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I've just started teaching a couple of adult students. Neither of them really have any goals, they just took lessons as a kid and wanted to get back to playing piano. How important is it for you, as students (either with a teacher or as a self-learner) to have long-term goals to work towards? Is it something I should challenge my students to make in order to keep up their motivation, or just let them be for now?

All IMO.

Long-term goals are fine, but not huge motivators. Any goal 5 years out is too long. Any goal 3 years out is too long. Any goal ONE year out is too long.

Chunk it up.

"Here's something I think you can do in 1, 2, 3 months. You told me you want to do X at the piano. That's a ways away, but this 3-month-thing will give you progress to your long-term goal"

I've been at the piano for a long time and have been a slow study. I still need short term goals.

I rely on:

* piano parties
* open mics
* piano jams
* playing for my best friend (guitarist) every few sundays
* ABF recitals

to give me some short term goals.

These also help me wrestle with pretty tough performance anxiety. You know that feeling of someone reading over your shoulder? I get that if someone is actively listening in the room when I'm playing and the resulting tension shreds my music. (Breathe. Remember to breathe!)

IMO , for adults, your usual formal "recital" isn't super.

* Kinda stiff (sorry)
* Shown up by freakishly talented kids
* Playing in front of parents of said kids

Very unfriendly. Piano party, snacks, some libations. Relaxed. Much better.

(Wish there were more piano parties in my area.)

EDIT: You'd think we'd be less neurotic and insecure as adults, but if anything, I think we're more neurotic. I can see why teachers might hesitate to take on adult students. With the right TLC, you can help someone grow musically, though. I think my teach is happy that he's invested time and effort in me.

It is an interesting question and one I have difficulty with. When I started two years ago and continuing to this day I have found I cannot set a long term goal. For the question is also "how far can I get, how good can I become" and those cannot even be speculated on right now. To that end I do not want to make unrealistic goals and I think therein lies one of the problems of an adult, we analyze problems too much.

More useful to me is short term goals, ones that I know I can achieve. Eg I have given myself a year to become fluent in contrary motion scales and arpeggios (major and minor keys). I know I can achieve this and as soon as I made the commitment I set up my practice regime accordingly. But if for example my long term goal was to be able to play Chopin Ballade No 1, not only would I not know where to begin, it might well be totally unrealistic and a waste of valuable effort.

A lifetime of practice I guess

As we used to say in distance running, it is 90% psychological, the other 10% is in your head.

I thing short term goals to aim for are very helpful. Two years ago my teacher and I started regular piano parties at my house once a quarter. (I am the only student that has a grand.) Before that, she complained that most of her adult students seldom practiced She also started twice annual recitals a year ago. As a result, the students practice more and enjoy the social interaction with other piano students. I think the piano parties "broke the ice" and lead to the recitals. So I think parties are a great motivator.

The quarterly recitals here in the ABF have also been very motivating for me. It forces a student to bring something to performance level every three months, and the feedback that is received is very encouraging.

The final thing that I believe helps adults stay motivated I believe, is to have a structured approach to learning with milestones along the way. After the initial euphoria of learning a new skill, the piano journey is somewhat slow and arduous. It helps to have some measure that one is making progress.

I believe that adults generally think they should be learning faster than is reasonable for developing such a complex skill. I know that is true for me. As a result, I think achievable short term goals are very important. As an adjunct, I also think adults need as much praise and reenforcement that they are progressing that kids do. Us adult students are fragile egos, and we are often critical of ourselves.

I echo what others have already said here. I believe having a long term goal is important, as long as it is not edged in stone, but the short terms goals are even more important. The short terms goals that I reach prevent me from quitting in frustration. Yet these short term goals need to be meaningful, not just completion of another piece of music, which my teacher sells it as a small accomplishment, but I don't really buy it, unfortunately.

Actually, I have short term and mid term goals. Hitting these keeps me on track to my long term goal. Ultimately, my long term goal is only symbolic. My mid term goals are meaningful.

