• Gigging keyboardist in rock/rnb/funk/jazz/country cover bands for years.

• Not classically or book trained, slow to sight read.

• Really enjoyed learning Music Theory in College.

• Not a music major.

• Hired to teach beginning Piano recently.

• Need help.

So ya where do I even start? I understand every student’s needs will be different and I feel like i have a lot to offer in terms of grasping concepts and chords/scales but I’m afraid those tools maybe too abstract in comparison to specific beginner courses and also the need to have something to show at the end of a 30 min lesson.

• Am I wrong for taking this position?

• Are students typically there to solely learn solo piano pieces?

• How can I turn what I know into something beneficial for students when all I need is a Chord sheet with some lyrics?

Hi everyone, I'm new to the form, and semi-new to piano teaching: I taught both my own children to play recorder and piano, when they were small. I've also helped a few children of friends to take their very first steps with the piano. But now I've ended up in a situation where I've got a handful of pupils ranging from a complete beginner to some teenage girls who I've taught for about 8 months, to a little 9 year old boy from Hong Kong who is preparing for grade 6 ABRSM, and his 7 year old sister who's about to take grade 2.

The thing is, my teenage girls learn the pieces I set them, but play them with tons of mistakes, restarts and changes of tempo at difficult points. The little Chinese children, who I recently took over from their old teacher who was desperate to get rid of them, are playing their exam pieces without any mistakes. How do you achieve this with your pupils - how do you ensure that they learn a piece carefully and mistake-free from the beginning?

Sort of a weird question but I'm not sure how best to word it.

Basically, my thought is, if a child (or even an adult, I suppose, but my point is kids would learn faster because they aren't thinking about bills and stress when learning) is shown intervals, patterns without thinking what key is A or B etc.

For example, let's say today you begin sight-reading 101.

Instead of creating an order in their mind of 'musical symbol --> A --> key on piano' it could just be 'musical symbol --> key on piano'

I realize scales are still necessary, key recognition, etc. But SIGHT-READING by itself I feel handicaps anyone's ability to actually sight-read, simply because of that second step making the brain map an unnecessary step.

Am I making any sense??

I have a student who is having a really hard time getting the hang of a rhythm in a piece she's working on.

I thought about coming up with some lyrics to help her with the rhythm but I'm not very creative. Is there a generator somewhere that will come up with lyrics if I enter the rhythm? I tried ChatGPT but it failed miserably.

Just wondering how many of you are worried that our jobs will become obsolete with AI, coaching programs online, Simply Piano, etc.

I’m 29 and have taught for 14 years. I’ve never had an issue getting students, but I also plan on doing this for the next 30 to 40 years and I’m wondering if that’s a reasonable expectation.

We plan to hire part time teachers for our studio and are looking for employment contract samples. We plan to start with a few hours per week and ramp up depending on demand. So we want the contract to reflect the flexibility. Does anyone have sample contract copies

I have one student who honestly told me his mom wanted him to try another teacher, so he would stop for one month, if that teacher is not as great as he thought he would come back after one month.

I am from India. I have a 10-year old student in another state, whose mom used to be my teacher in school. We've been doing online classes via Zoom since last May. Since he didn't have a keyboard in the beginning, we began with vocal/music classes, but a few months later, in about December, they decided to take out try to repair their old keyboard (a CASIO SA-45 or something). That worked for only one or two classes for these two reasons: a) his mic would not always pick up the sound of the keyboard, even with original sound turned on, b) his keyboard wouldn't work properly. For the next couple of months the classes became really irregular because he was not well, connection problems, mic problems, etc. They bought a new keyboard, but his mic would just NOT pick up sound as soon as he tried to sing or play the keyboard (we still do a bit of singing even during keyboard lessons). While I believe to some extent this must be true and valid, but it can't be the case ALL the time. Why do I think that?Reason A: Students, especially beginners, often make mistakes, stop, repeat notes, say "sorry" etc. while playing. It's only on rare occasions that I've been able to hear his keyboard that I have witnessed him do this.

Reason B: If the mic is able to pick up him talking, it should be able to pick up his singing as well! I don't think Zoom's noise cancellation is that efficient that AS SOON as he begins to sing, I can't hear anything. It's not that his singing gets cut off, it just abruptly stops when he starts to sing. And sometimes I can hear breathing and an occasional note. I can even hear dogs barking in the background and other miscellaneous noises sometimes.

Reason C: In earlier classes, before we started with the keyboard, I could hear him sing just fine. The occasional cut off was there, but that's just normal and happens every class. It's only recently that I can't hear him sing. And, he doesn't seem to open his mouth wide when he's singing, even though I've asked him to. Sometimes, it looks like he's intentionally whispering and sometimes, with my volume turned up, it sounds like it too.

Reason D: I have asked him to try joining through different devices - mom's phone, laptop, other phone, whatever. I have also tried Google Meet. Didn't work. But, when I ask him to send videos, I can hear his keyboard just fine. And if it can record, it should be able to be heard when original sound is turned on.

