“Try again”

She’s screaming to the point that it’s hurting my ears. But as of a father of two girls (2 and 4 years old), it’s something that you get accustomed to.

“I can’t do it.” Aria screams, half crying.

She can’t do the second half of her seatbelt, yet. I just started a new phase of her car routine that has her putting part of her seatbelt in. It’s the second day and it took her about 3 minutes yesterday, but she got it.

“When we can’t get it to work the first few times, what do we do?” I ask her encouragingly

“Try again” Stella, her experienced 4 year old sister answered.

“I CANNOT try again” Aria continues to cry. We’re approaching the beginning of minute 2.

As a former touring pianist, I’ve experienced some incredibly challenging music. From monumental piano pieces like Rach 3 and the Barber Concerto to abstract works like the John Cage piano concerto and world premieres by living composers - I’ve been mentally pulled in every direction by the music I’ve played.

Music does that to you. The deceiving thing about piano is that it happens almost all in your head. Yes, we perform with our body and through our arms, hands, and fingers, but the hardest work happens in our mind.

For beginners, piano lessons and piano practice are incredibly painful. The piano students have to play something on an instrument that they aren’t able to play and don’t have the complete skillset or skill angles to do. Their mind, if with a good piano teacher or a supportive parent, is running at full speed, and yet from the outside all we can see is them pressing one key with each hand. Then once they mess up, they have to do it again, with an adjustment - slower.

It’s painful.

And the last thing they want to hear, as piano students, is “try again”.

But as long as the bond between student and piano teacher is good - they will do it. Even though they probably want to scream, or give up.

The beautiful thing about this is that at Oclef, we have the opportunity to support these piano students. Through this journey of mistakes and getting back up. The inner battle to push themselves to “try again” is safe on the piano. And it builds grit and resilience. But these piano students do need someone there to cheer them on.

In the conventional system, where most piano students take lessons only once a week, the parents should really be sitting with the child every day to provide that support and feedback loop. This is why so many kids fail piano, because lessons happen once a week - and their parents are busy or uncomfortable sitting with their child. No one is there to sit with the child while they practice. So the child taking these conventional once a week lessons, practices 4 days their first week, 3 days their second week, and by the second month they only practice 2 days a week. After a year they’re only practicing the day of their lesson, if that. 

This isn’t hyperbole. This is generous. Some kids don’t even make it to year 2. In the end, 83% of kids fail piano (i.e. drop out or are illiterate) within the first 3 years. I don’t blame parents, the child, or the teacher for the failure of conventional once-a-week piano lessons - it’s absolutely a systemic problem. 

These kids aren’t doing anything wrong - they’re avoiding the pain of, figuratively, picking yourself up off the ground again and again, all alone at the piano. Who wants to do that by themselves at any age, let alone the ripe age of 6 or 7. 

Does a 7 year old really have the self-discipline to pick themselves up at the piano, day after day with no one else around to help? No one to cheer them on. No one to point in the right direction. No one to brainstorm strategy with them. No one to say “try again.” That’s exactly how once a week piano lessons work for most kids who don’t have a parent sitting with them daily. 

Would you want to practice piano?

But at Oclef, we have a system that has already solved this problem and many of the problems that proceed this. Getting to the piano every day is now easy. Our teachers just meet our students online every day for lessons or classes. Hundreds upon hundreds of kids are meeting us every day at Oclef. They show up to practice, and leave just a little bit more confident than the day before, because someone was there for them: cheering, coaching, brainstorming, and motivating them not to give up.

‘Piano Every Day’, as we call it, is about consistency, about community and more than anything, it’s about commitment. Because regardless of the challenge, or how painful it may be - we can do it, we just need to try again.

Click — “I did it…” says Aria. Her seatbelt is now in and she’s half smiling. 

“You did it! Let’s go!” I look at her with a smile. Stella, her older sister, is clapping for her while she laughs, smiles and chants her name like she just won the world championship of seatbelts. “Aria, Ar-ia, A-Ri-A”.

The tortoise always wins,
JT