Are you Making this Critical Mistake in Choosing your First Piano Teacher? (I Used to Think the Same Way)

Is your son ready to start piano lessons? He’s shown interest in music, he’s exploring the piano/keyboard at home, he’s got friends taking piano lessons and you want to find a piano teacher for him.

Here it is, #1 mistake parents make choosing their children’s first piano teacher: play well = teach well.

It’s so easy to make this mistake I used to think the same thing. Here was my checklist for why I’d be a great piano teacher back in college:

You Need to Know All This to Teach Piano?

Not so fast young grasshopper. The graduate program in piano pedagogy opened my eyes to just how much there is to teaching piano. 

• Knowledge of child developmental stages
• Different type of learners (New research has made this somewhat debatable. We’re all visual learners and the best way is really to expose students to all type of learning)
• Optimal learning sequences
• Optimal sequencing of musical concepts
• Ability to break concepts down into small actionable steps
• Ability to give clear and concise instructions
• Ability to determine the best next step (most of the time there are MANY things to be improved in a student’s playing but what is the best next thing that’ll make the biggest improvement in a student’s playing)
• Ability to analyze piano method books for strengths and weaknesses
• Ability to construct a curriculum for transfer students
• Practice strategies and technique
• Ability to evaluate and reflect on ones own teaching

This is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to being a professional piano teacher. In fact this is just the teaching side of things, assuming the playing part of the equation is down pat. 

What You Should Really Look for in a Piano Teacher

With that being said, teachers who aren’t advanced pianists or teachers without a pedagogy or education background can still be great teachers for beginners. 

There are a bazillion ways for teachers to learn and improve their teaching now: workshops, books, magazines, classes, conventions, and conferences (the old favorites).  Now we’ve also got Facebook groups for piano teachers, LinkedIn groups for professional music teachers, piano teacher blogs, and even podcasts.

What you’re looking for is someone who knows how to teach above all else and someone who never stops learning. 

Remember the Three Little Pigs (Bricks vs. Straws)

The piano is made of bricks, coincidence? I think not.

I get it. It’s easy to go with the first person you know who plays the piano or the cheapest teacher. A lot of parents say this, “Johnny is only a beginner, we just want to see if he’s really interested in piano. We’ll get in touch with you again when he’s more advanced.” 

When it comes to beginners, bad habits and musical foundation take an exponential amount of time and frustration to undo. So it’s very important to make sure your kid is the little piggy building with bricks (more effort, “slower” progress, lasting results) not straws (less effort, “quick” progress, misleading results)—and the material they build with is a direct result of the piano teacher they have.

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Blowing Away Straws, Rebuilding with Bricks

Blake Griffin's new shooting form. Image by Derrick Story

Personally, I’ve found that transfer students with poor fundamentals in reading (most common source of frustration) and technique to be the hardest to teach. Learning piano is already a frustrating experience at times, having to relearn and start over—well, Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers describes what that’s like when he talked about retooling his shooting form over the summer.

They got eliminated in the first round last year, Griffin shot 45% from the field while the other team left him OPEN. This year, he shot 58% in the first round of the playoffs and the Clippers advanced to the second round. 

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Share and Help Others!

This post sums up probably the most important thing I learned in grad school. It completely changed the way I viewed piano teaching.

And now you too!

Beginning piano lessons is not the time to save money. If your kid isn’t cut out for piano lessons, you’ll have gotten him a good foundation should he decide to start lessons again in the future on his own (more common than you think).

If they continue to progress, reaching the intermediate repertoire will be like hitting a brick wall without good fundamentals in reading and learning. This is the stage transfer students are usually in unless they’re transferring because their teacher moved. This is when most parents wish they'd have started with the right teacher from the beginning because of all the time they've lost.

Do you know friends or other parents who are or might be looking for piano lessons? Share this with them! You’ll help them and their children save hours of frustration and money in the long run by not making this common and critical mistake in choosing their first piano teacher.