What does it mean to “gather with intention” when saying goodbye to long-time students? In this heartfelt episode, I share reflections, practical ideas, and meaningful rituals for the final piano lesson—celebrating growth, affirming identity, and creating a memorable close to your students’ musical journey.
[Audio will be added within 24 hours]
Items Mentioned and Other Related Content
- Support the podcast
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- The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker
- PianoPantry.com/notion
- PianoPantry.com/retreat
- PianoPantry.com/digital
- Rebekah Maxner: Diddle-Um-Pum-Pum
- PianoPantry.com/birthday
- GET15 for 15% off through May 13, 2025
- #21 A Simple, Effective, and Magical Element for Student Evaluations
Transcript
Several years ago, a teacher friend recommended a book that’s stuck with me ever since—The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker. I’m not an event planner, but I’ve always loved bringing people together, and this book changed the way I think about how we gather—not just for big events, but for the small, quiet ones too.
That idea of “gathering with intention” has been on my mind again this spring because I’ve been in an unusual season in my studio. After 14 years of teaching, I’m saying goodbye to four students who are graduating or wrapping up their studies with me after as many as 12 years.
Four students at once—that’s a first. The closest I’ve come was back in 2020, when I had three girls graduate in the same year. The difference is they had all 3 been with me HALF the amount of time as this year’s kids have.
Saying goodbye to that many students at once has got me thinking about this idea of gathering with intention, even with one other person, as in a final piano lesson. Despite having taught these students for 5, 11, 11, and 12 years, I felt this sudden franticness to reflect on two things:
- Have I taught them everything I wanted them to know before I released them from my hands and into the world as pianists on their own?
- What should we do in that final lesson to mark the moment and bring our time together to a close in a meaningful way?
In today’s episode, we’re looking at the list I started scratching out in the days leading up to these students’ final lessons. Now I’ll admit, what I did in their lessons wasn’t perfect, but my hope is that what I’ve thought through and shared with you today will inspire you are your approach your students final moments with both intention and peace.
A Quick Note Before We Dive In
Speaking of gathering with intention, there are three opportunities coming up to join an intentional gathering of teachers who are spending intentional time organizing their digital lives to feel less scattered and frazzled.
First up is the Organize Your Life with Notion Workshop, Wednesday, May 7, 14, and 21, 2025, from 12:30pm-2:30pm Eastern Time. This is a workshop I’m putting on with Joy Morin. There’s also a bonus session on June 4 from 12:30pm-1:30pm. If you’re ready to have one centralized location for managing your life and studio in a way that is designed exactly for your needs as a teacher, this workshop is for you. Visit PianoPantry.com/notion today to register.
The second event is the in-person digital organization retreat being held in my home in Indiana, May 28 – May 31, 2025. If you can swing the travel, I highly recommend doing the in-person version of this digital coaching even more than the online one.
It’s an absolute game changer when you can not only step away from your daily life and have three entire days focused on reorganizing your space, but even better yet, have me, your coach, sitting next to you making sense of what’s going on with your digital mess—whether it be your files, email, or media. Visit PianoPantry.com/retreat for more details.
Lastly, is the online summer version of the digital organization coaching series, for those of you who travel to the retreat is not feasible, which will be held on Mondays, June 2 to July 7, from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm Eastern Time. Registration will open soon, but for now, get details and join the waitlist at PianoPantry.com/digital
When the Final Lesson Comes Sooner Than Expected
April always flies by, but this year felt even faster. One of my students, who’s heading to college for music, was suddenly given her audition date. We had to shift into high gear, doubling up on lessons to prepare, which meant her final lesson with me came weeks earlier than expected.
That sudden acceleration hit me hard, not because I felt the need to cram more into our time, but because it brought everything into focus. This was it.
I found myself asking:
- “What have I really given her?”
- “What is she walking away with?”
- “Have I taught her the tools that will help her stay musically connected for the rest of her life?”
There’s no perfect checklist, but there are some core functional skills I hope each student walks away with—not just technical ability but the kind of skills that let them keep music in their lives in real, everyday ways.
What I Hope They Leave With
This isn’t about students who took lessons for a few years and moved on. I’m talking about those who’ve been with us long-term—who’ve tackled Intermediate and Late Intermediate repertoire, and maybe even dabbled in Early Advanced works.
