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I am, at 3 years, progressing well into classical music, but have also a strong interest in jazz & blues. (yes.. my heart's desire is to be a lounge lizard.. )

My teacher now is great for classical, but does not teach jazz. Does anyone else have two teachers for different styles? If so, how has that worked out?

I've never taken lessons from two teachers at once, but since I am a piano teacher I'll go ahead and give my advice. I think this could work out very well if handled properly. The best situation would be the one where both teachers know about the other and some sort of communication about your lessons occurs between them. Otherwise, you will have one teacher telling you to do something a certain way and the other will tell you that what you are doing is incorrect.

Your first step should be to talk to your current teacher and find out if he/she would be willing to work with another teacher.

I had two teachers for about a year. cziffra is right about talking to your teacher just now first.
My second teacher specialized in technique at the Guildhall school, so I had her exclusively for that until a year had passed and she moved away, but she told me we had accomplished everything we had set out to do, so I was pleased. During that time my original teacher kept going with everything else like repertoire and sight-reading and so on. Also I have a separate teacher for theory as well. I found it very helpful and I feel I progressed amazingly because of the different input from different teachers.

Freedom

Thanks. Although I have seen someone on here discuss having two teachers secretly, I would never do such a thing. The beauty of being and adult is that one can do what one wishes.. openly.

My teacher (Jayne) is classically trained but also has a degree from Berklee. So she knows enough about jazz/pop to teach me the theory I have to know. And she's a lovely person to study with! (In fact, my 11-year-old daughter has started studying with her as well!)

Maybe one day I'll go to a teacher who is strictly jazz/pop, but Jayne is just fine for me now.

Bob

Hi Michael,

I had two teachers, one for classical and one for jazz/blues. Neither teacher saw the other as a problem because as far as they were concerned they were not in competition, they were teaching completely different things. When I started my jazz lessons my classical teacher even welcomed it - she thought that broadening my abilities could only help my classical playing. Learning jazz was like learning a completely different language!

The one thing I did find was that having weekly lessons from both teachers was too much - I found I didn't have time to practise adequately for either. If you are having weekly classical lessons at the moment you may find that once you start jazz lessons you will want less frequent lessons in order to have time to prepare properly.

I eventually stopped my jazz lessons when my jazz teacher became ill but it is my intention to start them again when I have more time.

Andrea.

Thanks, Andrea! I was wondering if two lessons a week would not be too much, especially with the classsical stuff I'm getting into now takimg much more time.

I posted the same question Here (it'a s different forum)

I ended up getting a Jazz Harmony book, which I am working through on my own while maintaining a single teacher for the classical. I'm going to give myself a year to fully integrate the jazz theory and then seek out a second teacher to take me from there.

-Paul

Thanks, Mound... you have a virtual (meaning nonexistent) gift certificate from me to go get something great for dinner from Wegmans in Pitsford.

I will look for teh jazz harmony book!

When I had my two teachers they would talk to each other on the phone and so on so they could work around each other, making sure one didn't says one thing and the other say something completely different.
I found this useful. Also at that time I was getting in total 4 lessons a week, counting both performance teachers and theory.

Freedom