The Payam Method:

thepianoplayer416

An Iranian immigrant in the US started a new piano learning method as featured in the CBS news magazine "60 Minutes". Payam is planning to fanchise his learning method across the US.

The 13 minutes TV segment got criticisms from "traditional" music teachers music taught in the traditional way is not supposed to be fun.
Jonathan Roberts (South Shore Piano School) posted a video:

Meighan posted a video:

navindra

thepianoplayer416 I have to admit I was intrigued when I first watched the 60 minutes video.

The rebuttals are pretty long though, so I haven't watched them yet.

ShiroKuro

thepianoplayer416 thanks for posting these videos. I saw this kind of low up on a few Gacebook piano groups I follow. I haven’t watched the Meghan one yet, but I will.

My reaction to the 60 Minute segment was as follows: First, the method is a little short on details. Second, I’m not a fan of approaches that overemphasize fun. Certainly some aspect should be fun, but I feel like we set learners up to devalue learning if we give them the impression that it’s ok to dislike something if it’s not fun. But third, anything that creates buzz around learning the piano is all to the good.

So that was my reaction after watching the 60 Minute segment, but then I watched the South Shore Piano School video and realized that the 60 Minutes segment is one big long infomercial, with no investigative journalism (as there should be with that show). Also there are big money backers behind the Payam method and the whole thing about not announcing their product launch until after the show aired is pretty suspect.

-_-

MRC

There's nothing new here. The world of piano teaching is huge, rich and varied, and you can find thousands of piano teachers past and present who make use of methods similar to those of this guy.

He's probably a good teacher, but he has not invented a revolutionary method. Pretending he has done so, and marketing the supposed new method with his name on it, are distasteful to me.

thepianoplayer416

1 "traditional " teacher described the music in Payman's method as "New Age". Over the years, many learning methods co-exisist. The Payam method isn't new but repackaging of existing methods.

Like many alternative learning methods, Classical music is optional or completely off the list. A few decades ago Scott Houston hosted 2 TV series on PBS "Scott the PIano Guy" & "Piano in a Flash". Both are teaching people Jazz & Pop. The main selling point is that traditional lessons are boring and led to the high dropout rate which many traditional teachers dispute.

From a marketing point of view, very few investors would put money into a learning method that focuses on the music of dead composers (Classical).

ShiroKuro

P.S. I never really saw too much about Scott the Piano Guy (I think I was still living in Japan when his show came out) but I didn’t really have a bad impression of him, just that his method wasn’t for me.

I think one of the problems with Payam is that it feels like he’s thrashing other teachers (and this is what people in the piano teachers Facebook group really complained about). My memory of Scott was that his main selling point was something more like “if other methods/reading-centric methods didn’t work for you, this approach will.” And that’s a pretty big difference.

thepianoplayer416

ShiroKuro
The main selling point of Scott Houston is playing alternative styles of music using lead sheets. He claimed traditional method reading off 2 staffs is too difficult for adult learners as long as we stick to simplified sheet music with melodies & chords. Following sheet music note for note is not a creative way to learn music.

Alternatives exist for the reason that not everybody has the inclination or discipline to learn the "traditional" way. Some teachers appeal to students by staying away from Classical (music of dead composers) entirely. Suzuki that came out of Japan in the middle of the last century is an alternative that focuses on Classical music. For investors who know nothing about music and probably didn't learn piano for many years would find the Payam approach attractive. Watching students play music with enthusiasm instead of practice exercises, winning competitions are all good for marketing. Student can have fun playing the music they hear on the radio growing up than pieces by Beethoven, Mozart or Chopin that may not appeal to them.

I've seen young people who tried piano for a few years and gave up. Some people feel that playing an instrument is not for them. Regarless of the learning approach is going to convince them to give piano another try.

iternabe

I really enjoyed watching that first rebuttal 😉

Gombessa

I've been following this with fascination, there's always a little thirst for drama, right? My main thoughts:

Payam aside, the way 60 Minutes approached this is incredibly questionable. There is zero "investigative" in this journalism, and whether it's even journalism is highly suspect. The CEO claimed 60 Minutes asked them to hold off on announcing Hans Zimmer's involvement until their piece aired. That just blew my mind--it's a marketing campaign.
"96% reach diploma in 4 years." 60 Minutes couldn't have pressed on what this means? 9 out of 10 toddlers starting at 3 years old have reached diploma level by the time they are 7? Clearly this isn't ABRSM associate music performance diploma, right?
I've never heard of the PTA Reflections competition before, but I don't really follow the piano competition circuit. I think this is the only competition mentioned in the segment.
The article constantly emphasizes "fun/pieces you actually love to play," but I don't think it ever describes what those pieces are? Do the teachers ask the students what music they like, and create learning arrangements for those specific pieces? From the segment, I didn't get the sense they do.

I'm definitely interested in learning more about how this develops, but similar to other revolutionary developments announced in such a way (e.g., the Donut Lab solid state EV battery), I'm just immediately put on guard and "will believe it when I see it."

ShiroKuro

Good comments all around, @Gombessa

Gombessa I've never heard of the PTA Reflections competition before, but I don't really follow the piano competition circuit. I think this is the only competition mentioned in the segment.

I can't remember where I learned this (maybe the South Shore Piano School video?) but I think that this competition isn't even a piano-specific competition, it's like an overall arts competition. So to me, that really changes the import of this component to their "selling points" list.

iternabe

ShiroKuro I can't remember where I learned this (maybe the South Shore Piano School video?) but I think that this competition isn't even a piano-specific competition, it's like an overall arts competition. So to me, that really changes the import of this component to their "selling points" list.

