As the academic year draws to a close and teachers look forward to the refreshing long summer break, there is a natural tendency to reflect, focusing on elements that have brought particular joy throughout the year, as well as those that, perhaps, have been less successful or have caused upset in some way.  I’m exploring the latter in this rather tongue-in-cheek post.

The Pencil. For me, it’s a necessity in a piano teacher’s life. There will be those teachers who never use them, but even if an iPad is utilised in a lesson as opposed to a physical score, the iPad’s electronic ‘pencil’ is still required to make those all-important practice notes and markings.

Making Notes

Note-taking becomes de rigueur during the piano lesson and is ever more important as a pianist progresses. All my students take or make notes in some form. These might range from a fingering change over a note or group of notes to emphasising particular phrasing, articulation or a change of pedalling. We also use them to make a note of metronome markings, and then change or upgrade those practice metronome tempi as a piece gradually becomes securely learned: I’m dead keen on these, and normally suggest up to three or four different practice speeds per piece every week.

I do sometimes write notes for students, but mine are never as good as their own: when a student writes reminders or pointers on a score or in a notepad, they will remember the meaning behind those notes and will, hopefully, recall what we did to generate them during the lesson, whereas, if I make the notes, there is no real emotional gravitas associated with them.

Younger students might pencil in a ‘smiley’ face or a pair of eyes to remind them to specifically listen or watch what they are doing at certain points in the music. These score markings signify a very personal journey, and it’s the reason why so many musicians look back on their early scores with fond memories: they cherish the heavily annotated layers of notes and markings on the music that they originally worked on with their teachers and mentors.

New students sometimes need some convincing before note-taking becomes a way of life for them. Then there’s the discussion about whether students should make their notes on a notepad or on the score. I like to make notes on the score as they can be easily ‘seen’ and reviewed during a practice session, but many prefer to write more substantial notes in their notebooks. (I once had a student who flatly refused to write anything on her ‘expensive’ score and was disgusted by my suggestions to deface it by writing in fingering.)

All this note marking and score writing requires THE pencil. Pens are not to be recommended as sometimes one needs to rub out markings and replace them. I’m not fussy about pencils per se. I have a stash of them on my desk at home and my handbags (or purses for those of you in the US) are always awash with them. On the few rare occasions when I have forgotten my pencil, students help me out and step in with their own.

The Disappearing Pencil

Recently, my pencils have been going missing. This isn’t to say that they’ve been taken, although it does occasionally happen. But this isn’t a worry as they nearly always return to me. When a student runs off with a pencil, usually because they have become attached to it during the lesson and have simply put it in their bag alongside their music, it often mysteriously reappears the following week: it’ll almost certainly be lying around somewhere where I work.

What really bothers me though, is when pencils disappear inside the piano. Unsuspecting students will use a pencil, keep it in their hand whilst simultaneously fiddling with the lid (on a grand piano) and then accidentally drop the pencil. It flies through the little opening which occurs as the piano lid is pulled forward and away from the instrument (before it fully closes) and said pencil is gone forever, or rather until a piano tuner is able to retrieve it by releasing the piano lid. This particular issue happens repeatedly, and I lost two pencils in one day a few months back…

However, my pencil woes came to a head last month whilst I was working with a student on Fazil Say’s wonderfully evocative piece ‘Black Earth’. To play this piece, which is generally only possible on a grand piano, one needs to remove the music desk completely, as it requires the pianist to reach into the piano, damp or mute a particular set of strings with their left hand and play the haunting Turkish folk melody central to this piece, with their right hand: this gives off a ‘buzzy’ or metallic ‘twang’ which captures the sound of the traditional Turkish lute. (Do listen to Fazil Say’s own performance of his piece at the end of this post.)

My pupil, who is preparing ‘Black Earth’ for her diploma exam, was, true to form, busy marking the score with a pencil as we worked our way through the piece. As she turned the page of the score, which was partly resting on the piano strings and iron frame, because the music desk had gone, she unwittingly dropped the pencil down into the strings. It eventually came to rest just beyond our reach, actually under the strings, and was sitting alongside some of the hammers.

The resulting ‘thud’ and ‘clatter’ as several of the lower notes were subsequently played was certainly memorable. And to make matters worse, I had intended to make a recording on that instrument straight after the lesson. The piano tuner had to be called to rescue the pencil and the piano’s integrity, but as he didn’t show up for a day or so, that was the end of my recording session.

After relaying my ongoing pencil ‘issues’ to one of my long-standing students, she so kindly turned up to the following lesson with a rather elegant pack of Steinway & Sons pencils (see photo at the top of the post). It seems that Steinway also appreciates the importance of THE pencil. I’ll try to keep these from going astray…

To purchase the score of ‘Black Earth’, published by Schott Music, click here.