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…)
Recession, Boom, Doesn’t Matter – Learning to Play Piano as an Adult is Worth It!
(Note: I originally wrote this in 2008, a troubled time in the American economy.)
Well, here we are, in another recession. I think this is the fourth or fifth since I began teaching adult piano. We always come back stronger than ever and history proves this. I have a couple of piano students old enough to have endured The Great Depression. These adults laugh at all the recent hair-pulling. However, things are NOT hearts and flowers financially. (more…)
The Psychology Behind a Common Problem of Adult Piano Students
As almost all adult piano students know, “nervousness” remains a constant problem. I thought I’d share with you the exact psychology that underlies adult lesson nervousness in the hopes that some of you will find a new tool to help you enjoy your lessons more. I know it frustrates you – my personal piano students tell me about it several times a week. (more…)
More Explanation of the Psychology of Nervousness and Possible Solutions
There is more you should understand about the psychology of your nervousness at your piano lesson. I’ve been teaching adult piano lessons for over two decades and during that time, I’ve seen countless examples of the following “cycle of fear” in adult students: (more…)
A Further “Cure” for this Common Problem of Adult Piano Students
Every adult piano student knows that nervousness during the piano lesson leads to a lack of enjoyment for lessons. I’d even wager that many pianists reading this little essay are here looking into online adult piano lessons because “live lessons” with a piano teacher is just scarier than they can stand. Allow me to present another in my series of possible “cures” for the nervousness so many student feel before, during, and after their piano lessons. (more…)
What YOU can Do to Create Faster, Better, and More Enjoyable Lessons
Once you’ve found a good piano teacher, someone you trust, someone who understands you and your needs, then almost all the rest depends on YOU. The piano student is mainly in charge during a series of piano lessons, for the simple reason that most of your learning occurs during your regular piano practice. Sure, your instructor can tell you what to practice and how to best practice it, but only you can follow those directions. Learning to play piano is something you do without the teacher present. Thus, anything that helps you do that would also make your lessons faster, better, and more enjoyable – right? (more…)
Those Who Have Had Piano Lessons Before Will Find This Interesting
The essays in this series provide my personal viewpoints. I’m going to repeat my reasoning for this at the beginning of each essay in the the series.
My experience as a piano teacher has brought me into contact with many folks who have had past piano lessons. Too often, such lessons were NOT a joy and too often the piano student ended up blaming themselves for this unpleasantness. Such piano students often do not take further piano training, even though they still want to play the piano. Even when they do, they bring much “baggage” to their new piano lessons which hinders their progress. I hope to change some minds and thus help more people learn to play piano for their own enjoyment and that of others. (more…)
Those Who Have Had Piano Lessons Before Will Find This Interesting
The essays in this series provide my personal viewpoints. I’m going to repeat my reasoning for this at the beginning of each essay in the the series.
My experience as a piano teacher has brought me into contact with many folks who have had past piano lessons. Too often, such lessons were NOT a joy and too often the piano student ended up blaming themselves for this unpleasantness. Such piano students often do not take further piano training, even though they still want to play the piano. Even when they do, they bring much “baggage” to their new piano lessons which hinders their progress. I hope to change some minds and thus help more people learn to play piano for their own enjoyment and that of others. (more…)
Those Who Have Had Piano Lessons Before Will Find This Interesting
The essays in this series provide my personal viewpoints. I’m going to repeat my reasoning for this at the beginning of each essay in the the series.
My experience as a piano teacher has brought me into contact with many folks who have had past piano lessons. Too often, such lessons were NOT a joy and too often the piano student ended up blaming themselves for this unpleasantness. Such piano students often do not take further piano training, even though they still want to play the piano. Even when they do, they bring much “baggage” to their new piano lessons which hinders their progress. I hope to change some minds and thus help more people learn to play piano for their own enjoyment and that of others. (more…)
Those Who Have Had Piano Lessons Before Will Find This Interesting
The essays in this series provide my personal viewpoints. I’m going to repeat my reasoning for this at the beginning of each essay in the the series.
