Group Plink

For 5,000,000 American kids, the return to school means more than seasonal submission to classroom and homework. It means piano lessons, too--usually lonely sessions with a private teacher once a week. But for a fast-growing number of youngsters from 6 to 18, the once dreaded struggle with sharps and flats is now as lively as a trip with the gang to the soda fountain. Well, almost. The burgeoning category of "group" activities--from groupthink to group therapy--now includes the newest wrinkle in piano teaching: group plink. Items:

> In a suburban Cleveland shopping center last week, Piano Teacher Betty Belkin guided eight children, aged 8 and 9, through an hour's class in which the children played duets, transposed songs into different keys, ran through their own compositions at the keyboard.

> At the Victor H. Hexter Elementary School in Dallas, eight boys in the fourth and fifth grades passed up gym class for Rachel Ball's group piano class, sat down at four pianos and gave a passable joint rendition of America the Beautiful, reading the music for the first time.

> In Parkville, Mo., Mrs. Elizabeth Cormier divided her class of four students, aged nine to 13, into teams labeled Yankees and Reds, scored the teams for their ability to pick out errors in their classmates' playing, their success in identifying notes, and their own work. The Reds won.

Each of these teachers was a follower of Robert Pace, 37, a dynamic concert pianist and teacher, and the country's foremost advocate of group lessons. At Columbia's Teachers College in Manhattan, where he is head of piano instruction,

Pace has drilled 1,000 student teachers during the last eleven years; another 25,000 have been exposed to his techniques in piano workshops he has conducted in 45 states. Now group piano instruction is offered in schools from Dallas, where 73 of the city's 125 elementary schools have more than 4,000 students enrolled in classes, to Harlem's P.S. 119 in Manhattan, as well as by private teachers.

Piano Parties. Group instruction is less a method than a philosophy; it is based on the theory that a group provides the stimulation and fruitful competition lacking in more solitary endeavors. "Music is a social art," says Pace. "I hate to see a child practice in isolation all year long, preparing finally for a recital in which he is apt to play badly. If Rubinstein hits a bunch of clinkers in Carnegie Hall, he doesn't disintegrate; he keeps on going."

Critics of group instruction dismiss it as mere gimmickry that de-emphasizes discipline and overlooks outstanding individual talents. When Joan Geilfuss, a Pace student, divided her group classes in Charleston, S.C., into teams to liven things up, traditionalists spoke scornfully of her "piano parties." But Joan could scarcely have cared less. Last year not one of her 35 students dropped out, although the estimated dropout rate for children who take up piano playing in the U.S. is over 30% after the first year.

Terror of Black. To turn students into something more than what Pace calls "finger wigglers," group teachers plunge their students quickly into harmony, ear training, sight reading and improvisation instead of emphasizing recital pieces and finger drills. "It's like teaching a child to swim before he gets afraid of the water," says Pace. "Most children get middle C-itis by playing only a sea of white keys for so long. They're terrified of black keys. They think that any composer who uses sharps and flats is just being mean."

For fees ranging from $100 to $200 a year, group teachers generally offer two lessons a week, one with two or three students, the other with ten or twelve. Most groups use two or more pianos, interlace individual student workouts on the keys with duets or quartets to sharpen sight reading and harmony skills. "Group teaching is not 60 minutes sliced into ten-minute sections, one for each of six students," says Betty Belkin. "It takes planning, and you've got to know what you're going to do long before the group comes to the studio." Emulating Pace, most group teachers use flash cards to drill students in key signatures, and divide their kids into "teams" to keep competitive spirit high. "You have to know the work cold," says Pace. "We don't dawdle. A good class bounces."

At his Mount Kisco, N.Y., studio, Pace and an assistant handle 40 students--including Pace's own four children, aged six to twelve--who get no chance to dawdle. At one recital, a seven-year-old girl rippled off a lullaby in the key of F, played it again, at Pace's request, in E and in Aflat. When one of his students was asked to play The Star-Spangled Banner at elementary school, she flustered her teacher by asking "In what key?"

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