Over time and years forged through wisdom I am slowly realizing it is beneficial to set and aim for specific goals. Also, having a clear understanding of why you want to learn to play and what is the outcome you would like to see come to fruition.

I started out with goals, but now I enjoy the process so much that those old goals hardly matter anymore.

That's a great point. It's also not good to take it too serious.

I started out with a long term goal of attaining the Intermediate level, and 17 months later this is still a motivating factor for me. However, I have stopped trying to achieve shorter-terms goals, as this was having a counter-productive effect.

I completely agree about enjoying the process; This has been hard for me, but I'm doing a lot better nowadays.

How much time do you set for your short term goals? I think nothing in piano goes quickly, so my short term goal takes about a year to two years to reach. Basically, I have 1 to 2-year goals, 5-year goals, and 10-year goals.

I reached a previous short term goal of completing RCM Level 5 last summer, which took a little over a year. I also reached a mid term goal of completing all RCM theory exams up to level 8 this winter. As a result, I'm way behind on learning music for level 6 and quite behind on the Schumann Recital. Still, I'm happy. The theory ate a lot of time. These goals give me easy perspective and keep me going whenever I feel my progress dragging from day to day or even month to month. Current short term goal - complete level 6, pass with first-class honors.

I understand exams are not the be all and end all of playing piano. I do not live for exams or even play the piano because of them, but they are so convenient when it comes to structuring my studies, communicate what I need to accomplish with my teacher, and track my progress.

My original 5-year goal (exactly 5 years ago this month) was to complete RCM Level 6. I've completely missed it as I just began level 6. And since I missed my goal and I'm still happy with my progress, maybe these goals are pointless, but I still need them.

My goal is to enjoy this evenings practice session. And tomorrow mornings, etc. My long term goal is to get better at playing piano. It seems so reasonable to say you must have a long term goal, a "reason for doing". But I honestly don't see any upside to it. Having to define in some clear-cut way some arbitrary (at least for me it would be mostly arbitrary) goal of playing a piece or reaching some ill-defined level... And heaven forbid, to put a time scale on it... well to me that "smacks of work" <- not a good thing! Everybody's different but for me too much goal focus can lead to a build up of negative energy, and I'd hate for that to happen. I really do enjoy my practice sessions, and I even do technical exercises. I keep my expectations low, so I'm delighted by even the smallest progress..

I'm a little bit like your two piano students, having had some piano lessons as a child, and now "just wanting to get back to it".

I had a scattered musical education as a child, starting Suzuki violin (under mild duress from my violinist grandmother) at age five. I soon moved on to a piano teacher who was, in hindsight, almost comically bad at what she did. And then to another one, who considered me "a hopeless case" and told my parents as much, due to my relative lack of fine motor control as a young child. At the age of nine, I started with a brass teacher whose twenty years of teaching experience had been devoted exclusively to working with developmentally disabled kids, of whom I was not one. He hardly knew what to do with me. In-between bouts of formal lessons, I also played recorder and bag pipes by ear, on my own. All told, I learned relatively little, except that of all the instruments I'd tried, the piano was by far my favorite.
At fifteen, I decided to try again, "for real this time". I had the good fortune of stumbling upon a teacher who was the right fit for me, personality-wise. Unfortunately, she retired after having taught me for less than a year. After that, I stopped playing any musical instrument at all for nearly twelve years.

I'm telling you all this so that you will understand what I mean when I say: "just wanting to get back to it" may hide a deeper motive on the part of one or both of your students, which they may or may not be consciously aware of. It could, therefore, be useful to get to know them as people. Either they'll come to trust you enough to eventually tell you "their story" (mine was wanting to prove that "hopeless case" guy wrong), or if they don't have a "story" that they're consciously aware of, *you'll* come to understand how they function, and what motivates them.

