Thanks currawong. I hadn't thought that publishers need feedback, too.

John gave us another nugget which I completely agree with: "Probably, most of us with years of teaching under our belts, can recognize rather quickly which problems originated with a teacher and which originated with students."

But, regardless of where they originated, it's the new teacher who has to recogize the problem area and know how to approach changing error to accuracy. You have to have the student's attention and permission to do this - they must be aware there is a problem and that together you are going to improve upon what ever it is that needs our attention until is accurate every time. Doing what is necessary when it is necessary is what allows the student to trust you. It's better that not to identify something as "wrong" when you might suggest "let's work with this a little bit more and see what happens".

The corrections can be done by seriousness of purpose or by having fun with it since it depends on your student's acceptance and willingness, as to what makes sense to him and what will reach him best in the quickest way.

Kids who respond well to making changes need to feel some pride about their attitude and their follow up to fixing things. One's who grumble need a little help with learning to give things time and effort and patience before giving up. I sometimes have to say "Whatever you think is going to be the results that you get. If you say 'can-do' to yourself. You'll get it. If you say 'can't do' you'll get that too. It's really all up to you."

"If a student asks for a rock or pop song, I buy digital sheet music online from a place like musicnotes.com, but then I will often create a custom arrangement (simplification) for my student using that copy I bought as a guide. I obviously haven't gotten permission to create a derivative work before doing that. What do you think?"

I think you're doing a lot of work to help your student.

If this is not intended for commercial distribution, but only as a teaching aid within your own studio, I doubt the publisher would take much interest. However, there are arrangements of this sort that are available in print. If you got the students to buy their own copy, as well as giving them your adaptation, surely any publisher would consider himself satisfied.

Thanks for that perspective, Jeff!

I could tell you a very similar story, but it's your show.

I see it all the time.

I'm happy if someone who comes to me has ANY idea of what fingering is all about.

If people who come to me know the names of the white keys and can match them with the correct lines and spaces, in a score, any score, I'm shocked.

I would say that well over 90% of the students who come to me from other teachers can't read music. Therefore close to 90% of my time is spent trying to fix this basic "can't read music" problem.

Gary, Nice to hear from you again. Have conditions improved at all in your neck of the woods? I certainly hope so.

Anyway, these deficient students just make me scratch my head in wonderment. Thanks for your comments.

John

John,

I have posted little because things have not improved at all. They are worse now than at the same time last year. I think I have some of the best young players I've ever had, and I have one adult who is quite talented. The problem is, as we all know, that a mile closer, a dollar less per lesson, and no obligations to pay for missed lessons make incompetent teachers seem like a great bargain to people who know nothing about what we do.

There are times when I think the only people who fully appreciate what we do well are those who leave, who pick terrible teachers, and who return, sadder but wiser.

As Gary's post indicates, there are lots of bad piano teachers out there.

I know I have often griped about the horrible transfer students I've been getting, and what awful revamp projects I undertake each year to "cure" their pianistic deficiencies. Some of these parents take their kids to me and hope that I'd perform miracles.

I have come to the conclusion that most students' bad habits are unbreakable, many parents are delusional with their lofty expectations, and quite a few "piano teachers" really should not be teaching at all.

This also goes for the self-taught. Unbreakable bad habits are unbreakable bad habits regardless of the source.

Theoretically, the self-taught have potentially the worst teacher possible...I am almost at the point where I will not accept self-taught people...everything that has been said in this thread applies to them also.

Well, I know there are some bad piano teacher,s and there are some that focus their attention on some things that I don't deem important, and not enough on the things I do. And then, there's the student who just doens't bother doing what they're told so they learn nothing. It's that last factor that I try to keep in mind before judging a previous teacher at an interview. I simply try to find out what they know and don't know, and develop a plan form there, filling the student in on what I think they need to learn. After a couple of months, I definitely have a good idea which kind of teacher they had before - and which kind of student I have!

I am very relieved that we who post regularly here on PWF teachers thread can say that yes there are many people teaching piano who should not be teaching and that the average client does not recognize the difference between excellent, good, average, bad and fraud.

It is almost heartbreaking to see how many problems exist in transferring students. It's good that students transfer and continue lessons as there are many students who were completely frustrated and demotivated by their experiences in piano lessons and those students quit possibly forever.

