Back to the Piano: When Pupils Have Forgotten Everything
There is a particular kind of September piano lesson that every teacher probably recognises. The pupil sits down at the piano after several weeks away, you open the book and turn to the piece they were learning before the summer. And then you realise that quite a lot has been forgotten.
The notes have gone, the fingering has gone, the rhythm has gone. Sometimes it feels as though the entire contents of the previous term have been quietly deleted. I've had days when it has felt like every single pupil has forgotten everything they knew before the holidays.
While my first instinct can be to think, "Right, we'd better go back and sort this out," I've started to wonder whether that's actually the best way to begin a new school year.
What does "forgetting" really mean?
We often talk about pupils "losing" skills over the summer as though they've left them behind somewhere. But a pupil not being able to immediately play a piece they knew in June doesn't necessarily mean that the learning has disappeared. They may simply need some time to reconnect with it.
After weeks away from regular playing, something that was previously automatic can suddenly require a lot more concentration. A pupil might recognise the piece when you play it, remember how it sounds, or remember parts of it, but struggle to translate that memory back onto the keyboard.
If the first thing we do is put the music in front of them and ask them to reproduce it exactly as they did before, we're potentially turning a temporary loss of fluency into a rather uncomfortable experience. The pupil knows they used to be able to do it, and now they can't. The message they take away from their first lesson of the year can easily become, "I'm not as good at piano as I was."
That's not the message I want to send.
Do we really have to pick up where we left off?
There's an obvious solution when a pupil has forgotten a piece. Go back to the same page and reteach it. There's nothing wrong with that, and sometimes it is exactly what is needed. But I think it's worth asking what that feels like for the pupil.
Imagine returning to school after the summer and being immediately asked to repeat a test you did several months ago, particularly if you can't remember how you answered the questions. It might feel like going backwards.
That's what can happen when we make the first lesson back entirely about recovering lost repertoire. Rather than feeling like the beginning of a new year, it can feel like an attempt to rewind the clock to June.
I'm increasingly interested in doing something different. Not ignoring what pupils have learned, and not pretending that repertoire doesn't matter, but giving them some musical experiences that don't depend on remembering what happened last term.
What if September didn't have to be about progress?
During the rest of the year, piano lessons can be quite focused. There's a piece to learn, a technical skill to develop, notation to read and something to practise at home. That's all important, but perhaps the first lesson or two after a long break can have a different purpose.
Instead of asking, "What can you still remember?", we could ask, "What can you discover?"
Rather than setting a piece to practise, perhaps we set a challenge. Instead of asking pupils to read, perhaps we ask them to listen. Instead of correcting every note, perhaps we give them something to improvise. We could give them five minutes to create something of their own, or ask them to explore what happens when they change the tempo, dynamics or character of something they already know.
These activities can be surprisingly revealing. A pupil who can't remember the piece they learned before the holidays might be able to copy a phrase by ear. They might create an interesting rhythm, discover an unusual sound on the piano or improvise something completely unexpected.
Suddenly, we're no longer measuring what has been forgotten. We're finding out what is still there and what might be ready to grow.
Nesta's Tune
One of the activities I've developed for my Listen & Play section came about in exactly this kind of spirit.
My eight-year-old pupil Nesta had been learning a piece using a D minor hand position. After playing it, she started experimenting with the notes and came up with a catchy little motif. It wasn't something I'd asked her to practise and it wasn't part of the piece. She was simply playing around with an idea.
I liked it so much that I told her I'd make it into a video for her to try at her next lesson. That became Nesta's Tune.
I started the video with some simple listen and copy phrases, giving Nesta a chance to hear something and find it on the piano. Then, in the second half, the activity opens out into improvisation, giving her the opportunity to take the musical ideas further and make them her own.
Nesta absolutely loved it, and so have many of my other pupils who have tried it since.
What I particularly like about this activity is that it doesn't feel like a traditional piano exercise. It starts with something achievable, listening and copying, and then gradually moves towards something more open-ended. The pupil is given a musical idea and encouraged to explore what they can do with it.
That transition is really valuable. Pupils aren't simply being told to improvise and left staring at the keys wondering what on earth they're supposed to do. They're given something to listen to, something to imitate and then a musical idea they can begin to explore for themselves.
The value of low-risk playing
This is something I've become increasingly interested in as a teacher. There is a difference between an activity being easy and an activity being low risk. A challenge can be musically worthwhile without having a high chance of failure, and that's particularly useful when a pupil's confidence is a little fragile.
If they make a mistake while trying to recreate a phrase by ear, that's part of the process. If their improvisation takes an unexpected turn, that's not necessarily wrong. If their composition sounds completely different from yours, that's the whole point.
They can experiment without constantly asking themselves, "Am I doing this correctly?" That can be quite liberating. It gives pupils the opportunity to experience themselves as musicians rather than simply as learners trying to get the next thing right.
Making room for listening
The more I've used these kinds of activities, the more I've realised how useful they are for developing listening skills too. Listening is sometimes squeezed into the edges of piano lessons because there is so much else to cover, but it doesn't have to mean sitting quietly while the teacher plays.
It can mean hearing a short phrase and working out where it starts, copying a rhythm, identifying a change, responding to a musical idea or hearing a phrase and then changing it. These are active musical skills, and they can be developed without a pupil having a single piece of music in front of them.
That's the thinking behind the Listen & Play videos I've continued to develop since making Nesta's Tune. They're designed to give pupils opportunities to listen, copy, respond and improvise. They're useful as starter activities, but they can also be a welcome change of pace in the middle of a lesson, giving pupils a few minutes away from more structured work while still doing something musically meaningful.
The videos are available in the Piano Umbrella members section.
Perhaps we don't need to get everything back
I think this is the bit I'm still learning as a teacher. When a pupil comes back after the summer and can't remember something, it's tempting to see it as something that needs fixing. But perhaps we don't always need to fix it immediately.
Maybe we can allow pupils a little time to find their way back. Maybe we can let them play something new before asking them to remember something old. Maybe we can give them experiences where they feel successful without having to prove that they remember everything they learned last term.
Perhaps, by doing that, we make it much easier to return to the books and repertoire afterwards.
The aim isn't to avoid progress. It's to make sure that progress isn't the only thing pupils experience when they sit down at the piano.
September gives us a chance to remind pupils that piano playing can be about curiosity as well as accuracy, listening as well as reading, and creating as well as reproducing. It can be about making musical choices rather than always waiting to be told what to play.
So if your pupils come back this September having forgotten absolutely everything, don't panic. You might not need to go backwards. You might just need to give them something new to play.
Ready to make September a little more musical?
If you'd like some ready-to-use ideas for those first lessons back, you can try the Back to the Piano Challenge from Piano Umbrella. It includes ten short musical missions designed to get pupils listening, exploring, creating and playing without the pressure of jumping straight back into repertoire.
And if you'd like to explore more activities like Nesta's Tune, Listen & Play is available in the Piano Umbrella members section, with videos designed to develop listening skills and confidence with improvisation. They're easy to drop into lessons and can provide a refreshing change of activity while still developing meaningful musical skills.
Give your pupils a reason to play before you ask them to practise.
Sign up for a 7-day free trial of Piano Umbrella and discover the full library of creative videos, playalongs, and lesson activities.
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