Piano Lessons for Adult Piano Students
Having my studio robbed has confirmed many of my piano teaching principles
I know this is strange way to make lemonade out of lemons, but being burglarized this past weekend has served to validate many of the ideas I have used successfully when teaching adult piano students. Weird, but wonderful. (more…)
Predicting the Future is Usually Dicey but I Do See the Trends
I’ve been teaching piano now full-time since October of 1987. I began as most teachers do – traveling to my students’ homes. Later, I found space to teach at a local piano dealership. A few years ago I decided to limit my practice to adult and teen-aged students. This year I’m focusing my attention to the Internet. I give you this history to convince you that I might just be able to see “the handwriting on the wall” regarding piano education. (more…)
A Comparison of Online Piano Lessons and Live Piano Teaching
2008 was a very interesting year for me. I’ve spent these last many months experimenting with methods of teaching piano and keyboard students online. My goal was to find out if I could achieve the same level of success with online students that I enjoy with my “live” clients. This past year has also seen the enormous growth of all sorts of Internet piano teaching activities. For instance, there is “youtube” where wanna-be professional piano teachers have posted tons of videos supposedly covering every aspect of piano education. Additionally, piano teachers of all stripes have created websites to promote their “special methods” of piano and music instruction. (more…)
Separating Effective from Ineffective Online Piano Lessons
I’ve been online examining what is there and realized that I need to comment on the vast array of free adult piano lessons, piano videos, paid piano instruction, etc. It’s high time I did, from my perspective as a teacher of adult piano students, an author of books on adult piano, and a professional performer with several decades experience. (more…)
Separating Effective from Ineffective Online Piano Lessons
We have seen why and how treating the adult piano student as if they were a child will not help the adult learn piano, either via online piano lessons or with a live teacher. Hopefully, I have made it clear that by separating out what doesn’t work to train adult piano students that we can zero in on what does. These essays are not just a “complaint session.” (more…)
Separating Effective from Ineffective Online Piano Lessons
In the last essay, we read about lessons that treat adult piano students in such a manner that the lessons really don’t help adult pianists fulfill their goals with the piano, whether such lessons are live or online. Unfortunately, my experience tells me that this is the most common approach taken here at the start of the 21st century. Thus, I need to say more about it so you, the online adult piano student, will recognize them when offered. (more…)
Separating the Effective from the Ineffective when Adults take Online Piano Lessons
We’ve been reading about online adult piano lessons with the purpose of sorting out approaches that work from those that don’t. Of course, the reason for this study is to avoid spending time, effort, and money on online adult lessons that will not help us fulfill our goals with the piano. I’ve examined the two most common approaches to online piano lessons and explained why neither will be successful for most adult piano students. I’ve done this to explain why a “middle ground” is the only adult piano teaching approach I have ever seen work, online or live. Right now, let’s explain further why the “Playing the Piano is All So Easy” approach is a NON-starter. (more…)
Too many piano students do poorly due to ineffective piano teaching
Over the years of piano teaching adults (and children, early in my career) I have heard hundreds of “piano horror stories.” A “piano horror story” is a tale in which an eager young piano student tries to learn to make happy music on the piano but gets much less than they might have due to bad piano teachers and/or bad piano teaching methods. Naturally, the students coming to me still asking for lessons would be those aspiring pianists who DIDN’T succeed, but if you think this makes my points any less valid, ask yourself this: How many people do you know who play the piano? How many people do you know who had piano lessons when younger or wanted to play the piano? (more…)
Too many piano students do poorly due to ineffective piano teaching
Last week we began discussing what I call “snakeoil” piano lessons – meaning online “teachers” that promise the sun, moon, and stars to hopeful piano students by telling them they can teach them to play like a pro in some ridiculous amount of time and with little effort on the part of the student. I gave you three things to look for as identifiers of such methods, the first being some promise of a “new breakthrough” in piano teaching methods. (more…)
Too many piano students do poorly due to ineffective piano teaching
What I call “the snake-oil methods” of piano “instruction” were the topic of my last post. As you may know, this is a reference to those scam artists of the past who sold strange liquids with strange names such as “Dr. Smythe’s Snake-oil Root Elixir.” Their victims were gullible and suffering folks who were led to believe that these “potions” ( turned out to be mostly alcohol and/or some “feel good” drugs) could cure whatever ailed them. In other words, “snake-oil salesmen” were scam artists who made false promises and somehow avoided the consequences. (more…)
Too many piano students do poorly due to ineffective piano teaching
Previous essays have explained why many current methods are really “snakeoil” methods which promise much but deliver next to no piano skill. I also spend time discussing how this approach to learning to play piano was made attractive by the years of grinding, boring, and frustrating “teaching” on the part of piano teachers who turned making music into drudgery. Many folks have a stereotype of the piano teacher as a little old lady forcing kids to play endless scales while they’d prefer to be elsewhere, anywhere on a Saturday morning. Very unfortunately, this stereotype is fairly accurate. This essay explains why learning the piano doesn’t have to be this way. (more…)
Or should you learn the traditional way by reading sheet music?
Fairly often I encounter pianists who wonder if they should learn to “play piano by ear.” The phrase has various meanings to various people, but almost all these meanings include the idea of NOT using written music to play. To be more specific, written music is NEVER used and the pianist gets his information by listening to something and then duplicating it. Sometimes such pianists build up considerable skill, while others learn a few songs and the perform them for years. (more…)
