'Traditional' sadism in teaching piano

If someone in your family or you yourself learned to play the piano "in the traditional way," you might notice an interesting detail: "traditional" piano teachers of any gender like to hug or touch children affectionately--stroking them on the head, hugging their shoulders. They use many ways to physically manifest their love.

What does all of this mean?

Nothing good.

These are hidden signs. They show that the teacher does not see where he ends and your child begins.

Very few piano teachers who teach in the "traditional" system know how to create any boundaries between themselves and their pupils.

Notice the pride with which pianists talks about their musical "pedigree." They will definitely emphasize that this one studied under A, and A had studied under B, and B under the great Van Cliburn himself. Therefore, he belongs to the school of Van Cliburn. This co-dependency is inherited and is a sign of the boundary problem.

Every professional musician has an inferiority complex multiplied by delusions of grandeur. All precisely because he partly belongs to his “Puppet Master,” like a marionette doll.

Where does this phenomenon come from?

Let's start with "family hugs" in front of parents. Where they are coming from?

Imagine that you go to a gym to pump up your muscles. And the trainer has only two-hundred-pound weights and somehow, he needs to teach you with them. Does the trainer know that your navel can come loose? He does! But he has to start somewhere! He will do his best to help you lift that weight. And if this is a sufficiently experienced trainer, then he will gradually physically weaken his contribution and make your muscles gradually work harder.

And as long as you and the coach pull this cargo together, you will develop a co-dependency. You can no longer imagine how you can lift a 200-pound weight without a trainer. And he will treat you like a puppet master from his own theater. He will do this because your ability to accomplish the task is completely in his hands. First, you physically depend totally on him--her his physical effort into the weight. Then, when you yourself begin to "push" this load, you will seek his approval. It will always seem to you that without external approval. you cannot accomplish your goals.

The "traditional" piano teacher works exactly like this. He puts an obviously impossible task in front of your child. In the pile of notes and keys, the child sees absolutely nothing! And then the teacher drags this "weight": he shows where to look, what to press, and he sings a melody so the child does not go astray from the rhythm. And your child is forced to let down his or her boundaries, to endure the smell from the teacher’s mouth, the touch, and the embrace of the puppet master.

Gradually, the "traditional" piano teacher, without the slightest doubt, invades the child’s personal space, controls his hands, fingers, and starts dominating and abusing his power. From the physical control begins control at a higher, mental level.

In front of the parents, the demonstration of this stifling “love” is the very sign of this form of abuse.

And not surprisingly, parents do not even realize how dangerous all this is for the formation of their child! You give out your little child to an adult, on whom the structure of character, habits, development of will power, and success depends. After all, piano lessons are individual! This increases the harmfulness of the exposure by hundreds of times!

In the hands of the "traditional" music teacher, your child brings up helplessness, insecurity, dependence on the opinions of others and much more that could break his life.

"Next generation of Van Cliburn”--is a diagnosis, not a reason to be proud.

This is the essence of the system, which breaks people down and makes them dependent forever, with no inner freedom.

How many unfulfilled destinies, unformed marriages, unsuccessful decisions, mental deviations and neuroses have to be observed among those who once studied music "traditionally"--or with 200-pound weights?

And it continues from generation to generation!

I often receive objections that not all teachers are sadists. I hear that some teachers are affectionate, sincere, kind and decent. But an impossible task remains an impossible task! You can kick a child for not being able to cope. You can gently have fun, sing and dance around the same impossible task. The essence of this does not change: if the child cannot see the note and key himself and does not know how long to hold it, he is dependent.

And if a teacher is not able to give a child a weight of one gram, and then hundreds of other tools that increase the weight gradually, no matter how gentle and human he is, he is a thief and a sadist. A thief because he takes money for work, the result of which does not guarantee any success. A sadist because he puts the children in front of obviously impossible tasks.

Perhaps he knows how to entertain your child as well as a clown. But in the aftermath, your child will believe one thing: I can't do it. From this failure, the chain reaction starts; it changes the child's fate and can lead to defeat in thousands of other situations.

In every "traditional" teacher, therefore, sits a hidden sadist, whether he wants it to or not. And very often sadism breaks out. Every parent should be aware of this and not succumb to the charm of the future torturer of his child.

No, you cannot cope with a 200-pound weight without losing something! No, miracles do not happen. You will pay dearly for this terrible blunder in musical pedagogy.

In my last article I spelled out for you the abuse from a video lesson of a teacher with a little girl. www.softmozart.com/forum/20-hellene-hine...d-abuse-exposed.html

The same sadistic brand. "Are you ready to get a low grade?" he asks. The girl's mom happily kept recording the video. And the girl is taking this abuse just as I did many years ago . . .

Instead of doing everything possible so that the child herself could communicate with the musical text, the “traditional” teacher takes the role of a “rescuer” with the full benefit of “being in charge.”

Here is a compilation of the lessons of such "puppet masters." There are countless video samples of them on the Internet:

Do not cripple your children!

Study the problem before you take the child to a teacher or a school that didn't bother to graduate from Soft Mozart system vocational training!

Sincerely yours,

Hellene Hiner

softmozart.com