Jens Harald Bratlie's piano model for group tuition

Professor Jens Harald Bratlie at the Norwegian Academy of Music has more than 40 years’ experience of teaching the piano. At NAM he has been giving weekly one-toone lessons plus a monthly piano class. The students are given a great deal of control during the piano classes. In these classes the students teach each other, but due to the large number of students, only a few of them will actively participate each time.

As part of the small group project, Jens Harald was asked whether he would be interested in organising his piano lessons as a combination model incorporating one-to-one lessons and group lessons in the one and same week – without being allocated additional time. The project would run for one semester. The teacher was introduced to the horn model and could use it to organise his own lessons if he so wished. The teacher’s previous experience of group tuition was largely through his own piano classes.

The teacher opted for a model that saw the lesson divided into three parts, just as in the horn model, and where each student was usually given 20 minutes. He wanted the students to design the lessons and would usually assume the role of listener rather than that of an active participant. Other than that he did not “instruct” the students. However, the teacher wished to give the group lesson as a supplement to the one-to-one lessons so that the individual weekly lessons remained the same length as before. This meant that the students would continue to receive 60 minutes of one-to-one tuition every week.

He wanted to bring together students at different stages of their studies and with different personal characteristics. He justified his decision thus:

«... someone who might benefit from being part of a group, someone who might be the driving force of the group, and someone who might be a stabilising force within the group.»

The piano group was subsequently made up of three students at different stages of their studies. Two of them were bachelor students in their second and third years, and one student was a postgraduate.

The three students had received tuition for between thirteen and fifteen years before embarking on higher education. One of the students came from Eastern Europe, one from Sweden, and one from Norway.

The Eastern European student took up the piano before starting school and was 18 years of age when she arrived in Norway. Prior to moving to Norway she had

had two different teachers: one of them her long-standing teacher and the other for a couple of years. She says there was not much of a tradition for changing teachers in her home country, and there were relatively rigid practice routines in order to achieve the perfect result. However, her two teachers took different approaches to their teaching. According to the student, her first teacher knew little about piano playing, but she made her pupils shine and was very good with young children. Her second teacher began to address the technical shortcomings of the student and was a skilful piano teacher. This way the two teachers complemented each other, although the focus on technique did perhaps arrive rather late in her training. One teacher built the student’s self-confidence, while the other helped her perfect her technique. The student says she remembers little of what she learnt from her first teacher but a lot of what she learnt from her second. In hindsight she does not consider rigorous, closely supervised training in the early years to be a bad thing. Freedom of choice is good, but the rudimentary skills must be in place.

The Swedish student took up the instrument at the age of 10 and had studied under three teachers before enrolling at NAM. The three teachers were very different. The first gave little structure to the tuition. There was little focus on technique, and the student was given room to make his own decisions. The second teacher was almost like a mother to the student. The student found this teacher’s approach to be reassuring and good, but not meticulous enough. The third teacher was technically very good, and the student had now reached a level where he could benefit from tuition that focused on detail and perfection – a form of tuition he wished he had received a little earlier in his training.

The Norwegian student had mostly studied with one teacher before attending NAM. This teacher placed both technical and musical demands on the students, and they were given both one-to-one and group tuition. The students flourished under this teacher, they became friends, they performed for each other, they went on concert tours together, and they sought out other musical communities. The students found this a positive experience. However, in hindsight the student would have liked to have been put under more pressure as regards her piano studies.

Being placed in a group with students more advanced than her had been a good thing, giving her something to strive for.

The piano teacher did not give any specific instructions in terms of how the room should be set up. He placed a few chairs by the piano and his own chair in a corner.

The students chose to sit close to the piano, while the teacher positioned himself at a distance. This was a conscious demonstration by the teacher of his place and role in the teaching situation. He says the group lessons would have turned out differently had the students sat a distance away from the person performing, as is often the case in piano classes.

The teacher says:

«Logistics – preparing things in advance – are perhaps more important than we think.»

The teacher did not issue any instructions regarding critical and complimentary feedback, saying that he would expect his students to take a positive attitude towards each other in these types of situations. This approach worked well in the group, and the atmosphere was positive and informal.

The summary of lesson content (see fig. 4) shows that the students communicated primarily with each other and very little with the teacher. The teacher only got involved in the conversation when it became strictly necessary. Most of the time allocated to feedback was therefore split between the student members of the group.

The lessons would often start by the performing student’s presenting his/her piece and stating what he/she would like to receive feedback on. The interaction between the performer and student teachers was generally good. The students were enthusiastic, and they actively and positively involved themselves in the performances of their fellow students. The performer would often ask for feedback on very specific challenges in the piece, and the student teachers supplemented each other’s advice. The group found a format that appeared to satisfy all the participants.

