So, I finally got my first job pretty excited! And since I have my job I feel like I'm ready to find a great and competent piano teacher.
The question is how would I go about finding a very good one with decent rates?
What should I look for in a piano teacher?
Does having experience in all styles of piano make him a great teacher?
Is it good to have more than one private teacher?
Is there a difference between a college and a concert teacher?
Do rates go higher if they travel to you?
Which is more ideal more lessons in a week or once per week?
I have so many questions but I do not want to overload. I would also appreciate the responses or an inbox! Thank you very much!

-Mr. Cid

I am sure some folks will answer the specific questions you posed. In the meantime, Nancy Williams outlines a three step process at her blog. Step one is below, click on the "next post" button at the bottom of the entry, to see the next post in the series.

http://www.nancywilliamspiano.com/2013/01/14/how-to-find-good-piano-teacher-getting-started/

I have no connection with Ms. Williams or her blog.

I'd second Sand Tiger's suggestion to read the 3 successive articles on that website having just read them myself.

This is a good starting place: http://www.mtnacertification.org/

I'll simply add that you should look for and lean towards someone with credentials.

Cid, many consider it a disservice to suggest to people who are new to the forum, that they use the 'Search' feature. It is a temperamental creature... and some consider that suggesting it means that we are too lazy to answer you in the first place. But for your question, I happen to know that we had a long and detailed discussion on this very topic, within the last two years. I think it would be an advantage to you to hear the many voices which enriched the discussion... and you can even revive the thread, if you want. And then it will be current again.

This kind of discussion is ever-new, and is always useful to at least several members.

As part of your teacher search: don't send them emails in bold italics.

I would address your questions, but I find it so completely irritating to read your posts in what comes across as breathless over-excited shouting, that I'm just completely uninterested.

Regular typeface is easier to read than bold italics.

I thought this thread was going to be about what to wear and how to fix your hair for a lesson!

Here are two old threads:
old thread 1

old 2

The Nancy Williams' links are giving an error this morning. To summarize: What kind of music (classical, jazz, popular songs)? How much time are you willing to commit? 15 minutes a day, an hour a day, two hours? What are your musical goals? Examples might be: to play songs from a fake book and have people sing along, learn to play a few pieces that you already know, or play some high level classical masterworks?

Find some teachers using the directories, or a piano store, or piano technician. Interview them over the phone. Be sure the teacher has some adult students or is comfortable with adult students, many are not.

Many teachers will offer one free lesson, but it often takes a few lessons to make an informed decision.

The bold italics are annoying. If the original poster is as insistent in person about stylistic things like that, it may cause personality friction. As to a few specifics, most start out with one teacher, one lesson per week, 30, 45 minutes or one hour. Most teachers prefer that you come to them.

If you know with all your heart that you are in love with a particular type of music, it will behoove you to find a teacher who also loves that type of music.

Different teachers have different rate structures, but certainly some teachers will charge additional fees for travel.

I wouldn't attempt to work with more than one instructor at a time. If you're like me, you'll find it sufficiently challenging to improve one set of assignments per week, much less two.

A tall teacher can be good too, say over six three, then they can loom over you and watch your fingers carefully.

This very good advice. I feel it's also important that this tall teacher has those half moon glasses so they can glare sternly at you over the top of them.

Thanks, its great to have a sense of (a.) belonging somewhere on this planet and (b.) mentioning a tall teacher.

I totally agree about the glasses, forgot to mention that a tall teacher also has other advantages, say if they have halitosis, the taller they are the better so when they loom and peer over their glasses, their breathing doesnt curl up the music score and make it more difficult to sight read than it allready is ( despite those that say it isnt too difficult and then say its a skill you can easily pick up over 27 years of hard work)

Where can I find this teacher please? He sounds really lovely, with his bad breath and his nasty manner. I'd really like to replace mine with him, as I fear I'm having too much fun learning piano. It ought to be about hard work; hard work and a tall, insulting teacher - that's the way to go.

you forgot the riding crop, an essential piece of kit for any serious teacher of the manipulation of ivories. This can be used twofold, to urge you on to attain correct tempo ( whack on the fingers of both hands (separate or together method) and also to punish for incorrect fingering or dynamics. (again HT or HS )

Is not answering a good way to deal with it?

It is a matter of respect. When people whose help you are seeking tell you that your style hurts their eyes, it is disrespectful to continue simply because it's your own taste, and unrealistic to then expect people to take the time to help you, when you won't help them.

In my experience, it was difficult to find a teacher who specialized in a particular style of music. Your interests seem varied enough that you probably should seek a well-rounded teacher. Jazz and classical instruction are different enough that you might want to think about your ultimate direction, but it's not a pressing thing.



One lesson per week suffices, but you certainly can up the frequency if you have the budget. Thing is, your brain actually rewires while you sleep, so having some time before you checkpoint with your teacher isn't necessarily a bad thing--as long as you remember to also practice on any day that you also breathe.



Classic ragtime is pretty demanding stuff, no way around it.

