Cheri Robartes has been teaching piano for more than 40 years. But it wasn’t until the last few weeks that she experienced what it was like to instruct students who aren’t sitting on the bench next to her.
The Warwick resident and Berklee College of Music graduate, who usually teaches from a studio she rents in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester, has been getting used to teaching one-on-one piano lessons over video chat.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Robartes has scaled back her business model and closed the Boston studio. She will continue teaching students locally, and may even continue online lessons for students who choose to do so. This was something she had considered before the pandemic began, but Robartes officially made the decision a few days ago.
“I began thinking of closing the studio to save money on the commute and the rent,” Robartes explained.
After moving to Warwick eight years ago, she continued to drive into the city to spend three or four days a week teaching students. Robartes said she has an average of 40 students, and at one point she was teaching as many as 65 students per week.
Before deciding to roll back lessons in Boston, Robartes asked her students and their parents if they would be interested in continuing lessons virtually. This would maintain the relationship with her students without her having to commute. Unfortunately, most of the parents “very nicely” said they wouldn’t be interested in virtual lessons becoming permanent.
“Some parents think they need someone next to their child on the bench,” she said.
Robartes agreed with the benefits of in-person lessons, saying “the thing about piano lessons that can be wonderful for a kid is the one-on-one aspect.” She also acknowledged there are some cons to online learning. For example, lag time in a video chat has proved to be an adjustment.
“It’s tough as their fingers move at a different time and speed than the music comes through,” she explained.
Most of her students start learning piano at as young as 4 years old. Some of her students have continued lessons for years, and some have gone on to achieve professional music careers.
“The method I use is different from traditional methods,” Robartes said.
She explained that her methods work well with young students, as well as for teaching students who have learning disabilities. Students don’t dive into trying to read music, and they quickly start learning to play with both hands. Traditional instructors, she said, will teach students to start playing with a single hand.
These traditional methods aren’t always the best approach for young students, she said, in part because they involve keeping children on the piano bench for extended periods of time. Her method of teaching breaks up the lessons and incorporates games that teach music theory, rhythm and note reading.
“The kids love it,” she said.
In her earlier years teaching, Robartes was a single mother who homeschooled her children. She said this led, in part, to her own children building careers as musicians. Her son, Tony Rymer, is a professional cellist who lives in Berlin, Germany. Her daughter, Marta Rymer, is a violinist and musical theater performer in New York City.
Robartes is currently working on a textbook for piano majors who may be interested in pursuing a teaching career, rather than becoming a professional performer. The book will outline her teaching methods in hopes they will be carried forward.
“Most people who have become decent musicians learned through traditional methods,” Robartes said. “Because they learned well from it, that’s how they teach.”
When she taught traditionally, Robartes said almost 95 percent of her students would stop taking lessons because they had difficulty learning. It would require students to try to learn how to read music on their first day of lessons, which can be difficult.
“If they can’t get it all right away they can feel like they are trying to catch up,” Robartes said. “They’re reading dots on a page that are really a foreign language.”
Now, with her own methods of teaching, only about 5 percent of her students drop off their lesson plan. Some students will continue their lessons virtually, Robartes suspects, to maintain the relationship she built with them and their parents, which is her favorite aspect of teaching.
“I feel like I’m doing something right by giving the kids another way to build pride in themselves,” she said. “Even after their first lesson, kids are proud. … It’s fulfilling. It’s my life’s work.”
Anyone interested in taking piano lessons with Robartes can email crobartes@gmail.com.
Zack DeLuca can be reached at zdeluca@recorder.com.