Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Differences between adults beginner and child beginner.

What are the differences in your opinion? As an adult my main concern is just being able to play for people. I can see that as a child youre really not just playing for people, but rather "learning piano".

I know technique and proper finger position etc etc are important, but how important is it for an adult that just wants to play a piano and not make a career out of it.

How are your adult beginner teachers teaching you differntly than their children beginner students?

From what I understand, knowing proper fingering and techniques make it easier for you to play whatever you want as you progress. The teacher instructing adults will try not to let you get bad habits that will make your life difficult later on. I am instructed by the same teacher as my son(5 and 1/2 years old) and the main difference is the rate at which we do things. At his recital tonight he is going to play an easy arrangement of Ode to Joy, which I played the second week I took lessons. The other difference is that I have a lot more say in what I get to play.
Jon

As I see it, a teacher should treat every student as if they are intending to make a career out of it. Otherwise, neither the teacher nor student is taking the study of piano very seriously. Regardless of what the student's goals are, they deserve a teacher that can teach them to play to the best of their ability.

My 9 year old and I take from the same teacher. My daughter started and has continued to use method books with lots of supplementation from other sources. Currently she is working on about 6 pieces.

I just started playing individual pieces - no method books. I probably only work on 3-4 pieces at any one time.

I have a lot more say in what I play. If I don't like the piece I don't play it, where my daughter is required to play some pieces for what they will teach her. However, she is given many choice regarding the supplemental material chosen.

We both do scales, chords, arppegios, some Hanon and Czerny.

Where I am more determined at this point, and will practice for hours if given the chance, she has much more ability to use her left and right hands simultaneously, and "quick" fingering seems to be a breeze for her.

See how many people would sit and listen to a pianist who does not have proper technique.

My daughters (12 and 10) and I all take from the same teacher. Our study programs are all different -- there is no overlap among us except for scales and exercises. Mainly, my stuff is more challenging because I have the maturity not to get frustrated with a difficult piece.

The other difference, frankly, is that my kids lack drive, although they have drive in other activities. If I want to learn a piece, I will put in as many hours as it takes, recognizing that the time will pay off. My kids, though, will just wander through the piece, not taking the time to really work on nuance. They'll never reject anything as too easy, but I will.

And, erm, I think I will yank them out of lessons this fall because after 4-5 years, they are just not that interested and I'm tired of spending the money on their lessons.

Cindy,

Just a personal experience thing.. my daughter and I take the same place as well, and I too get tired of paying for lessons when she does not try very hard at all without lots of involvement.

That said, after 4 years she is playing pretty well and reading better. Is it better to stop her progress altogether and have her lose out on the joy of playing as an adult, or to let her go on at her own level of interest and still be developing her musical skills?

Tough choices.

Michael

I know, Michael! It's not an easy decision.

When I finally declare they aren't practicing enough to justify the lessons and the lessons are going to stop, they say, "No, no, I want to play piano," and they go practice for 30 minutes.

Then in a few days, we're right back to them not going near the piano unless I demand it, going through the motions for a few minutes, and then going off to their rooms to bemoan the fact that their nails are too short to show off their red nail polish.

I think I've had enough.

Cindy -- who has to decide in about three weeks whether to commit for the year

Cindy, you are doing your children an enormous favor by having them take piano lessons at such an early age. Don't be so hard on them! Encourage them but don't put too much pressure on them. Above all don't cut them off. My first piano lesson was at the age of 56 and now I can't help but feel sad every now and then that I had parents who had no interest in giving me such a great opportunity early. How lucky people are who have parents who give their children such a gift. When I struggle at the piano today I envy them. On the other hand I have met a lot of adults who hate the piano because their parents forced them into lessons. You are planting seeds that will blossom and flower later in their lives when they will be enormously grateful to you for hanging in there. But you can't force an acorn to become a beautiful oak tree. You can only nurture it as it slowly develops. Children don't have the discipline of adults so they can't be made to practice like adults. But what they do get now will stick like glue for their entire life. It's a fact that children are extraordinaraly adept at learning languages at an early age and learning the piano is every sense learning a new language. As long as your children want to take piano lessons give them this wonderful gift and know that someday it will pay off for both you and them. Just my two cents opinion based on what I've learned and observed after nearly 4 years at this instrument.

Ludwig, you make so many good points, and those are the very reasons I put them in lessons in the first place. We've sacrificed so much to keep the lessons coming -- I don't dare check quicken to see how much money has been spent on piano. I'd faint dead away!

