Say Yes to Silly

​”If I had a third arm, I could play this duet all by myself,” Annie commented after learning both parts of a duet in her Piano Safari book.

“But it’s so hard to find clothes when you have a third arm,” I​ replied.

“I know!” she responded. “I used to have one, but it was too inconvenient, so we had it removed.”

Pretty quick wit for a third grader, I thought to myself.

My piano students often enjoy a bit of silliness, and I’m always happy to oblige. It can help make their lessons fun and memorable.

Yesterday, Elliot came to his lesson with his practice chart filled out, and a solid amount of daily practice recorded–enough to warrant a dive into the prize box. He chose this sticky, stretchy green hand as his prize, and you can see what he immediately thought to do with it. It was 60 seconds of silliness that made us both laugh. Not a bad way to start a lesson.

Later in the day, Sarah, who’s healing from a broken finger on her right hand, was working on a piece for left hand from Melody Bober’s delightful Grand One-Hand Solos for Piano, Book 3. Sarah’s a good sight reader and a strong pianist in general, but she had tripped over a rhythm on her first reading of the piece the week before, so I immediately gave her a silly lyric to help establish the rhythm. By today’s lesson I’d already forgotten the lyric; but she, obviously, had not. As she played the piece, she sang the silly lyric, and her rhythm was perfect.

“My name is Sarah. What is yours?”
“My name is Mister Light. Don’t forget it!”

A bit of silliness can go a long way with children to help them enjoy their lessons, or, as in Sarah’s case, to correctly establish a musical concept. We teachers are always mindful about spending our minimal lesson time well, but a bit of silliness and a few hearty laughs needn’t be time wasted.

Embrace a bit of silliness, I say. Your students will love you for it.