New Testament Words 2

The last two weeks I tried to tackle Barclay's chapter on the word "agape." The chapter includes other Greek words for love and explains why those other words could not be appropriated by the New Testament writers for the love of God and the love to which we are called by God: the other words were more related to involuntary feelings, connoted too much of an emphasis on warmth and passions, and were too limited to bear the weight and express the breadth of the love the writers sought to convey.

This agape love involves choice and action, and is an engagement of the whole being. It is, as Barclay puts it, a stance of "unquenchable goodwill."

This grand concept has profound implications for all that we do as artists and teachers around the piano. Piano playing itself is an engagement of the whole person, and the arts often tend towards an altruistic attitude of ever-refreshed goodwill.

In last week's piano pedagogy class, we explored theories of how learning happens. We also reflected upon our own good and bad experiences with teachers. We explored the necessity of sensitivity on the part of the teacher and the very negative power of criticism, especially in the early years of study. One student noted that her entire sense of self as a musician as well as her feelings about music making in any given period of her life seemed to depend almost entirely on her teacher's attitude towards her and the teacher's way of modeling a life in music.

As I taught private piano lessons these two weeks with a heightened regarding for the whole persons I was encountering and hoping to help develop, many doors seemed to open for my students and me.

With one student, I sensed a lack of calm, a diminished ability to quiet himself before a task. Instead of focusing on positive action, he was pouring valuable energy into creating anxiety about whether or not he would achieve the task at hand without messing up. We sought ways in which he could teach himself internal cues and judgement processes with greater intentionality so as to keep his mind on track in practice and performance. A lack of internal calm, by the way, seems typical of most of us, especially when we get alone with the piano.

Another student confessed the revelation that we are never learning "just piano" but that each discipline studied in the college setting connects with everything else.

With a couple of other students who were perhaps a little under-prepared, I pursued their interests and also used the lesson time to practice with them, leading them through a working method they can use on their own. One of these played for me a bit of a hymn in his own style. Then we analyzed his harmonization and voicing together and learned from each other terminology and concepts. This paved the way for better question asking on his part and a growing relationship between us.

In retrospect,  there were no tedious times in these weeks' lessons. It all felt pretty authentic to me and I was most pleased with the sense that valuable work was being done in every meeting.

Reflecting back on these experiences and the sharing in pedagogy class, it seems that all of those good learning theories can somehow be summed up in agape.

Two postscripts:

1. An idea for Christian piano instructors: while educators looking to relate well to the whole person might seek insight from I.Q. and personality tests, what if we approached our students more through spirituality? For example, it seems that practicing quiet or disciplined silence ourselves can, over time, serve as a catalyst for addressing the things that trouble our students' spirits. Another possibility - instead of using something like of Myers-Briggs, or just going on instinct, what about a spiritual gifts inventory as a starting point for understanding each student's unique musicality?

2. Teaching a more eclectic repertoire (which could be an agape-ish expression) can lead to some interesting juxtapositions that bring about interesting imagery, characterizations, and so forth. One student played Zez Confrey's Kitten on the Keys and Chopin's G Minor Prelude in the same lesson this week. Click here for Lincoln Mayorga talking about and playing "Kitten on the Keys" and click here for Dr. Walden Hughes playing the Chopin prelude.

I've never put these two pieces together in the same thought before, but it turns out that there are some technical similarities due to their layout on the keyboard. But the more interesting thing is the radical difference in affect between the two pieces despite the few technical similarities. Next to "Kitten on the Keys," the Chopin sounds more like Poe's "The Black Cat."