Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Two-timing your piano teacher

That was a awful thing for her to say. I hope you let her know this, in no uncertain terms.

Bingo. This very likely has a lot to do with it. If you had a different teacher who you liked, and who liked you, and was a good match for you, and encouraged you instead of tearing you down, you would likely have more energy for practicing.

If a teacher is supportive and teaches with clarity, and if the student goes home and practices what he is taught, then he'll get results. Being successful in what you are doing is a powerful motivator. If this teacher is complaining about the majority of her students, then the problem may be with her teaching, unless there are other factors. But IF you go to another teacher, then you MUST be ready to practice every day. Before even making such a move you have to take a good hard look at how to organize your time so you can make it happen. If by any chance you have been badly taught, and if you go to another teacher, there will also be a lot to undo and relearn, which is a big job. The results are rewarding but it really is work.

The bright side is that you appear to have considerable room to rise in her estimation.

I agree! You also should consider finding a teacher who understands the demands of a working adult with other responsibilities.

LOL!

I agree with everyone that you should find a new teacher but not two. How can you find time to work with two individuals when you are busy.

I also agree with Peter_K_Moss that you could buy a digital in your parents house. He had another sane advice to stay away from virtuoso. Not all of them apparently but many of them have issues. You would not need them until you are ready. I could see someone who's doing Ravel's gaspard de la unit (did I spell right?) or something like that greatly benefit from having someone like that as a teacher.

I disagree with the notion that you should not take piano lessons if you don't have time to practice. Going there and talking to teachers or sight-reading something with him/her is very motivational. Time is something what you make. For a busy adult like you and many of us in the forum, we know it requires lots of personal commitment. So it's good to have someone to talk about music. When I re-restarted piano, I had no ambition as to progress fast. This is my second time coming back to piano as an adult. I decided to take it slow. First time around I was extremely critical to myself and frustrated out because I could not meet my goal. 10 years past without touching the piano. Then I realized that I would have been much better off even if I only made snail's progress. This time around I looked for a teacher from the local piano teachers association not from one of the doctoral students or renowned piano faculty member. My only condition was that he/she had piano performance degree and we could get along. I interviewed a couple of teachers. I told both of them my situation that I was too busy to practice everyday. In some week, I might just drop in and talk about music. One of them said that's ok and she would love my company as long as I would not mind it (paying for a talk?). Luckily, it turned out that the teacher was a very good fit for me. She makes it so fun that I often wound up practicing one hour every day (of course, some days I cannot do at all). When I could not practice, we sightread something fun together. She always have some interesting score at hand, like the one from King's speech, etc. She also have me play duet on some easy piece. She might use the opportunity to go through some techniques with me. So it's working great.

Good luck to you.

If I were your teacher, and you sent the E mail explaining your situation
I'd say ah..now I see! and say if you want to continue at your pace I'd be
happy to do so (continuing to be paid for the time slot)..
people who attend night school usually take years to get their diplomas
so why not piano students? it just keeps them coming longer and puts more cash
in my pocket..in reality for adults anyway..work comes first..how else would
they pay for the lessons?

If I understand correctly...
You're not getting your practice in....yet...
You want to double up on lessons?

Does somebody have a bottle of Glenlevit in the house?

Just switch to the "enthusiastic" teacher. I know she's cuter anyway..
You could try offering a nice stiff shot of Scotch at the beginning of the lesson? Works for me. Teacher says it's easier to be cruel to me during the lessons. That's what I want. She always smiles when it's over.

I, too, agree that the teacher's attitude toward the student definitely affects a students' motivation.

I started lessons with a local "virtuoso" late last summer. I was motivated and had the time and enthusiasm to put into practicing. I loved going to lessons with my previous teacher, but felt that I needed/wanted a bit more structure. Long story short: be careful what you wish for.

I could not do ANYTHING right for the new teacher. Pieces I had previously learned for recitals and had kept up made him (visably!) cringe, I couldn't even play scales to his satsfaction - tempo, hand position - I did EVERYTHING wrong. Every week became 45 minutes of feeling like an idiot, there was never a single word of encouragement from this guy, not one. I would drive home in tears. (I know this sounds like hyperbole, but I am not exaggerating. Really.) And that was after a week of me putting in one to two hours of practice daily. Add to that this guy was expensive, and once a month my lesson was not the private one I wanted, but a group lesson where I got to be humiliated in front of others.

I know I could have learned from this man, he truly is a fine pianist, but instead of inspiring me with his skill, his method of teaching completely took away my enthusiasm. It got to the point of taking away any enjoyment I had at the piano. I realized this at Christmas when I didn't even want to bring out the carol books I loved. That was the day I called him and stopped my "lessons." It was a huge relief, and my joy of playing is returning just now.

He is still under the impression that I am "hurt" because he found it "necessary to reduce the difficulty level" of my assigned pieces "to better match my skill level." Nope, I left because I couldn't stand having something I loved turned into a misery and paying ever increasing rates for the "priviledge" of feeling inept.

Sorry that turned into such a rant...but if there are teachers tuned in here, please realize that your attitude toward your students may make or break them!

I agree with others that you should communicate your situation better to your instructor. However, I am not a fan of emailing as the form of communication. My feeling is that it should be done face-to-face at a lesson. What you need is a more of a personal relationship with your teacher in order to foster "good" feelings toward one-another. Emails will not accomplish that.