On this, or another forum, though, I saw reference to a series, "Martha Miers' Jazz, Rags, and Blues" which has introductory pieces in early jazz styles. So, in looking these up, I find these arrangements to be pretty darn charming, arranged in graded difficulty. I found the following on YouTube:

Book 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiqCwSbs6Ew

Book 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9e6FUC7tqI

Book 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s97HRQ0-JuI

Martha Miers looks to be an Alfred Music imprint. (I'm not affiliated with or advertising for Alfred.) These pieces, to my ear, seem like a nice introduction to some of the skills that you'd need to develop to play early jazz (and I'm assuming that there are some rags in those books as well).

If, instead, you wanted to take the plunge into true classic rags, then I think rags like Joplin's "Peacherine Rag," "The Strenuous Life," and "Swipesy" are reasonable places to start, but even these are pretty challenging.

EDIT: Oh, there are also simplified versions of popular Joplin rags. Those can be great places to start.

Great pianists are one thing, but for great pianists to also be great teachers, 9 times out of 10, they will have credentials of some sort (piano-related, teaching-specific degrees are the best to look for - i.e. "piano pedagogy").

Just posting so I can find this thread again later...good info here.

If you need the teacher to travel to you, you should cover the teacher's travel time. So if you have a half hour lesson and your teacher takes 15 minutes to travel to your place, you should pay for an 1-hour lesson. I have done this before for my son for a short time because of complicated set of circumstances. As this was quite expensive, we did work things out and travel to the teacher as soon as circumstance allowed.

As for style of music, you should find a teacher who teaches what you want to learn. I see some teachers advertise they can teach anything a student may want to learn. That only work for a complete beginner. Most classically trained teacher could teach some jazz, but they cannot really teach it at an intermediate level. If you are into jazz, you should find a jazz player.

It's not a good idea to have more than one teacher at a time. You can go from one to the next but not a good idea to have more than one at the same time because every teacher have slightly different ideas on technique, interpretation, and other details. You'll end up frustrating yourself and your teachers if you have more than one.

When I started lessons, I had them once a month, then twice a month, finally once a week. I really don't need them once a week. When I saw my teacher once a month we had a consultant client relationship. When I had lessons every week, it became more a teacher student relationship. The different is subtle but important.

I'm curious what you find the difference to be and how it affected your learning. Which did you prefer?

What happens is that it allows me to work on one or two technical improvements each week instead of telling me all the technical requirements of a piece ahead of time, which I could not manage, remember, or deliver on.

Weekly lessons also force me to practice more frequently. I hate showing up for lessons without showing some sort of progress.

Several points of input

[1] Find a teacher who is focused on the style of music you want to play. I started out w/ an excellent teacher/piano player but he was totally focused on classical music and I wanted to play fake sheet jazz and pop, not a good fit

[2] Find a teacher who understands that adults learn different than children and you should know how you best learn (theory based, visual based, sound based, etc) ... this is very important as 'your mother doesn't make you practice' ... you need someone who works with how you learn .. also if you need to be pushed, get a pushy instructor, if not then don't

[3] Find someone you can like, you're going to spend a lot of time w/ them and it should be the highlight of your week

[4] Personally, I also wanted someone who'd do Skype-based lessons so if I was away we could keep lessons going ... I didn't want to swap in another instructor as I traveled .. minor point but it helped me

Travel time, degrees, etc aren't as important in my opinion, at least for the first few years of lessons, you're just a beginner

After two instructors and 4 years of lessons, I am very happy w/ my instructor

I think it takes a few lessons to really know

What a nice, respectful person. I wonder what is it that you feel the need to prove. If you're different and interesting and better than us, you have the chance to show it by what you write, not how you write it. I am always wary of men who feel they have something to prove.

As always, very good information on this thread.... but you guys are casting pearls before swine.

I hear this guy also teaches piano ... might be a good fit for you

Mr. Cid, I find your bold italic type to be incredibly difficult to read for entire posts and tiring after a very short time. My way of dealing with it is that I won't be reading or responding to your posts. Good luck with the egocentric rugged individualist pose.

Mr. Cid, thanks for the thread. There have been many excellent responses by the majority of gracious ABF users. I will be referencing back here in my own search for a teacher.

P.S. My weak eyes found your use of bold-italic font quite relaxing.

P.S.S Lulz at your response to the few attempts to force submission via petty demands and personal insults.

Mr. Cid, I apologise for calling you egocentric.

Not that there is any objection to your posting -- but if you want, you can add a thread to your "Watched List" and get updates by email - (or not, by setting your notifications).

Go into the thread, at the top of the first post you will see "Topic Options". It is a pull down menu, and there you will find the "add topic to your watched list". Then in your profile you can see a list of all your watched topics. Very useful.

I get updates to 2 thread emailed to me regularly. ..It means you don't have to log on to follow a thread you're interested in.
(Which is great for me because if I'm not at my computer my email is much easier to access than the forum!)

cheers

[obscenity deleted]

> As always, very good information on this thread.... but you guys are casting pearls before swine.

Hopefully, others too will have similar questions and find the thread useful. I've noticed often someone else find them even more helpful than the OP.