding a solution as something that you will do together, rather than leaving it as a problem for the pianist. Anything I know about playing for class came from discussions like those – it certainly isn’t a natural talent!

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