All of the piano students were positive about the project. They benefited greatly from listening to feedback on their performances from fellow students. The Eastern European student particularly mentioned the transparency at NAM as well as the desire to make the students more independent by trying out new teaching models. She had little experience of such attitudes in her home country. She says:

«It can be that we were lucky and had the right people and right teacher in right place, but it definitely has to be like that. You are not alone with teacher and you are not with too many people. This is the perfect match. I am delighted.»

The student points especially to the challenges and benefits of being able to work in small groups where you cannot hide behind other students. Later in the interview she also describes how she has learnt to listen to and take on board the opinions of her peers, even if their views may differ from her own. She has also become less anxious about performing in front of others, and she considers her fellow students to be her friends from whom she can seek advice and guidance. She continues:

«All the piano players should learn to communicate..... When you have to do it, you have to find ways to say things..... You just sit there and it is very special that everyone in the group knows ways, how to work and how to practice. You usually have your own experience and it is nice to share it with friends. It is a good way.»

This student was also very satisfied with how the teacher chose to take a passive role in the discussions. Although he did not say much, it was still very important that he was there and could offer help when necessary.

One of the other students pointed to his own challenges in terms of speaking to and with others about issues concerning his own and others’ performances. He says:

«Having to say something, having an opinion about others, does not come naturally to me, but it was great to have to do it since it’s not something I would normally do. Sometimes it felt as if you had to have an opinion even when you didn’t, but things eventually got better and better. It’s a great way of gaining a bit of teaching experience.»

This student also says the one-to-one lessons with his teacher are good but that he also appreciates hearing other people’s views. He says he used to get quite nervous before these lessons, especially when he had not prepared particularly well. This student, too, appreciated the passive role of the teacher during the group lessons and said he only got involved when he felt it was absolutely necessary. The student therefore began to realise that his statements were valid, since the teacher did not intervene with additional comments. However, the student had to make a great effort to work out how to formulate his advice to fellow students in a constructive way.

The third student initially found it difficult to criticise her fellow students. She says:

«Then I realised that I’d said something useful and that I had something to offer. That was almost the best thing about it, being able to teach others ... And it’s been a really nice experience. I found that we supported each other in our piano playing. There was a positive energy. It’s great to be in the company of people I know wish me well. It lessens the competitive pressure at the Academy ... It’s strange how simple, practical moves actually work – placing the students in groups around the piano ... I feel that I’ve become more aware when listening and that I’ve become a better musician by listening to others. My ear has become better attuned in a way to different variations in sound etc., the way you sit, the way you look, the way you feel inside.»

She also said that with this model the students are given additional tuition on their principal instrument every week, which requires a greater effort in terms of preparing for every lesson. Her challenges, like those of her fellow students, have been that it is not always easy to put your thoughts into words. She found it challenging to give feedback that did not cause upset, but she still thinks this went well.

As mentioned previously, the piano teacher had experience of working with students in larger groups. The new element was that the groups now counted three students, with the dynamics that such a make-up entails. Small groups encourage closer contact, more direct feedback and more intimacy than larger groups. The piano teacher found the small groups to be a safe performance environment for the students. The teacher says:

«As performers we can perform for just about anyone and get very nervous about it. But in this setting, where there are fellow students present, I think the key thing is that there are so few of them, in order to create this dynamic, as I call it. Everything becomes so much more vibrant, the fact that you can talk and perform, almost like in a one-to-one lesson, and everyone can chip in without having to sit and wait for each other.»

The teacher found that the students used the group lessons as a trial arena in which to obtain feedback and perform pieces they had not yet perfected. In piano classes there is a different culture. There are many people present, and they are all expected to produce a good performance on which they will then be assessed.

According to the piano teacher, this represents three different instrumental teaching approaches that complement each other: the one-to-one lessons, the small group lessons, and the piano classes. A piano forum is also held in which the students are expected to present pieces that are almost ready for public performance. He describes the group lessons as a comfortable first step, a step that must not be too big. The piano class, on the other hand, is often perceived as a big step, and many of the students say they dread these classes. The composition of the groups is therefore very important in enabling the students to communicate well with each other.

Since the piano teacher has a large number of students, he found it relatively easy to form a group for trying out a group model. The biggest challenge was to decide on his own involvement in the group lessons. The teacher chose to take a back seat role during the lessons and to only intervene when necessary in order to change the direction of the lesson. He wanted his students to feel that this was their lesson and that they were responsible for how it progressed. He says:

The most important thing to this teacher was for the students to share their knowledge. He was not particularly bothered about the structure of the lessons. The students’ spontaneous reactions were the most important thing. A good learning environment is essential if such a teaching model is to succeed, and the group of students worked together to create such an environment.