As a musician, teaching in a field that glorifies prodigies, I have come to dislike the word talent, which implies some are born with innate ability while others are not. I much prefer ‘aptitude,’ which indicates a musical disposition without dismissing unconventional learning paths. By highlighting talent, we de-emphasize the importance of effort, implying results are not within a student’s control (a harmful notion for students regardless of ability level). And of course, over-valuing talent can foster comparison and negative self image in our students. 

Furthermore, emphasizing talent limits our view of music education to just ability. Of course, ability is important — sight-reading, pianistic technique, and memorization are all essential musical abilities. However, as Shari Tishman and David Perkins at Harvard’s Project Zero have noted, possessing an ability is just one of three components essential to learning. A truly successful learner will have: 

1. Ability: having the necessary skills

2. Inclination: a motivation to use the skills

3. Sensitivity: a sensitivity to the occasion when a particular skill is needed

They go on to say education researchers before the 1990s believed ability was the primary bottleneck in student learning, while today advances in cognitive science show sensitivity is where students most frequently struggle. In other words, even if a person has acquired a particular skill or ability, they will not always recognize when to apply that ability.

For piano teachers, the implication is clear: while we can teach countless musical abilities, we must also help students recognize where and when to apply them. Doing so requires we teach thinking skills or competencies – these are cross-disciplinary and include such things as teamwork, analytical thinking, and interpretation.

Competency-based education is part of a larger effort to reform academic assessments led by the Democratic Knowledge Project, who suggest traditional transcripts measure student performance on tests and activities, but do not account for student competencies. This omits crucial information for all stakeholders in academic institutions, including families, potential employers, admissions officers, and the students themselves. As noted by Perkins and Tishman, a strong transcript does not ensure students can apply their academic knowledge in the real world; if a strong grade in history will translate to a civically engaged citizen, if a biology credit will make students aware of public health issues, or if a math student will be financially literate. 

Continuing this train of thought, as a music teacher it is unreasonable to assume all (or even most) of our students want to pursue music careers. In this case, our capacity to benefit students’ lives outside of music becomes more important than ever. By introducing competency based pedagogy to a traditional piano lesson format, we can not only improve the quality of students’ music making, but ensure their musical strengths translate to life outside of music, well into their personal and professional futures.  

At Oclef, we recognize this, which is why competencies and thinking skills are built into our assessment tools. For instance, our stage system does not measure students by the difficulty of their repertoire, or by the success of a single performance. Both of these metrics reflect a musician’s executive ability without providing information on competencies or broader thinking skills. Instead our stage system reflects a student’s ability to analyze pieces, to annotate them, to apply practice techniques, and to learn independently.

In the following sections, I’ll outline how competency based education has influenced my own 1-1 lesson format.

If we want students to independently apply musical skills in the practice room, we should spend as much time cultivating thinking skills as we do scales and arpeggios. The difficulty in doing so is beautifully described by Ron Ritchhart in his essay, Making Thinking Visible. 

Given the invisible nature of thinking processes, how can we teach the mental ‘choreography’ or ‘playbook’ required for thoughtful music study? 

Perhaps we can start with activities that do not cultivate thinking skills. These techniques are common and essential parts of any music lessons, but on their own do not specifically develop thinking skills. 

By perform-on-demand activity, I refer to anytime a student repeats a context specific skill through repetition, memorization or following instructions. For instance, a performance of a piece they have mastered, a recording of technique for an exam, a music theory worksheet that drills a specific skill, or a checklist which dictates moment-by-moment how a student practices.

While helpful in developing skill and fluency, these activities don’t develop sensitivity — they don’t help students think strategically about where and when to apply musical skills. This is partly because they are goal rather than process oriented. Used on their own, they create a unilateral student-teacher relationship, with little room for independent thought outside of lessons. 

At Oclef I teach my students every day, so I sometimes fall into the trap of over correcting. That is, when a student makes a mistake, I am tempted to jump in and correct it before they notice the error. Doing this constantly deprives the student of the opportunity to correct themselves, and over time, will limit their ability to self-evaluate. To paraphrase tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou, the best coaches know when to shut up — your silent approval as a teacher can mean far more than a constant stream of corrections or advice. Sometimes, you are there to steer the experience but not to drive it. 

At high levels, piano lessons frequently revolve around a rapid back and forth between teacher and student. The student, who has mastered the music and is performing by memory, must respond instantaneously to every nuance and detail described by the teacher. This considerably develops mental agility, but a number of my teachers who taught this way realized it wasn’t the best environment for developing thinking skills. They recommended we observe other students’ lessons, as we could absorb more information without being in the hot-seat.

As I said, none of these techniques are bad in themselves. Actually, they are integral in helping students reinforce and polish skills. On their own, however, they do not develop the thinking skills that lead students to apply concepts outside of lessons, problem solve independently, or develop musical curiosity. 

To supplement the practices listed above, I’ve introduced a few different ideas that encourage thoughtfulness, curiosity, and process-driven learning in lessons.

One way to encourage thinking habits is to model them yourself, treating students as co-learners. Phrases like ‘what if we try…’ ‘what do you think of…’ ‘maybe this means…’ invite the students to participate in your train of thought and be active learners rather than passive followers. Instead of assigning a practice list, try co-creating it with your student. Let them shape the practice plan and then ask how it worked. This process invites a student to air their disagreements or misgivings about a practice plan, which is valuable. This either reveals something in their experience I had missed, or something they had misunderstood. 

Above all, it is important to treat students as co-learners rather than subordinates. If you show a student you are genuinely curious and open to their thinking, that their thoughts are perhaps less experienced than yours but no less valuable, then they are both happy to share with you and gain confidence in their ability to think for themselves.

Another technique which encourages co-learning and thoughtfulness is mind-mapping. Sometimes it is helpful to set aside 15-20 minutes and build a mind map around a specific prompt, like ‘how do you practice?’ or ‘how do you learn a new piece?’ or ‘how do you memorize a piece?’ Although no music is being played for a significant portion of the lesson, this can save a lot of time down the road because students learn to synthesize and digest concepts introduced previously. Furthermore, because of its collaborative nature, this activity is fundamentally different from a practice list, test or performance, which are perform-on-demand activities.

Although students can be reticent at first, with prodding they are happy to open up and explain their inner experiences, and I’m often surprised by the depth of their responses. Here are two examples of mind maps built around the prompt, ‘how do you learn a new piece?’  

If you have ever asked a student what they would like to practice next or how they think they should improve, many have likely said ‘I don’t know.’ This demonstrates that self assessment is a skill which requires nurturing on our part. At Oclef, any performance can be flagged for self assessment with the following prompts: 

These are all simple and obvious questions, but the key to answering them productively is to do so collaboratively, since thoughts are best developed through dialogue. As with mind maps, it can help to plot these out with a student visually, on a canvas. Here are a couple recent examples of assessments I made with students: 

As a Suzuki method student, I always knew music is passed on aurally. One first learns through intuition and imitation before learning symbols, techniques and analytical approaches. So, I was shocked when I asked one of my more musically invested students how much they listened to music and learned they hardly ever did!

Like chefs who always eat the best food to develop their palette, musicians need a good listening diet to play well. I found it beneficial to do listening activities together and ask the following questions:

These have been a few of my evolving thoughts around thinking skills in piano education. Skill based education is an important part of any music curriculum. However, we can also recognize the importance of addressing thinking skills or metacognition within a standard music lesson. Doing so can improve our students' playing, and lead to further benefits outside of music whenever interdisciplinary competencies are required. Please comment or share you own experiences on this subject by contacting me at justin@oclef.com.