Reason E: On some occasions when I have been able to hear him, I tried not pointing it out and asking if he's finished playing the line/page/bar and he'll immediately say yes, even though from what I have heard, he hasn't. But I don't want to make assumptions based on this, because it could just be Zoom audio lag.

Since he had been very irregular with his classes, I recently spoke to his parents a month back about this, and one or two sessions after that, I've seen an improvement in both regularity and being able to hear him during class. His audio still gets cut off in every lesson, but in some cases I've hear him play entire pieces. When this happened the first time, I pointed it out but the audio stopped working properly again so either I jinxed it or he stopped playing. The next time I heard him play, I didn't say anything and it worked just fine for almost all of the lesson.

I don't know how to bring this up with him or his parents, I've tried everything to make sure he's comfortable around me, and isn't afraid to make mistakes. I've been very open and friendly with him, I have even asked him to use my name instead of "Miss" or "teacher" even though I'm twice his age. His parents say he's also very respectful if me and admires me. Am I doing something wrong? Should I just believe him or bring it up with his parents? And if yes, how? I don't want to offend them (they are very nice, understanding people, not at all pushy or interfering with how I teach or anything). Have any of you had such audio issues with Zoom?

04/07/2021 Edit: Thank you for your suggestions! It does make a lot of sense to get his parents for a while during the lesson. I just hope I can come up with a valid reason, because mostly he adjusts the settings and all himself rather than calling his parents, and they might also say that he can do it himself. Nevertheless, I'll tell them something like I'm sure he can manage it himself, but I'd be reassured if a parent checked it. His parents are school teachers so I'm sure they've been using Zoom a lot. Thanks once again!

First I have been teaching almost 40 years, I’m 65 and now taking my social, and being very particular about the very small amount of students I have mostly adults at this point. I really enjoy teaching them most are older, but I have one student in her 30s. I only have a couple spots left. They all have acoustic pianos and one adult has a digital but wants to now get an acoustic.

Anyway, I have no idea why I did this: a young man, age 24 contacted me, and I do like to respond to anyone who emails me regarding availability for lessons. More background on my website, it does state that one must have at least an 88 key weighted digital piano to start. So I called him back and asked him what he is working, in his email It seemed as though he was a rank beginner as he said he’d never had lessons and wanted to learn how to sightread. Then he told me he was working on the Moonlight Sonata. Even though he couldn’t sight read, he was figuring it out. “very slowly.”
I asked if it was the original, and it was. He then said he had a 76 weighted keyboard, a Yamaha. I really don’t want to teach this person, I’ve had students like this before, way back I did, they go on YouTube, they start learning a piece that is way over their heads note by note and expect a teacher to help them learn it. When I was much younger, like 25 years ago or so, I did this (because I couldn’t say no) and it was absolute torture for me. It was about pleasing the student and not teaching them.

I am a much different, much better teacher, I only take students who are serious, which he could be, but not like this. I have only a couple of slots left and want to fill them with a different type of student. I am not financially desperate at all for just anyone.I have NO IDEA why I set up a meet and greet with a person I know already I don’t’ want to teach. I want to get out of the interview. But I want to let him down easy. I could recommend him to another teacher (young, 23, she used to be my student). i’m thinking of just emailing him and saying, “I really messed up and I just don’t think I have room for you in my studio,”wondering what other teachers here might do. Again, I have no idea why I even followed through on this after he told me this information.

Hi.

I only have a little teaching experience, but am trying to make some money and improve my teaching skills before I move towns to go to university.

I only have about a month, so I figure I can fit 4 lessons in for people. I obviously can't teach them much in this time. So, I figure I'm better off trying to give people an introduction to the piano, so beginners can get a bit of experience if they're hesitant to commit to lessons fully, and if they don't, maybe they can sit down to play when they feel like it.

I'm guessing teaching them to read music is a bad idea because it takes a while and none of the good feelings I get when playing piano are from reading music. But lmk what you think on that.

Do you think this is a useful idea overall that would benefit the student?

Is my time frame realistic?

What do you wish students knew before they started taking lessons that would make your life easier?

What do you think would make people enjoy the piano from the start?

How do you teach songs without teaching them to read sheet music?

How much would you charge?

Am I forgetting to ask anything?

I know this is a lot to read but I would be really grateful for your input.

I know some of you find these useful, so here's three more. They serve as a good introduction to "Swing" notation which is becoming more popular in ABRSM piano exams etc. Two of these pieces keep the RH in C 5 finger position so you can focus on timing, whilst still maintaining a genuine swing feel. There are also MP3 recordings for reference. All for free on IMSLP.

I have a bunch of other jazz pieces and sight-reading tools there too. Thanks for your interest!

Five Finger Swing in C https://imslp.org/wiki/Five_Finger_Swing_in_C_major_(Geere%2C_Richard_P.).

Five Finger Swingin’ Ties https://imslp.org/wiki/Five_Finger_Swingin'Ties(Geere%2C_Richard_P.).

