Teaching Older Adults

Teaching Older Adults

While current pedagogy models focus on teaching piano to young children, piano teachers and students may not realize the advantages older adults have in learning to play the piano. Adult students have more patience for deliberate and focused practice and a deeper sense of purpose and motivation for their lessons. So why do so many of these retired piano adults avoid or miss out on taking lessons?

One misconception about beginning piano study as an older adult is that older brains can't learn as efficiently as younger brains. Because of this, many retired adults who would like to take piano lessons, and teachers who could benefit from teaching older students miss out on the opportunity to share knowledge. Many teachers and students hold the misconception that adults of this age group do not have the neural plasticity to learn to play an instrument; the idea that only children have the absorptive brain required to quickly obtain the musical language of piano. Even though some physical impairments from aging can impact the learning progress for a 50+ piano student such as reduced eyesight, weakened hearing of extreme high and low pitches, and slight effects on memory, nothing prevents adults from being able to learn an instrument. With slight modifications (larger print music, perhaps a modification to a difficult rhythm for an arthritic student) teaching adults can be a fruitful, satisfying process for both student and teacher and offers adults the opportunity to become participants of music rather than just consumers.

The concept that classical music is “dying” has existed for centuries, and whether that is true, our current business of classical piano concerts and recitals has certainly been weakened by dwindling audiences and interest. Added to that, the COVID-19 pandemic drove audiences out of concert halls to avoid crowds for months and still has lingering effects on concert sales and patrons. However, classical music can survive as an art form by expanding audiences’ interest in concerts through education. If we allow retired adults to interact with classical piano music, and play pieces rather than simply expecting them to pay for a ticket at a concert hall, the interest in our art form and thus our audiences increases. The people who want to see classical music performances are the people who have had a chance to understand how it works themselves. According to Chris Madden, Baby Boomers hold 70% of the disposable income in the United States. Offering educational opportunities for those who are not going to become professionals is not only beneficial to teachers but expands the audience for the music we teach and perform as a whole. Teaching retired adults requires adjustments to the goals and structure of lessons over time and special focus on dexterity and technique from the beginning.

The teaching approach of most method books for children progressively adds new concepts, slowly layering in new notes and rhythms. Of course, it is necessary to provide a slow, progressive approach for older beginners as well, but it is important to use a method book specifically made for adult beginners and to allow students to start learning satisfying music that is interesting to them, even if it is above their skill level from the beginning of lessons. Gaili Schoen, in her article “Geragogy- The Joys of Teaching Older Adults” explains the importance of a partnership model for an older adult and teacher relationship than a teachers’ express leadership in a child teacher relationship. From the first lesson, she suggests asking the student about pieces they want to play, or a general style they are interested in. Because retired adults are choosing to take lessons and paying for them themselves, they usually have an idea of what they would like to play and already have a love of music and likely a preference for a certain style of music.

Schoen describes the importance of not downplaying the student’s goals and never telling the student something is too hard because they are just getting started. Teaching by rhythms by rote and writing in note names to difficult pieces they are not ready to read helps adult students get an opportunity to start making music that they find exciting and satisfying and thus helping them learn note names, etc, in a more expedited and enjoyable way. Instead of plodding through a method book, slowly adding notes on from C, the student gets to hear a melody they enjoy and are learning note identification at the keyboard and in notation all at once.

In many ways, ideas about teaching retired adults can open new ways we think about teaching children, especially beginner teens or preteens. The benefits of group classes with similarly aged peers, practice and learning techniques to aid in memory, and rote learning/ abstracts to help students get into satisfying music from the beginning of lessons equally apply to a 63 year old, retired student as a 12 year old in the 7^th grade. Allowing young students to have more of a partnership role (to an extent) in their learning can help students become more motivated.

Another way to aid students in learning pieces beyond their reading capabilities at first is by providing abstracts and teaching chord reading from the beginning. Abstracts help adults to have a simplified visual conception of a piece and help them to recognize patterns in music before being fully able to read notation. Abstracts make pieces that are musically satisfying, yet above reading level accessible to retired adult beginners. Fake book chord reading provides another rapid and accessible approach for teachers to give their retired adult students music with a thicker, more musically satisfying texture. Five finger patterns followed by the major and minor triads for all twelve keys should be added to allow for adults to quickly learn multiple chords so that they can play by lead sheet symbols, and therefore more quickly be able to play and accompany songs they already know. The Hal Leonard’s Easy Fake Book series and the Rise Again Songbook allow students to perform songs with simple lead sheet accompaniment.