It's just hard to find that line between nurturing whatever musical interest they have on the one hand verus letting them behave like ungrateful spoiled kids.

Cindy -- wondering if we need a "Parents of Piano Players" forum

Yes, proper technique and good habits are important, but I do sometimes wonder whether it would be more sensible for a teacher to teach an adult hobbyist differently than, say, a talented child. That view seems is not popular to pianists, but it might well be worth discussing, at least.

Take athletes like swimmers, for instance. Michael Phelps has the best equipment and training, including conditioning evaluations, a land program, and trainers at the ready. If he makes the slightest technical error, they fix it. Someone like me who took lessons at the local YMCA got six short lessons. Sure, people prefer to watch Michael Phelps swim, whereas people have to suppress a giggle when I do it. But I am a hobbyist, so it didn't matter much if my elbow was clearing the water by the proper number of inches on each stroke. I was swimming, which is what I set out to do.

One reason I am coming around to this view is the experience of my sister. Like me, she started as a beginner pianist. Her teacher (very accomplished and respected performer and teacher) had very high standards -- sis had to do everything perfectly. She had to do a lot of scales and exercises. She wasn't allowed to play on recital until she could play pieces of a certain difficulty level, so she never played in a recital with that teacher. When she played for me, her tone and technique were excellent -- probably better than mine.

And she quit. Out of frustration and boredom.

I wonder if she would have stuck with it if her teacher had been a touch more forgiving, recognizing that she would never go to Julliard and was instead a middle-age lady looking to pick up an instrument for the fun of it.

Anyway, that's a long way of saying that maybe Jaxkewl has a point when it comes to adult beginners.

Cindy -- trying to persuade her sister to find a new teacher and try again

It all depends on what one defines as technique. To me, having proper technique means going beyond pressing down the right keys; it relates to *how* ones fingers press the right keys. How the keys go down makes all the difference between getting a weak or harsh sound, and a solid tone. Technique to me also involves building strength and dexterity. Without a certain amount of strength and dexterity, one would run against a wall very soon in terms of the repetoire that one can access.

The piano is deceptive in that if the right keys are pressed, a sound comes out, but a large proportion of people playing the piano are not sensitive to *how* the sound comes out, e.g. harsh vs "round". We all know of anecdotes in which good pianists are able to make magical music on the worst of pianos; this is because they know how to moderate one's touch of the keys to elicit the correct type of tone. If I use the analogy of a stringed instrument such as the violin, most people will quickly appreciate that the sound that a beginner makes on a violin will be screechy and shrill, but a more seasoned player can produce a tone that is more tolerable on the ear. It is the same with the piano, although not quite as dramatic. It only takes a sensitive ear to listen to the difference in tone.

If one's goal is to entertain people, then it is even more important to develop a good basic technique, so that the audience is not subject to a sub-par performance, at whichever level the pianist is at. A good technique is not limited to advanced players; it starts right from the beginning. And it does not necessarily involve scales, Hanon or exercises, although exercises are useful for pinpointing and working on specific areas. It takes a good teacher to show how to use the fingers properly in striking the key, and how to use the wrist, arm, elbow, shoulders and the whole body. All these will be incorporated into normal everyday playing of any piece.

If an adult beginner is only interested in pressing the right keys on the keyboard, with scant regard of whether the fingers are flat, curved, or with collapsed joints, or if the wrist and elbow are properly aligned with the hand, then frustration *will* come sooner rather than later, because one can never progress to more difficult peices.

I'm going to raise all of this with my teacher at lesson on Monday. I do wonder if different people use different terms for similar technique concepts. For instance, I still don't know the difference between "arm weight" and "finger weight." I have figured out the difference between playing a run in the music in a choppy, plinky sort of way versus "sinking into the keys."

I can hear when my music sounds good versus bad, but I'm having a very hard time telling *why* it sounds the way it does.

Ahem. Yet another thing to master . . .

Cindy, another difference betweeen adults and children. Most children just want to get the notes right and maybe some dynamics, but pay little heed to what type of sound comes out. As adults, we are more discerning. Your teacher should be able to show you how to vary the "colour" of the tone that is produced. If she cannot, you need another teacher! I went through 5 different ones (including one that turned out concert artists and another with a PhD in music) before finding the 6th, who could tell me precisely why my previous playing sound so weak and insipid.

Maturity, as in a discerning ear.