JeanieA, I can see having your technique get a complete overhaul, and all that. But I can't see anything like that in a GROUP lesson. It would have to be an intense one-on-one and you can't do that in a group

I hope that any teacher reading that a teacher is bad-mouthing another student would cringe. How is that motivation? Don't get me wrong, I have had my students that frustrate me by not practicing, usually because it gets boring for me to go over the same material multiple times with them. Some even get worse as the weeks go on, forgetting what we've already learned, which of course worries me. But I can't imagine trashing one student in front of another. If you're not excited over your student grasping even the most basic of piano concepts, maybe you shouldn't be teaching.

I have taught adults with limited time to practice. Kids too, around finals time and such. One adult I'm thinking of would leave her lesson very motivated and excited to practice only to come back the next week upset because she didn't have a lot of practice time. There was still progress, just very slow. As long as you don't expect fast results when you skip practicing days, I think you can still get better.

If motivation is good, but time is not, personally I think it's a matter of getting into a routine, even if it's just 10 minutes a day to start. Like practicing every day as soon as you get home. Once it becomes part of your daily routine, it's easier to keep up with it. You don't forget to shower or brush your teeth do you?

I didn't mind the technique getting an overhaul. That's actually what I wanted; I really did. I have absolutely NO problem with well-intended constructive criticism; isn't that why we have teachers, to correct and guide?

It was the belittling and the feeling that I got around this person that I was a hopeless hack and not capable of improving under his expert tutelage that got to me. Even constructive criticism needs to be tempered with a little encouragement, no? (I mean, toss me even a small bone and I'll work my tail off for you to earn a bigger one!) But there was not one encouraging comment ever during my time with him. That does hurt, to put so much time, effort, and yes - soul - into something to have it immediately discarded as worthless. I sound so melodramatic, geez, sorry. But this was a very emotional experience for me and I am not at all thin skinned.

I suspect the group lesson was an attempt to emulate a master class, maybe. For me, to be put on the spot in front of others (Stage fright, get your stage fright right here!) knowing that I was already behind the curve, was miserable.

Don't mean to hijack this thread, I apologize!

I firmly believe that if a student is practicing and not getting better at whatever we are working on, there is some glitch in the way you are thinking about it and it is the teacher's job to figure out what that is by coming at the problem from different angles until you break-through the issue. Just yelling at a student to get better to me shows a lack of teaching ability.

Reminds me of vocal students I get who say people yell at them "You're flat". Next time through "You're still flat". Well yeah, because you haven't taken the time to explain WHY they are singing flat, so how do you expect the problem to resolve.

I don't think any of this is OT. I don't like to see people feel like they've wasted time with a teacher. Some of it is subjective, liking a teacher's approach, chemistry between teacher and student, etc. But some of it is just plain old bad teaching, and they are the ones who give music teachers a bad name.

It is perfectly reasonable for someone who is very busy to take a lesson every two or even every three weeks. But if you can't find enough time and energy to get some practicing in during an extended period, then lessons don't seem like they'd be very productive.

I don't think it's so reasonable to offer to pay for lessons that you don't go to unless the money is not an issue and you can't find another teacher willing to give you lessons less frequent than once a week.

A teacher must have integrity and be trustworthy, not to mention patience, understanding and honest. If she is not displaying such characters, I'd seriously consider leaving her and find another.

Perhaps consider fortnightly lessons instead of weekly. I did that with my violin teacher for 4 years. Although the progress was slower, I could manage work and practice better and eventually passed my grade 8 exam.

The teacher must understand that adults don't always have time to practice because of work and family. When that happens, be honest at the start of the lesson, but tell your teacher what you did manage to practice, what section you are still struggling and what you'd like your teacher to help you with.

Put together a workable practice schedule and stick to it. Instead of every night, try every other night. The night you don't practice you can spend more time at work. The night you do practice, make sure you start work earlier and finish earlier, get home, eat, rest, then have 1 hour of concentrated practice. On weekends, practice for 1 or 2 hours in the morning before leaving to your parents. Find a routine and stick to it.

Use your limited practice time wisely. Practice what needs to be practice. Dont wonder off repeating something you are already good at (even though it feels good to play something you are good at).. Practice slowly, be very clear what you want to achieve out of that precious hour. Break down that hours to what tou want to practice and how etc.

Once in a while enjoy playing rather than practice. Reward yourself with a break when you have made good progress.

Hope you'll find your way. Good luck!

You know, that's the first picture that popped into my head - "masterclass". But masterclasses are occasional things where the group learns some general new ideas by observing the class, and then everyone goes back to his or her private teacher to flesh things out - including whether the master teacher knew enough about the individual student's strengths and weaknesses to be justified.

I seriously doubt that overhauling someone's technique or doing any serious work can be done in a group situation. It requires one-on-one, with enough time to make sure the student understands, and that the teacher understands cause, effect, and solution. It's not enough to say this note is wrong, this passage is too loud - but why can the student not play these right notes, and why can't the student balance the tone. That can be intensive stuff for an hour long lesson. How on earth could the same kind of time and focus be found in a group? Maybe it makes sense economically.

I've found my lessons have become much more productive by switching to once monthly for 90 minutes each with a 10-minute break. This has given me more flexibility for practice time. It also gave me more time to really dig into working on some of my teacher's suggestions for improvement. My teacher was also happy with results of this new arrangement.

BTW, I just read Tubbie's advice and see lots of great suggestions as well. Sorry if I was repetitive.

I hope you do not mind me asking. But why would you agree to the group lesson format?
It does sound like you did the right thing by moving on. I am just interested in the complexities of these realtionships.