I’m not covering every corner of skills here, so don’t hold me to a perfect list, but just considering a list of things that stand out to me that are good, solid, foundational, functional skills, I hope they leave with:
- Playing from lead sheets or chord charts with simple accompaniment patterns
- Comfort accompanying a singer, including giving a short intro or outro
- Two-octave scales, arpeggios, chord progressions, and inversions in all major and minor keys (to the extent appropriate for their level)
- A basic understanding of different types of chords you encounter in chord charts, including 7ths, suspended chords, extended chords, and how they function in various tonalities.
- Know how to navigate the Circle of Fifths—and how they can use it to find primary and secondary chords in every key.
- Be able to feel and recognize the difference between duple, triple, and uneven meters
- Be able to hear when a chord changes, singing the resting tone, octave jumps, and chord root progressions such as I-IV-V-vi ascending and descending.
- Hearing the difference between a leading tone and a subtonic.
- Playing a simple choral-style warm-up with tonic-dominant bass movement up and down the keyboard
As I said, these are some if the important skills I want them to know to be functional pianists in everyday life. Now let’s look at what to do during that final lesson.
The Final Lesson Isn’t for Cramming—It’s for Celebrating
Of course, the final lesson isn’t the time to teach all of this—it’s the time to honor what they already know. It’s a moment to say, “Look how far you’ve come.”
You might pull out a book they used five years ago and have them play through a few pieces—now with ease. Or run through a technical pattern like chord progressions or scales in the Circle of Fifths and marvel at how fluid they’ve become.
Make this a special moment without making it heavy, which brings me to some fun little ideas for you.
Don’t Forget the Silly Things
A few years ago, one of my studio moms, with four kids in lessons, asked if I could teach them some of those silly little tunes to play together at home. I was like, “Of course! Why haven’t I been doing that already?”
I’ve always been a big advocate for students learning and always being able to play Happy Birthday at the drop of a hat, but I had never thought about ensuring they can play the silly tunes like Heart and Soul and the Shave and a Haircut ending — if not the whole Diddle-Um-Pum-Pum.
I had just assumed kids picked those up naturally in life, but I’ve learned that’s not always the case, especially these days. So now, I’m going to make more of a point of including them.
Speaking of, my teacher friend Rebekah Maxner from Nova Scotia, Canada, has a resource for teaching Diddle-Um-Pum-Pum on her website, which I’ll link to in the show notes.
I’ve also recently gone through a big update of the Happy Birthday By Ear resource first published in 2021 on my website. This interactive guide will walk you and your students through the process of learning the tune by ear, adding supporting harmony in a progressive way, filling in the accompaniment as students’ skills grow, adding introductions and endings, and gives lots of ideas for getting creative with it like playing it in minor tonality, switching from triple to duple, and even trying out Mixolydian Tonality. Visit PianoPantry.com/birthday to check out that newly improved resource. Use Code GET15 get 15% off at checkout through Tuesday, May 13, 2025.
Affirmation and Reflection
Finally, let’s try to end the lesson with something even more important than musical skills: words of affirmation.
Whether it’s written or, better yet, spoken directly to them while you look them in the eye—speak genuine words of affirmation about what you see in them. It could be their joyful spirit, their ability to hold a good conversation, their grit and tenacity for learning, their special musicality, their strong ear for music, or even just how much their ear has improved for music. Find at least two or three things you can share with them to lift them up.
This is also a good time to take a moment to look back at their time with you. If you keep photos or videos from over the years, pull a few out and reflect together on past lesson experiences. As we all know, it can be hard in the moment to see our progress, but if you can document it over the years for students in video clips, it makes it come alive so much more.
I first talked about this process in episode #21 A Simple, Effective, and Magical Element for Student Evaluations, if you would like to catch more on that idea.
Wrapping Up
Whether your student has been with you for five years or twelve, I hope you’ll take a moment to pause, reflect, and gather with intention in your student’s final lessons.
Celebrate what they’ve learned, speak truth into who they are, and take a moment to help them look back before they look forward. You’re not just ending a chapter—you’re setting them up to move into the next one.
Thanks for being here today. If you are enjoying this podcast, I invite you to leave a 5-star rating and review in your podcast app. Better yet, if you would like to take that a step further, you can support the podcast on Patreon for as little as $4 a month.
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