The second rebuttal video by Meghan The Piano Teacher addressed this (at the 9:50 mark). Of the 300,000 submissions PTA Reflections competitions receives each year, only 15% are for music composition. The rest are for things like poetry, short story, dance choreography, visual art, etc. The 45,000 music composition entries and each local, regional, and state devision is judged completely separately. She estimated for Washington state about 2,250 competitors. If Payam's 41 students swept the competition in a field of 2,250, that's still a big achievement. But inflating that to 41 against 300,000 is just disingenuous.

LifelongBeginner

So many things wrong with that piece. Shame on 60 Minutes. I know they do occasional puff piece human interest stories and I don't expect them to grill Payam (who seems nice and possibly a wonderful teacher) like he's the Speaker of the House, a defense contractor, or even an entertainment celebrity. This is definitely not meant as one of their investigative pieces, but it shouldn't be transparent advertising either.

So tired of investors saying they want to "disrupt" or "revolutionize" an industry as part of some high minded philosophical position, when to me it sounds more like "clear out competition and grab more market share."

thepianoplayer416

Alternatives exist because some people don’t like traditional lessons with a stronger focus on Classical music.

A lot of hype & marketing to convince people they don’t need to learn pieces by Beethoven or Mozart if they just want to play songs they hear on the radio. Those into Classical often think of Pop music as loud & repetitive lacking complexity. At the same time Pop music allows for improvisation that following the score.

A video discussion from Robert Estrin:

LifelongBeginner

And Bach Scholar did a video critique too. Looks like it's making the rounds. But the videos from Jonathan Roberts and Meghan the Piano Teacher above are still the best. I highly enjoyed both. Reddit has a few critiques also. Not sure why I keep watching...it just makes me more annoyed at 60 Minutes. I think they're ripe for some satire...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's a fairly safe bet that most kids taking ice skating lessons utterly HATE them, finding it a miserable, dreadful slog that culminates in a hospitalization from trying to impale themselves with a skate blade.

That was certainly my experience...I'm Bill Whitaker. I took ice skating from age 2 to 46. That's forty-two long years of ice skating lessons, but because I didn't continue it with the same intensity and discipline every day since, I'm going to consider the whole endeavor a big failure experience.

But one man is trying to change that. His name is Amaze-o. I think you'll find his name appropriate when you see his unique method:

[cut to Amaze-o in an ice rink with a skating student and Bill Whitaker. Amaze-o is writing on the ice with a marker]

Bill: Wow, are you actually writing down there with a...[looks to camera operator] Can we get a close-up of that? This is great stuff.

Student: Why use a dry-erase marker on ICE? I can't even read-

[Bill covers student's mouth and talks over him]

Bill: That is simply incredible! Who would have ever thought to do that?!?

Amaze-o: It gets better. See I've written a #1 on the ice, but now on his skate....[writes "#2". Gives skate back to student]. Now I'd like you to wear the skates, and simply put 1 to 2...get it? Put 1 and 2 together. 1 and 2 make 3...and #3 is skating!

[student awkwardly holds the skates in his hand, gets on all fours and crawls on the ice, stumbling several times]

Amaze-o: Um, that's good, but you should probably-

Bill: I get it...those pathetic traditional instructors would insist the student wear the skates on their feet!

Amaze-o: Exactly, but we're about creativity here. Traditional instructors are like dementors who want ice-skating to be a dull, soulless, joy-draining hellscape-

[Student falls again, essentially belly flopping on the ice. It looks painful]

Bill: Did you see that? What a great improvisation. And I hear your students have won several ice skating awards?

Amaze-o: Kind of. It's actually a limerick contest. Entrants write dirty limericks about a topic of their choice, and 41 of my students wrote limericks about ice skating--

Bill: that sounds like a skating award to me! Suck it, traditional ice skating instructors!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOTE: I don't intend to mock any of the students, or even Payam. But I do want to insult and laugh at 60 Minutes.

ShiroKuro

LifelongBeginner It's actually a limerick contest.

🤣🤣🤣

thepianoplayer416

Over a decade ago when I started piano, read an article online by the President of Kawai America Corp. He wanted his son to learn piano. After a few lessons the young man decided to play baseball as an extracurricular activity. Not because he liked sports but to have something to fill up his time so that his parents wouldn't ask him to play piano. Parents often enrol kids in music lessons thinking that if they get good at it, they're going to enjoy it. The reverse is also true if you're not good at something, you wouldn't enjoy the experience.

People get into / quit piano for different reasons. Teachers who offer traditional lessons don't do much advertising. Piano lessons are always available when you're ready. Quit at any time when you feel piano is not for you. Even traditional approaches to learning change over time but more gradually in subtle ways.

People like myself who are adult learners are not overly concerned with taking conservatory level exams (ABRSM / RCM), playing in a recital or entering a local competition. Many of my teacher's students are adults, some retired. We learn piano at a leisurely pace.

Alternative methods promote themselves more heavily. The focus is having fun from day 1 that you want to keep on playing. If you tried piano before and didn't enjoy the experience, we can make you like piano. And methods that advertise themselves as revolutionary have limited exposure to Western Classical music or avoid it entirely. And students get instant gratifications they're able to learn songs in days or weeks instead of months & years.

Half a century ago the Suzuki method claimed to be revolutionary while focuses on learning Classical pieces. You see promotional videos featuring many violin students playing "Twinkle Variations" and other pieces in sync (perfect harmony). Their videos makes you want to find out more about Suzuki.

The last thing we see is students at ease playing in front of other people. Payam students seem to enjoy playing in front of the CBS 60 Minutes host. There are people who had taken lessons for years and would only play for themselves or practice in private. People who are enrolled in Suzuki or Yamaha would have a year-end recital to get to the next level so performing is be part of the learning program.

There is not 1 perfect teaching method for everybody. Only time will tell if the Payam method would attract many students. Criticisms aside, it's a pilot project. The details can change.