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In this insightful guest article, best-selling author and teacher KAREN MARSHALL points to the continuing challenges faced by those whose childhood and education were disrupted by the pandemic, and offers powerful hope that through piano lessons, we can help rebuild that generation…
The Long Shadow, Lost Learning, and the New Reality
Back in 2023, when the dust was finally beginning to settle on those surreal lockdown years, I wrote a series of blog posts about “Post-Pandemic Piano Teaching” for the previous Musicroom site.
At the time, many of us hoped, and I was definitely one of them, that by 2026, the phrase “things will never be the same again” would have been a distant memory. Perhaps we imagined we would be back to business as usual, with the fallout of those disrupted years safely behind us?
Yet, standing here today in 2026, the reality on the ground, both as a classroom music teacher and a private piano teacher, tells a very different story. The landscape didn’t just temporarily shift; it permanently fractured.
When I first examined “lost learning” a few years ago, I focused on immediate, obvious gaps: the physical absence of live performance, the technical difficulties caused by internet lag during online lessons, and a sudden drop-off in fundamental musicianship due to the rise of performance-only digital exams.
Personally, I treated it like an emergency to be managed with quick-fix, pattern-dense repertoire, and short-term interventions. What I perhaps didn’t fully anticipate was just how long the shadow of the pandemic would be, or how unevenly its impact would be felt across society.
Understanding the Structural Gaps
As educators, we must look at this “lost learning” through a wider, more compassionate lens. The children who missed crucial early years development or primary-to-secondary transitions are now our older students, and for some, the foundational cracks run deep.
We are not just dealing with a temporary slip in progress anymore; we are teaching an entirely new generation of learners whose relationship with attention, socialising, and technology has been fundamentally rewired.
Crucially, this disruption was not experienced equally across the board. While some households had the space, resources, and stability to maintain seamless private tuition and quiet practice environments, others faced unprecedented economic and logistical hurdles.
To understand the scale of this, we can look to a report published by the UK Parliament House of Lords Library regarding access to music education. Their research highlighted a striking disparity: the attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils in music GCSE was found to be 20 months, the highest gap of any subject.
The report noted that instrumental tuition frequently requires families to meet additional costs, such as hiring or purchasing an instrument for home practice. For families working with tightly stretched household budgets, these cumulative pressures directly impact a child’s access to independent practice and sustained musical development.
When systemic realities dictate a student’s domestic environment, the discipline of home practice becomes an even higher hill to climb. Recognising this allows us to approach our students with deeper empathy, tailoring our expectations to their unique realities.
1. The Attention Hurdle: Dopamine vs. Delayed Gratification
Learning an instrument is, by its very nature, a process centred on delayed gratification. It involves slow, methodical labour before a satisfying result is achieved.
Today, however, many teachers report an uphill struggle when asking a child to sit for 20 minutes focusing on just a few bars of music. It is common to see concentration drop quickly, with students playing random notes even while the teacher is speaking.
This shift in engagement suggests that the immediate feedback loops of digital devices, and short-form video algorithms habituating brains to rapid cycles, can make the quiet, disciplined space of traditional piano practice feel unfamiliar and, for some, highly frustrating. When faced with a technical difficulty that cannot be resolved by a quick swipe, frustration sets in.
To help them navigate this, I’ve needed to reframe practice not as a monolithic chore, but as a series of micro-achievements, actively teaching students how to focus in a world designed to distract them. This means establishing an incremental framework that focuses on smaller milestones to build confidence and technical skills step-by-step, rather than overwhelming them.
2. Supporting Neurodiversity and Classroom Anxiety
Across the UK, there has also been a marked rise in students presenting with neurodiverse profiles, special educational needs, and heightened anxiety. The figures speak for themselves: up to 20% of UK children and young people now identify as neurodivergent. Furthermore, the number of children with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) has almost doubled over the last decade to over 5.3% of the school population.
In the teaching room, we see the reality behind these statistics every day. The prolonged isolation of the pandemic disrupted natural social development. Personally, I’ve found students struggling to speak comfortably in a room, or read facial expressions accurately, a lingering side effect of formative years spent behind masks.
Because young people missed these vital non-verbal cues, we can no longer presume a student automatically decodes our instructions or feedback. We need to communicate with absolute clarity, explicitly checking for understanding rather than relying on a nod.
Our roles have expanded; we are no longer just passing on musical mechanics, but coaching students in emotional regulation. Multi-sensory tools, structured routines, and an abundance of empathy have become the baseline of effective contemporary pedagogy.
For teachers looking for everyday pathways to support these unique minds, resources like Music and Neurodiversity (Collins Music) offer practical, supportive strategies.
3. Rebuilding Literacy: Notation vs. Imitation
One of the most profound structural cracks in this post-pandemic landscape is a fundamental divergence in how students process information. Because online lessons naturally forced a heavy reliance on visual imitation and quick, rote-learned patterns to keep students motivated across a screen, many structural reading skills were unintentionally left out.
In the classroom and in private practice I’ve noticed students are often less confident working out notation or problem-solving for themselves, simply asking, “What’s this?” or “Can you show me what to do?”.
We now see students who can play surprisingly complex pieces by ear or through muscle memory, yet struggle to decode a simple line of sight-reading. Their musical literacy has fallen out of step with their technical ability. This disconnect creates a dangerous ceiling: once the repertoire becomes too complex to memorise by ear, progress grinds to a halt, leaving the student feeling defeated.
As a teaching community, we have a wonderful opportunity to r help learners develop into full, rounded musicians, rather than just students that play the instrument. Rather than relying solely on quick-fix models that look good on a certificate, but leave the student stranded later on, we can collectively emphasise foundational reading skills.
In my teaching I’ve tried to deliberately slow down and treat note-reading and rhythmic security as essential core competencies. Using ongoing ‘easy play’ material or revisiting previously learnt material can play a vital part in consolidating reading skills and helping students become genuinely independent.
Ultimately, my goal is to answer the crucial question: what will they do when my pedagogical support isn’t there to carry them?
A New Paradigm for Progress
If the landscape has permanently changed, then perhaps our traditional definitions of “progress” must change with it? Success can no longer be measured solely by how quickly a student climbs the graded exam ladder, or by the sheer difficulty of their repertoire.
For a student battling chronic distraction or anxiety, spending three weeks mastering a single, beautiful four-bar phrase with proper tone and relaxed wrists is immense progress. Learning extensive repertoire in a range of styles, but at the same level of difficulty, is also a great win.
Embracing a holistic approach to teaching allows us to value the psychological wellbeing of the child just as much as their technical proficiency. By integrating aural work, creative improvisation, and contextual theory directly into the lesson, we can create a richer, low-pressure environment where music becomes a sanctuary from the frantic pace of digital life, rather than another source of stress.
Looking Ahead
The 2026 reality is undeniable: the long shadow of the pandemic is still with us, altering the very fabric of how our children think, feel, and learn. It is an exhausting landscape at times, demanding more patience, adaptability, and resourcefulness from us than ever before.
Yet, it also brings a profound opportunity. In an increasingly fragmented, hyper-stimulated world, the piano lesson remains one of the few places where a young person can experience the beauty of deep focus, personal connection, and the quiet joy of creating something beautiful with their own two hands.
We aren’t just teaching an instrument anymore; we are helping to rebuild a generation.
Karen Marshall is an experienced music educator, author, and neurodiversity specialist with over three decades of classroom, instrumental, and private piano teaching experience. Having recently completed secondary school teacher training, she has written over 30 publications, focusing on making music education accessible to all learners.
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