For me, it's not long-term goals. I did go into lessons with a long-term goal in mind (to play a Chopin Nocturne). But then I reached that goal two years in (much sooner than I had expected), and for a while, I lost my motivation entirely. So now, I've ditched the goals. I just focus on the system: practice an hour every day, and if nothing else, be proud of *that*. No long-term goals, because the idea that I might *not* reach them, or not reach them quickly enough, or worse, reach them too quickly (like with Chopin), has a toxic effect on my motivation. But that's just me. Anyone else's mileage may vary.

Get to know the people you teach, would be my advice. But don't get to know them too well. You run the risk of having them come to lessons every week, even if they haven't practiced, just because they like to have a nice chat with you once in a while.

Ouch, that's one of my goals, too! Hopefully you still enjoy playing it, rather being disillusioned with the whole thing.

I'm studying jazz, not classical, so that may have an impact. But one of the good things my teacher does is always figures out something to do in a lesson even if I haven't practiced much. With work and travel and all the commitments I have, some weeks I don't get to work on much. But we always finds something fun and useful to work on. That keeps my motivation up to get back to some solid practicing. I have absolutely no long term goals other than to get better and have fun with the whole process. But, as I said at the outset, the jazz and classical mindsets are somewhat different.

My main long term goal is to be so decently playing, that I can take some nice tunes, classical as well as pop, that I happen to like and 'make them mine', as in learn them, memorize them, and be able to play them nicely. I'm not shooting for the stars here. Not aiming at a 35-page Chopin piece. Just misc. 'intermediate' things I guess. No time limit set, how could I? I get there when I get there.

It just so happens that I have short term goals. Simply because I started a course that (should) take me from scratch, via some lovely pieces, to 'Für Elise' at the end of 12 months (average estimate I guess). There are 7 pieces total. Each piece becomes a goal in itself, but also a means to an end, "I gotta nail this one so I can get on to the next".

The excitement of starting a new piece, the joy of being able to play something that looked impossible a few weeks ago. Those are powerful motivators. Knowing that these are 'building blocks' that are not only nice in themselves, but important tools that will enable me to tackle the 'big prize' (Elise) at the end, that's a powerful motivator too.

So, I have a short term goal of finishing up the piece I've been working on. Longer term is the next and the next, and finally 1-year goal: Elise.

When I compare to my previous stint of unstructured, goal-less self-teaching... A huge difference.

Meanwhile the goal itself (Elise) has become less important. Yes, it's a nice piece, but it was mainly a representative of the 'unobtainable' music. My main motivation lies not so much in being able to get to play Elise, but in the fact that IF I can play that, then the world of music is open to me (in good time). And I have learned to love my piano so much, and revel in the things I learn, that the journey itself is reward enough.

Mind you, I think it is all-important that the things we get to work on and towards, are things we really want to 'own'.

Sorry for the length of this

My goal is to learn to play new age, boogie woogie, and cocktail piano styles. First, I am working through the Duane Shinn 52 week Crash Course to get a good foundation, and then am moving on to a bunch of Willie Myette (Piano With Willie) lessons that I purchased as downloads to teach me exactly these styles. My interest is more to develop a musical vocabulary in these styles, so as to create my own music, except for cocktail style where I intend to arrange well known tunes.

My approach is that I have literally YEARS of lessons lined up and I am just relaxing into the daily routine of working through them, exploring music along the way. I have no designs on needing to be done by a certain time or date. The journey is what I am interested in.

Tony

Amen!

Thanks to all for the great replies. The consensus appears to be that there isn't a consensus Or at least that long-term goals are less useful than shorter-term goals and everyone is different in what motivates them most. You've also reminded me that it takes a while to establish a good rapport between teacher and student.

Don't fret. The story of how and why I lost interest in piano is actually a lot more complicated than I'm making it out to be. Having "reached my goal" was only one factor, and a relatively insignificant one, at that. I do still play Chopin, and I still enjoy it.