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Elton Joel RW2 2'25
With apologies to them both. A rock piano solo without lyrics.
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Elegy RW2 2'25
Many, many parts to weave and balance - needs ensemble skills, even though it's for solo piano.
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Snowflakes RW2 2'25Recording (mp3, 0.9MB)
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The Art of the Interview back to magazine homepage
Introduction | Testing Creativity | Verbal Instructions | Swapping chairs
The Practice Snapshot | Concert in 10 minutes | Turnaround Time
Swapping chairs
The nature of the interview process means that you'll rarely be seeing the prospective student at their comfortable best—they've never met you before, and have probably just had a "Timmy, be on your best behavior" earful from their parents in the car.
Obviously you want to be screening students carefully, but sitting them down and asking them questions as though they're an unemployed jail escapee suitor for your only daughter is not the way forward. Unfortunately though, that's often how interviews run—we ask questions, they answer, without a trace of a smile and their hands on their knees, as though posing for a Victorian photograph, and looking periodically to their parents with "help me" on their eyes. One tactic is to sidestep the "interview" style entirely, and turn the whole process into a lesson instead, but with one important twist:You're going to be the student. They're going to teach you.
Teach me something
Make a big deal out of swapping chairs with them—they get to sit in the teaching chair, you're going to sit or stand wherever the student normally would. Their job then is to talk you through something. How to hold your instrument. How to tap the rhythm measures 24-28 of the piece that's on the music stand. How to work out a good starting tempo for this adagio waltz.
As part of the process, you'll be able to ask questions, but it's not as an interrogator—it's in the guise of someone seeking clarification, or needing additional help. So instead of the interview style "Tell me what 4/4 time means", you can point at the score and ask:
"These numbers here...I'm not so sure...I think they're for my counting, but why do I need two of them?"
As the teacher, they'll explain it as best they can, and you'll end up with a great insight into their understanding of the issue. But more importantly, you'll learn a lot about how easy they will be to work with. Were they patient with your questions? Were they able to explain it in another way when you looked confused, or are they limited to simply repeating the same phrases? Were they quick to volunteer information you didn't ask for, or do you have to lead the witness throughout?
At the end of 5 minutes of being their student, you'll learn more than you would have in 30 minutes of interview style questions.
Giving them a chance to fix something broken
Another technique is to give them the score and play the piece for them...but not very 
well. Vary your tempos. Make your tone overly harsh, or your intonation suspect. Misread rhythms or ignore dynamics. Then, having played them this mess, ask them to give you advice to make it better—you'd fix whatever they talk about, but keep any broken elements that they don't mention.
The whole exercise provides a powerful insight into which musical elements are on their musical self-help radar. Did they notice that you were gradually speeding up? Can they tell when you're creeping towards a quarter tone flat? Or that your breaths between phrases are overly noisy?
Obviously you're letting them know that you're role-playing here—you don't want them thinking that their new teacher actually performs like that. But once it's clear that there's a game afoot here, seeing you mess up like that is enormously disarming, and will warm up even the most recalcitrant of students.