Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Should you take lessons from same teacher as your child?

Peter, you haven't answered about the choir suggestion.

Johan gave my answer. Everyone should join a choir, and there's always a choir in your locale that would welcome you. (Private voice lessons may also ensue from the choral experience.)

I take lessons from the same teacher as both of my kids do and it's been a rewarding experience! My older daughter (12) and I played a four hand piece for the student recital last year and it was a lot of fun to do.

I'm still well ahead of them both, but the problem that sometimes presents isn't solved by having a separate teacher. Mostly it just rears its head in terms of "that's easy for you to say because you can already do x, y, or z." and for every time I feel that, we feel far more often a bond by learning similar approaches and having similar regimens. And I can answer questions well about what the teacher may have been asking for: how a particular motion is supposed to be, or a particular phrase is to be played. These are all nice advantages.

I'm not sure when either one will eclipse me, but they both know that my greatest wish is for that to happen and they know I wish I were young and could enjoy the same rapid progress with the same level of effort as they get to enjoy.

^ This is my situation exactly, with the same benefits and downsides. I do believe that having a different teacher would't make a difference.

Taking on board the wide spectrum of experience we've heard on this thread, I'd say that it's possible to make it work, but if you're worried, listen to your gut.

Maybe most important is to show the kids by example that you, as a grown up, are really enjoying the process of tackling something that isn't a gimmee (I first wrote "hard", and then thought, no, don't want to make piano anything other than a true positive learning experience) and enjoying the progress. That gives them a long-term answer to the question "why am I doing this".

But second most important is for the process to belong to them. That may or may not include having their "own" teacher, or their "own music. Each kid is different. But if there's a chance that a truly positive experience might get de-railed by having the same teacher for parent and child, I can't see any reason to run that risk.

One thing I did learn from my mother (a solid amateur) was the enjoyment. Growing up, I remember that most of her life looked like a duty, even a burden; I couldn't imagine her doing something for herself. But when she sat down to the piano, that was something that was for her. You don't forget that kind of example.

Our music doesn't overlap much - but there are a couple of pieces that I was going to work on. My kids said to me "you can't play that- that's Grandma's music!"

We share the same teacher and it is going quite well.

We started with him teaching my daughter oboe. A year later she started piano lessons with him too (after we acquired a digital piano). 6 months later I decided I wanted to try to relearn piano, and asked him if it might be possible. I also talked with my daughter, who didn't have any problem with us sharing a teacher.

Because I am building off of what I learned as a child, I'm several levels above her, and I purposely picked books that she won't hit for a couple years. I seldom practice in front of her, more because my free time is at night, but partly because I don't want to spoil the pieces for her.

She sits in on my lessons because they come after her oboe lesson, but she's usually playing games on my phone and doesn't really pay attention. We do occasionally talk about pieces or if she's having difficulty I'll try to help a bit, but mostly I leave her piano alone. She's not a competitive type WRT music. If she was a different kid we might do more together but that's not her.

This.

The kid will not really be able to tell who is a more advanced pianist because she will not have the equipment to make that rather subjective distinction. However, she will be able to tell if you are playing her piece better than she is.

Johan's answer was in the context of joining a choir as an adjunct to piano lessons. You seemed to be suggesting it instead of piano lessons.

When I take instrumental lessons, it is because I want to work one-on-one with a teacher and acquire skills with an expert. I've joined choirs myself, mostly to get experience performing in a group before mastering the instrument. By and large there was nobody teaching me anything and it would not have met that need.

So if someone wants to learn to play the piano, and if your advice is to join a choir instead, that is the part that I could not follow. The rest of it I could.

I would base your decision about a teacher on whether it is a good fit for you. Has your daughter indicated that she does not want to share her teacher with you? If you think she will feel competition from you, you could either practice at times when she is not at home, or choose a different teacher.

I disagree with the advice that you should think about taking up a different instrument or the choir. I know for certain that there is no choir who would want me as a member. Not all pianists can carry a tune. Why should you give up your love of the piano?

One potential awkward issue about taking piano from the same teacher is if you decide later on you would like to switch to another teacher.

This is such a touching image.

Thank you everyone for your input. I'm glad to hear that sharing teachers works well for some families, and even has its advantages. In the end I think Peter reinforced some qualms I had about sharing a teacher with my daughter. This is because of our particular situation and my daughter's fiercely independent temperament. It's not so much the competition/jealousy concerns, which I doubt would be an issue at all, but because I don't want to meddle with the "specialness" of their teacher-student bond. Perhaps it would work out fine to share, but if there's any risk of spoiling a good thing, I might as well put in the work to find my own teacher, or continue to self-teach as some have suggested, and let my daughter teach me as she gets older and gets better than me.

