Hi, just a few questions. I'm 50 in a couple of weeks and have started teaching myself piano (on a Casio keyboard) for 12 months now. I have worked my way thru Alfreds Adult Piano Course Book and I'm on No. 2. I'm not doing too bad but my timing is shocking and i'm just 'ok'. I want to start piano lessons but can't really afford too many lessons. I was just wondering would fortnightly be beneficial to me. Like what I would want the teacher to do is to correct the errors i have inevitably picked up and teach timing etc. I am only after social piano, nothing serious but just for my own pleasure. What do you think? What do they do in a typical lesson? Thanks.

Typically, adults will get lessons every other week. That gives us enough time to practice and get stuff prepared for lessons, as we often have a lot of things to take care of (more so than kids). However, any less often than that and learned mistakes will be so ingrained in your muscle memory and mind they will be almost impossible to undo.

taffy, the answer is (as always) it depends. You are essentially a beginner, even though you've self-taught very elementary concepts.

Please don't be insulted, but text books cannot teach concepts such as tone production, arm, wrist motion, finger placement on keys, etc., without pages and pages of text, so these topics are omitted. If you get a good teacher, he or she will want to spend some time correcting your mechanism and teaching you some of these skills, as well as advancing you along the path you've already started.

I would recommend you budget your finances so that you can take two, possibly three months of weekly lessons, then drop to bi-weekly lessons for the remainder of the year. After a year or two, you could probably handle monthly lessons.

By the way, you should ask for hour lessons, so that you don't run out of material to work on, and quite honestly, in an hour, the teacher can accomplish a lot more with you, which will greatly help your advancement.

Taffy,

As a student, I took the same path that you are taking. I self taught, then took bi-weekly lessons. My wife and I traded weeks with the same teacher.

You will definitely learn more from a good teacher, even bi-weekly, than you can learn on your own. And I had to do exactly what John mentions, re-learn all the physical components of playing. I now take weekly lessons.

I would urge you to go for it. If you can swing an arrangement such as John suggests, even better.

taffy,

Go every week to a lesson! What usually happens is you may miss a week for whatever reason, then you are going to your piano lesson every 3 weeks. Bi-weekly just gets confusing, so just go every week. That way you won't slack off.

I refuse to take students bi-weekly cause it just confuses me too!

Thanks guys for your advice. I just totally love playing the piano and I hope later this year to replace by basic little Casio keyboard with an 88 digital piano. I practice every spare moment I have, I just adore it. I will find out some prices of teachers here in Oz and work on my budget and see how I go, but weekly for a few months sounds the way and then we'll take it from there. Again, many thanks
Taffy