It's our job to train students and groom them to full musicianship, to provide education to them, to build confidence and self esteem, and to provide a good, relevant, well planned curriculum and program for our students.

In the word "teach" there are so many elements and categories that the list of what we do and cover is incredibly lengthy and fully encompassing at every level of teaching from beginning to advanced.

John joked a few days ago about spelling "piano" being a "spelling test" as to whether or not the teacher was a worthy candidate to study with, I think I would like to add the word, "rhythm" to the "spelling test" list.

rhythm
has
your
two
hips
moving

Betty Patnude

I would enjoy a lesson like that - sounds great
(I like acrostics)

I had an interesting experience with a transfer student last week.

This student had no sense of pulse and played everything fast and out of time. They had no idea about basic note values or how to count. They did not recognise anything about the stave like note names, clefs, keys, dynamics, performance directions. It was as if they had been taught nothing at all despite having already taken ABRSM grade 1.

I was thinking bad things about the previous teacher until I looked through their old books including theory work and lesson notes. Guess what? It was all there. Everything you would expect to have been covered was there in great detail.

Go figure!

Chris H., that makes me think of one student I have who, if they went to another teacher, would also make the new teacher think ill of me! I really do my best with him and truly believe I've taken him farther than many others could. But, he insists on ignoring some basic principles week in and week out no matter how much you explain, demonstrate, etc. He gets things in the lesson, but then goes home and goes back to playing things any old way he wants.

You can never really know what happened in previous lessons until you get to know the student.

Yes, there is a range of piano teachers and there is a range of students. The Gaussian curve applies to both. The peak in the curve defines the midpoint. By definition, about half the teachers are "below average" and half the students are "below average". We all hope we can be in the upper half and maybe even in the upper quarter of the curve. Then we really have to hope that we can land the upper quarter of the students in native ability with the upper quarter of the teachers. This is a task easier said than done. So many factors of serendipity affect how a student lands with a teacher: proximity to teacher, finding out about the existence of the teacher, whether the student has a means to get to the teacher's studio, whether student and teacher "click", family means, lesson time openings, etc. As parents, we'd like the best teacher for our kids, but it is not always possible...not always even knowable. Against the Gaussian, it is a 50:50 proposition that the first teacher I pick is below the midpoint if I don't have any "reviews"/"ratings" (I've never seen such). I really don't think finding the right or best music teacher is easy - quite a bit of luck and trial involved for all of us.

There are some students with who I have to spend the entire lesson time on basic rhythms and notes, and there is little time left for anything else. There are those who I have worked on technique with a lot, but they cannot see the importance of any of it, so forget it as soon as they leave my studio. Then there are those who, as luck would have it, are more in tune with their physical self, and more coordinated, and they pick up good technique almost without me having to say anything to them.
But, how about me? Could I be stressing technique more? Differently? I think a good teacher has to question these things constantly.
And that at some point, I look at the student, and where they want to be as pianists, and if they will even be playing in a year or two, and have to make some decisions about what is going to be the most valuable things they take along with them.
I'm rambling, it's late.

Good points, Carol and Suzukimom, about individual ability. Another issue at play is how comfortable we are teaching students who will never be superstars. I take nearly all comers in my studio, because I think music has a lot to offer everyone. I want to teach my students to love music. If they will never be on the concert hall stage, then I am hoping they will be filling the seats of the auditorium. If we have only talented and able students taking lessons, then I worry that our concert halls will become more and more empty, because there are large groups of people being taught that music isn't for them.

I came first to PW to get help concerning a transfer student who hadn't managed to learn note names, finger numbers, or rhythms. I will be toward the front of the line saying that some folks should not be teachers! (I'm happy to say that in the past 4 months, this little girl has made quite a bit of progress, although she still struggles with some bad habits.)

What makes a good teacher is not easy to define. Although it should go without saying that a teacher needs to know and understand the subject, it is not necessarily directly correlated with how much education a person has. And to take it a step further, what makes a person a good teacher for one particular student does not automatically mean he will be a good teacher for any and every student. There are just too many variables.

I think a community benefits from a variety of teachers - those who can give good groundwork, those who can take students to new heights - or depths, those who can finely hone the superstars, and those who can love and nurture the wannabes.