Oh, and I'm not about to join a choir. I refuse to join any choir that would have me as a member.

Thoughts at random.

Turning this around - ViennaAutumn, you say you already play violin. Can I assume that you learned violin as a child? If so, did you have a kind of bond with your teacher that would have been "threatened" if another family member also were to study with that teacher? How about the fact that this teacher would also have had a relationship with each of the other students?

I've been mulling over this the last few days. It came up in my own life when my child had been studying violin for two years and my parents out of the blue bought a fiddle for me from a neighbour. By then he was 14 (not 6) so I asked him his feelings. Nonetheless as mothers we are naturally protective, and so I beat myself up about not being the real student - that this belonged to the child - until my teacher caught wind and said emphatically "You ARE my student." I was his student. My child was his student. 30 other kids and adults were his student. He had no problem keeping that separate. I am SO glad that nobody reinforced my negative thoughts where I was beating myself up.

What about siblings in a same household studying the same instrument?

What about the Suzuki program? Here it is mandatory for parents to study the instrument alongside the child for the first years, in order to work with the teacher according to that program. Though I have always wondered "What if the parent becomes serious about the instrument?" (rather than an adjunct that fades away).

The kinds of concerns I had were if the parent advances faster than the child, because of talent and dedication (if these exist) and whether this would make the child feel small, and undermine the child's feelings of accomplishment. Or, in that case, would the child naturally assume that adults do things well because everywhere else in life adults are ahead of kids generally speaking? How does that compare to a talented brother or sister outstripping the other child - which maybe can be hurtful because they're both kids.

There is an undercurrent of something - it may be my imagination - which bothers me. If someone is by nature a musician and wants to learn a new instrument, to suppress this and limit it, for fear of harming someone else - is this healthy? Having your six year old child teach you how to play the piano is a good strategy for supporting your child's growth and showing interest. But if you want to learn to play the piano, will that work?

Can there be benefits to studying an instrument your child is studying? Can that help you understand the child's frustrations or problems in your role of supporting parent? Might the child actually be the one to "teach" you once in a while, and thus empower the child?

If there is any chance of rivalry or competition, then I would back off.

There is also the teacher-student-parent triangle with young children. Usually you are working with the teacher in some way in supporting his teaching. Will this change - to the positive - to the negative? Have you discussed the idea with the teacher?

Keystring,

Thanks for your thoughts. I don't think I would have been threatened by someone else in the family on the violin. However, I can say that my younger sister seemed to avoid like the plague all activities that I was very involved in. I wonder if she would have been really talented at something and only avoided it because of me. I suppose she didn't want to be in my shadow.

I don't think competition would be as much of an issue between parent and child as between siblings. My daughter knows I'm still better at her than piano right now, but she doesn't think much about it since I'm an adult. I have the feeling she will stick to piano for a long time, and hopefully with this same teacher. My hesitation is more about wanting her to have her own special friendship with the teacher. It's not about jealousy or competition, but about "space." Not every kid is like this, but when I was younger, it was very important for me to have my own relationships with people and my own activities without my parents being present or involved. Not everything had to be separate from them, but it was nice that some important things were. I think she's going to be like me in that aspect of personality.

You are right that taking "lessons" from my daughter is more about her development than mine. Today I practiced hands separately a Bach little prelude and I had the idea to ask her to "help" me by watching the score as I played and pointing out my mistakes. I made some mistakes on purpose and some not on purpose. She delighted in pointing them out. I'm guessing this is good practice for her reading and aural imagery. So, right now these activities are all about her and not about me, and as a mother I am fine with that because I really enjoy seeing her growth. But yes, part of me really longs for real lessons and to experience some growth for myself! I can still do that with a different teacher, however.

Beautifully expressed, Vienna!

Just an observation:
Most of the time when a small child has private lessons, the parent is already both present and involved. It is definitely the case here. Meanwhile when a parent takes lessons with a teacher, this has nothing to do with the child and the child's time with the teacher. In all likelihood a parent would have a separate time with the teacher while the child is at school or being watched by the other parent. This is not speaking for or against having the same teacher as one's child, but an observation.

If it's a good teacher than it definitely makes sense. This is why I started taking piano lessons in the first place, I wanted to be able to check on my daughter's progress. I discovered that her teacher wasn't good so I got us a new teacher.