Richard Master’s describes the top three issues that older beginners and all piano students face when it comes to technique as tense, gripping fingers to try to maintain a feeling of control, uneven passagework, and uncertainty in keyboard geography. Some older adult students may suffer from arthritis that may give them difficulty at the piano. However, this is not a reason to not take lessons, in fact, many doctors prescribe piano to combat pain from arthritis (Schoen). A good way to help adults begin to release tension is by helping them understand the right muscles to activate- rather than using the fingers to create sound, teach them how to use the larger muscles of the back and arms (Masters).

Masters describes exercises to help students become aware of this. He has the student step away from the keyboard and focus on making large, sweeping gestures with the arms and back, remembering to fully release the neck while doing this. He then describes an exercise where the teacher lifts the students arms to shoulder height. The aim of this exercise is to help determine whether the student carries tension in their upper body. If the arms flop down freely as they should, the student is relaxed, if the student holds on and resists the natural movement of their arms, they are tense. Only after the teacher builds the student’s understanding in this way does the teacher move into five finger patterns, where the concept of arm weight in the motion of the fingers is applied. The student should play 5 finger patterns slowly at first to focus on this action for technique.

The final important aspect important to teaching retired adults is choosing a method book that suits the students needs and is written with their age group in mind. Alfred's Group Piano for Adults Books 1 & 2 provides a baseline methodology for group teaching. Teachers can specifically use this book for group piano classes for adults, an excellent way to give students both a social atmosphere and a feeling of comradery in making music with others their age. While some of the early pieces in the book lack musical excitement (Conda), there are many enjoyable ones and several duets and collaborative pieces that will allow the class to work together as a whole.

An excellent method for one-on-one lessons is Upper Hands Piano by Gaili Schoen and edited by Melinda Bateman with Neuroscientist Brendan Cohn-Sheehy (Scherer). In large print and especially written with science in mind to help retired adults learn piano, this method is especially written for this age group. The music consists of several classical pieces, jazz standards, blues, and other songs popular to this age group. It focuses on reading chords quickly and satisfying music from the very beginning. Additionally, an interactive website provides free supplemental pieces and materials, videos to further explain concepts from each book, and answers to the crossword puzzles found throughout the book.

Using a method book that caters to the needs of a retired adult provides a basis for teachers in the sequencing of concepts and repertoire. But there are so many ways teachers must expand upon a method book and rethink the way they approach teaching with a retired adult student. By approaching piano lessons with retired adults from a partnership standpoint, allowing students to work on musically satisfying pieces from the very beginning (even if these pieces are not at the students’ reading level), and focusing on technique, teachers can create lessons that guide retired adult students to achieve their unique and personal musical goals.

Works Cited

Conda, Michelle. 2019. “Alfred’s Group Piano for Adults Books 1 & 2.” American Music Teacher 69 (2): 51–52. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aqh&AN=138841684&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Cowden, Tracy, Peter Ryan, Nancy O’Neill, Jody Graves, and Kevin T. Chance. 2020. “Develop Dexterity: How Do You Develop Dexterity in Older Students?” American Music Teacher 70 (2): 6–9. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aqh&AN=146163662&site=eds-live&scope=site.

LOWDER, JERRY E. “Group Piano Instruction for Adults: Are We Meeting the Challenge?” American Music Teacher 28, no. 6 (1979): 10–11. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43535276.

Madden, Chris. 2019. “Baby Boomers: An Increasing Segment of Your Studio.” American Music Teacher 69 (1): 8–10. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aqh&AN=137823202&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Scherer, Julia. 2017. “Upper Hands Piano: A Method For Adults 50+ to Spark the Mind, Heart and Sold, Book 4.” American Music Teacher 66 (4): 63. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aqh&AN=120956479&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Schoen, Gaili. 2018. “GERAGOGY!: The Joys Of Teaching Older Adults.” American Music Teacher 68 (2): 16–19. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=132042503&site=eds-live&scope=site.

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