My experience as a piano teacher has brought me into contact with many folks who have had past piano lessons. Too often, such lessons were NOT a joy and too often the piano student ended up blaming themselves for this unpleasantness. Such piano students often do not take further piano training, even though they still want to play the piano. Even when they do, they bring much “baggage” to their new piano lessons which hinders their progress. I hope to change some minds and thus help more people learn to play piano for their own enjoyment and that of others.. (more…)
A Comparison of Live Adult Piano Instruction and Online Adult Piano Lessons
Adults all want to learn to play piano faster and have more fun doing it. Some adult piano students are beginners, perhaps folks who always wanted to play but never got around to it. Other adults are already pianists but seek adult piano lessons to learn new styles of playing piano. (more…)
Get a Greater “Return on Investment” of Money, Time, Effort, and Hope
In order to increase ROI (“Return on Investment”) from your piano lessons, we first must start with describing what a piano teacher does for us. We can then proceed to figure out how to maximize these benefits while minimizing the amount of our investment. I know this is not the usual approach taken by piano teachers. Most teachers want you to practice more, spend more time and effort to get what you want. This is not only an admission of inefficiency but probably won’t happen with busy adult piano students. The time and effort simply isn’t there in their lives. (more…)
Get a Greater “Return on Investment” of Money, Time, Effort, and Hope
In the last essay in this series, we set out to discover how we could get more value from our piano lessons. I used a business term “ROI – Return on Investment” to take the discussion out of the emotionally charged world of music My first points were defining the role of the piano teacher in order to maximize the value to you, the adult piano student, of that worthy individual. (more…)
Get a Greater “Return on Investment” of Money, Time, Effort, and Hope
The purpose of these essays is to “WIN (be successful) at piano lessons.” Of course, saying this means nothing unless we fully and carefully define what we mean by “success.” We could say that it means different things to different people, and to some degree this is true. However, for the vast majority of piano students, “success” means the ability to play various pieces of music they like in a reasonable manner after a reasonable amount of piano practice. (more…)
How to Overcome Your Fear of Piano Lessons
Do you have a creeping anxiety that comes on as lesson time draws near? Have you actually used those evil words during your piano lesson, “I played it so much better at home?” Many, maybe most, piano students suffer from this dread affliction to some degree. Some start lessons with an advanced case and some develop the infection as lessons go forward. Either way, a fear of piano lessons makes instruction less than joyful and something you tolerate rather than something you look forward to. Wouldn’t it be great to lose that fear? (more…)
Two Keys that the Adult Piano Student Taking Lessons Can Totally Control
One major key to success when taking adult piano lessons is opening your mouth! Yep, an open mouth with words coming out of it is more important than what you do with your hands and fingers, at least as far as having successful piano lessons. The reason is simple: if your piano teacher doesn’t know what’s happening with you, your teacher doesn’t know how to help you learn to play the piano properly. (more…)
Answering the Common Question, “What do you, Dan Starr, use to…”
This is a very common request I receive from online piano students. I’m happy to answer, but I sure wish the publishers of some of these manuals and music collections would send me some endorsement money! (more…)
How Adults Piano Students Can be Less Nervous When Playing for Their Piano Teacher
One very large barrier during adult piano lessons is the fear of playing for your piano teacher. I well recall losing a good adult student to this during a Christmas break. This gentleman phoned me right after New Years to announce that he wouldn’t be returning to piano lessons, “They just make me too upset and nervous.” In a similar manner, adult students often try to cancel any lesson following a week where their practice was a bit lacking. (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?
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.
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.
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.
How to NOT be Frustrated with piano playing and practicing
There isn’t a bigger enemy to the piano student and pianist than frustration – and nothing is easier to defeat, if you wish it. All you have to do is change your mind. The key element, I believe, is keeping things in perspective. What is playing piano to you, dear reader? Life and death? Your family’s life and death? Your survival? The key to your happiness? Naw, of course not. For almost all piano students, playing piano is a source of enrichment, fascination, enjoyment, etc. In short, it’s their favorite HOBBY! (more…)
How to Avoid the Stress of the Piano Recitals Yet Get ALL the Benefits
Having interviewed a couple thousand prospective adult students over the last two decades and then given most of these folks private piano and keyboard lessons, I can state with certainty that fear of piano recitals is pretty much a given for adult piano students. The majority simply hate the idea and are quite relieved when I explain I don’t “do” recitals. I also take pains to explain why and how all the benefits that recitals supposedly bring can be achieved in a MUCH less stressful and less un-natural manner. (more…)
How to Feel Calmer and More At Ease During Your Piano Lesson
Piano students usually begin lessons with several mistaken ideas of what is important. Having these ideas, and wishing to be good students, they then focus their attention on the wrong aspects of practicing piano and performing piano. This makes for problems in playing and, most importantly, makes it hard to enjoy the process of learning to play during the weekly piano lesson. (more…)
How to Feel Calmer and More At Ease During Your Piano Lesson
One of the chief reasons a piano teacher is valuable to the adult student is to provide pep talks and reasonable expectations. Sadly, many students’ expectations of themselves and their progress are fairly UNreasonable. Such folk are usually somewhat down on themselves in general and can be recognized by the fact they start each lesson off with an apology to the teacher for their lack of progress, failure to accomplish something or other, poor amount of time spent at piano practice, something. (more…)
How to Feel Calmer and More At Ease During Your Piano Lesson
I’d like to continue with way of minimizing upset, fear, and frustration at your piano lessons.
Make correct comparisons when evaluating your progress.
Ask yourself if you are doing better this week than last week. If you are, you are progressing. Many of the students I’ve had are always comparing their current efforts with some nebulous idea of “perfection.” Thus, they are always lacking in something (perfection being impossible in this world.) Thus, they are always feeling bad about themselves and their abilities. (more…)
What I personally use for my adult piano students
In a previous essay, I listed my favorite materials. I’d like to first repeat myself and then expand on that list. (more…)
Why this Question has Little Real Meaning for Most Adult Piano Students
Since, 2006 I’ve posted weekly to a Blog for Piano Students, both those taking lessons from a live teacher and those learning online. I received the following question to one of my posts and my reply is worth the reading, especially for those students in countries that offer some formal exams and qualifications: (more…)
