the past, present, and future of piano study

[blackstone]

I posted the following thread last week in the Piano Teachers Forum here to get the teachers responses, and would like to see if anyone else has any opinions they want to throw into the mix here:


I’d like to put forward the following comments/questions to the people in this forum:

-As far as I know, many more pianos are manufactured today than 100 years ago.

-If there are more pianos being made and sold now than ever before, I find it safe to assume there are more people studying piano than ever.

-From my perspective, I see classical music growing more culturally irrelevant over time. Several reasons I believe this is so are the changing tastes of popular music, the continued decline of music education in schools, and the distractions of a hundred competitors for time like TV, internet, school sports, etc. To be clear, I don’t want this to happen, but I think it is.

-I believe that 100 years ago, the piano was far more important culturally than today. From what I’ve read, playing piano was more expected in learned society then. There are many reasons for this, of course; chief among these would be the more obvious fact that people didn’t have TV and radio then, so reproducing music had to be …er...by hand.

-If it was more expected for people in learned society to play piano, can one then assume that more people are playing today because they want to, less because that is what society expects?

-If all of the last five suppositions are true, it’s hard for me to put them all together, since they seem somewhat contradictory.

-If some or all of those suppositions are true, how much of a telling indicator is that of the future of piano study and popularity of classical music in general? I’m not trying to raise alarm; I’m simply curious what other people’s perspectives are.

-I’m curious if anyone here has come across any statistics that estimate the number of people currently studying piano today, and various times in the past?

- Is it possible that the percentage of students who quit within 1 or 2 years of study is higher now as well?

Colin McCullough

Please visit the McCullough Piano Tuning Tutorial, a free online resource for anyone interested in how a piano is tuned, featuring the entire tuning in MP3 audio format.
www.blackstonepiano.com/tutorial/tutorial.htm

[alzado]

I can just give you a few opinions.

When you say that the piano was more popular 100 years ago, you have to remember that there was no TV, no movies, and no cell phones.  Aside from visiting neighbors or friends, entertainment was very limited.

Many played the piano, but much of it was popular songs.  Evenings of friends often involved sing-alongs.  Classical piano was probably not part of the popular culture of that day, although aristocrats and the well-educated taught their daughters piano because it was one of the "accomplishments" of young women who hoped to marry a well-bred young man of their class.

Classical piano playing is sort of a class thing, I think.  The beer and pretzel set with the country western music blaring from their pickup trucks are probably not its patrons.

How many today read "The Ambassador" by Henry James?   How many put reproductions of great European paintings in their living rooms?   How many own a grand piano, or any piano, and keep it maintained?

We are really talking about upper middle class and university educated people here.

Now remember,  you were talking about CLASSICAL piano music.  Many people of all walks of life play the piano.  In fact, many country western fans can play quite a few popular pieces on the piano.  Keyboards are part of most musical groups, including rock and pop.

But you were talking about the future of CLASSICAL piano and that's what I'm answering.

Good luck to you--
 

[dinosaurtales]

If we are talking about Classical only, then I see it going one of two ways:

First, and (sadly) most likely, classical piano will become popular only amongst a small subset of people that will represent a fringe element in the musical world. With the world getting busier and more technical, getting "good" music will bcome easier and easier, to the extent that the amount of work required to perform at high levels simply won't be worth it - not enough money, when you can get music for cheap.  Also, at least in my neighborhood, the stats on grand piano ownership run like this:  a third of the people who buy pianos buy them for furniture only.  They have this perfect spot in their living room and the piano fits great there.  no need for a musical instrument.  The second one third buys grand pianos with the intent of taking lessons.  "they've always wanted to play the piano" and there's this perfect spot in their living room.....  Sadly, they never play.  The final third actually play the darned things.  That, combined with lessening of music in education, does not bode well for classical music as a mainstream item.

The other way it could go (hopefully) is that there is some sort of a resurgence in popularity, where the world of looking cool and acting cool is just not enough for one of the next generations, and classical music becomes an intreguing cool thing to do.  I don't hold out much hope of that, though.

[violinist]

I think we need to keep the young folks exposed to classical music.  Most of us enthusiasts like it because we were exposed to it at a young age.

Interestingly I have some young friends 15 year olds (well, kids of my colleagues) who are intrigued by their cell phone ring tones which have classical pieces on them.  I posted a question as to the origin of one that the youngster said.. that she loved this piece and would like to hear a piano version of it.  Sadly. nobody has come up with an answer as to what piece it is... it's called "nocturne" on the ring tone... it doesn't tell me more.  i posted a link to the actual ring tone in another thread under the miscellaneous folder.

Well, I hope to encourage classical music even if it's thru a Nokia ring tone.  Maybe you can help me?

https://www.savefile.com/files/5139842

[pianowelsh]

A lot of what you say would seem to be true. The fact that there are more pianos sold and a dwindelling classical music scene can also take us to another less perplexing conclusion however and that is that more people than ever are teaching themselves and also there has been a huge explosion in the number of people studying jazz and modern piano styles. Modern styles is a huge growth market and many teachers are now advertising that they teach jazz and pop and rock piano or Latin piano in addition to the  classical training (sometimes even instead of). This is running away particularly in the UK where several of the major exam boards even have separate exams for people following these routes.  Your point about people giving up after the first 2 years is an interesting one.  It has long been the case that people decide at this stage that the level of commitment is too much.  Today however it may be exacerbated by the fact that still many teachers insist upon pushing all their students down the firmly classical route when really their hearts desire is to make a totally different type of music on the piano. Many students dont really develop a taste for classical music until much later in their studies  and i wonder whether the fact that so many particularly boys stop learning the instrument after around 2 years of study is because they see that what they are learning in terms of repertoire is totally unrelated to their aspirations for their music making?  I was very fortunate to be brought up with a teacher who although providing a fairly firm base in the classical tradition allowed me to study show tunes and pop songs alongside this as well as jazzy duets. I believe a big problem in music is the way we sectionalise things into classical/pop/jazz... to my mind it really isnt helpful. Good music is always good music regardless of when it was written because it speaks something to us and communicates with us on some kind of extra sensory level (and kids arent an exception to this - they can be moved by music too! - in fact they are less good at hiding it when something takes them .ie. excitable piece or very sad piece - watch them! ) We should encourage our students to play 'broad' good music always but across a broad diversity of styles - they all inform eachother ultimately and broaden the students means of expression which can only be a good thing. In this way classical music is not seen as 'the only' way to learn music and people are less likely to feel excluded from classical music! Hope my musings spark some thoughts?!