Music Video Lesson: How Can You Tell if a Student Is Talented?

I'm Robert Estrin. This is livingpianos.com.

Have you ever wondered how can you tell if a student is talented? You know, you sometimes see things on YouTube that are astounding.

Students who have these pieces that they can play fast and they have it all memorized.

And then sometimes you hear somebody who just touches you and you have a deep emotional connection.

And there are so many aspects of talents on the piano.

There's the coordination of the hands. There's the visual element.

There's the ears. Now sometimes to find if somebody is talented, they'll do a hearing test like, okay, here's C, what note is this? Some people can tell one is higher or lower. Some people can't. Some people can match pitch singing easily. Some people have to study for a long time. So there's innate abilities in music.

But there is one common denominator that's very interesting with students.

And students generally who are talented play too fast. And you have to slow them down because it's a mess. Because they rush through everything and you try to get them to play with a metronome and it's a nightmare.

Whereas very often students who are less talented, it's exactly the opposite. It's a struggle getting anything up to tempo and they naturally want to play more slowly.

So that natural speed and reining them in, that's why talented students can be some of the most difficult students to deal with. Because they can be sloppy and not take enough time learning things accurately and playing music cleanly. So that is a telltale sign. Now of course there are many other aspects of talent.

As a kid I always had weak spaghetti -like fingers that would collapse on the keyboard. My fingers would be like this. I don't know if you can tell what I'm, the joint bending the wrong way. It took me years and years before I could keep my fingers rounded without the joint collapsing where you have no control this way.

But I was able to get the tone out of the piano that I desired. I had always had great tonal control. That's why I loved slow movements. It wasn't dependent upon a technique.

So there are other essential aspects of talent other than just speed. But it is usually a telltale sign of aptitude, natural ability at the instrument to be able to conceptualize something.

So if you find yourself going too fast all the time, don't fret. You have some natural ability. Rain it in and practice slowly and you'll be rewarded by solidifying your technique.

And if you're somebody who struggles to get things up to speed, remember there are many other aspects of talent on the instrument other than just the physiological abilities like I didn't have as a kid but developed it with hard work over many years. So there's hope for everybody. Nobody's got it all. Everybody has to develop their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses.

So talent only goes so far. Hard work is the answer for a consistent time. You will develop at the piano. I promise you. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, your online piano resource.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/how-can-you-tell-if-a-student-is-talented/

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