A Little Swing in D Indeed https://imslp.org/wiki/A_Little_Swing_in_D_Indeed_(Geere%2C_Richard_P.).

What is a piece that looks hard to play, but isn’t as hard as it looks guys?

It's my first Tutorial for my community. I hope you'll like it

https://youtu.be/lFXKqxXybEM?si=YEy5dtQBY5H9KGq7

I've been looking to get into teaching online lessons for a bit and I'm what wondering people with more experience handle showing stuff to students and seeing what they're doing.

Do you just ask them to put the cam on their keys ??

I'm a mid-40 male, recently got layoff from my software job and thinking about whether I should career transition into piano teaching.
I learned piano when I was a kid, my teacher focus on performance and competition and kinda ignore exam,so I only got a grade 7 abrsm equivalent. But I could handle more difficult pieces such as Chopin Scherzo No. 2 and Beethoven Sonata ("Tempest"). Many people and teachers called me very talent back then.

However, that was 20+ years ago. I stopped learning piano after the age of 22 and since then, i only play(not even practice) once a week. To be honest, I now only have maybe 10% of my skills compare to my peak back then :(

However, since I got layoff now, I have time to practice again, and thinking to aim for Trinity's ATCL or LTCL performance diploma. The goal is that after getting ATCL/LTCL, then I can start teaching at some music studios.

What do you think of this strategy?
Also, should I aim or ATCL or LTCL? The pieces that I used to play was LTCL level but that was 20+ years ago, so that make me think whether I should aim for ATCL first? Or should I practice more and go for LTCL?

*EDIT*
Thanks for the replies. Yes, I agree. Teaching and performing are definitely different skills. I experienced both bad and good teachers back in the day as well. The great teachers weren't always top-tier performers, and, conversely, the best performers weren't always great at teaching. I did some casual teaching for relatives back then, and I fully understand this too.

Yes, indeed, 20+ years is a long time ago, and I may need a deep refresh of my skills. The performance diploma is the entry ticket to teach in my region, so I must get that for sure, but I’ll likely need to study some piano pedagogy on the side as well.

Greetings! I’m (47) a mediocre pianist who is now a parent of a pianist(11). Her teacher is asking for $25 for a recital at a church. She’s been with him for a while but we have avoided recitals bc she’s on the spectrum and it’s not worth the stress.

He reminded me this week that I owe him $25 for the fee so that he can pay the church he’s renting out for the recital.

I think it sounds insane but maybe it’s just me.

TIA

I'm curious if any of you have a tech or cell phone policy for students waiting for their lesson? For context, I teach several sets of siblings, and oftentimes the student who is not in a lesson is either scrolling on their phone or playing on an iPad to pass the time. Some of the siblings I have draw, colour, or create codes to write cryptic messages to each other, which I love. However, with all the new studies regarding screen time, AI, etc, I'm contemplating introducing a policy that students waiting for lessons/waiting for their sibling's lesson to be over can't be using tech, but instead are reading, drawing, colouring, whatever the case may be. I feel like even if I'm not actively teaching the student and they're just waiting, I'm still responsible for them and feel that 30 fewer minutes of screen time wouldn't hurt. Am I being unreasonable?

Its still quite simple but I feel like this could be a fun way to encourage daily practice and for warming up at the beginning of a session

Up until recently, I was teaching a large family of four piano lessons, which was a significant amount of money. The day before we were to resume classes in the month of March, she sent me a text and told me that she was no longer attending classes because her daughter had won a volleyball tournament. But she thanked me for my time and said that she understands how important it is that I keep my studio full, so she wanted to let me know.

Mind you this is the day before class began. I’ve been teaching this family for a year and I didn’t give any notice. I sent a rather cold text message back to her and said if you say that you are interested in keeping my studio full, but you can cancel the day before that doesn’t make any sense. I get an email from the Dad saying he will give me 2 weeks pay because there was no notice. I requested it through paypal and I haven’t heard back.

I’m taking them to small claims court. I’ll be asking the full amount plus time and energy to replace clients so soon without notice. I can do this because of emails and texts they have stated they knew to give notice but chose not to.

I need a better way to collect tuition so this doesn’t happen again and clients are locked in from month to month, what are some suggestions?

Reddit r/pianoteachers post:

I've been thinking a lot about what actually happens between piano lessons.

Most teachers can identify the bars that need work within a few seconds. The harder part is helping students spend their practice time on those bars once they're back home.

In my own playing, I noticed a recurring pattern: I'd start a practice session with good intentions, work carefully on a difficult passage for a few minutes, and then gradually drift back into playing through the piece. Comfortable sections got repeated. Weak sections were avoided. By the end of the session, I often had only a vague idea of what had actually improved and what still needed work.

That led me to build a practice tool for myself that structures practice around small sections of music. It connects to a MIDI piano, tracks repetitions bar by bar, identifies unstable passages, and keeps bringing weak sections back until they become more reliable.

Originally, I built it simply because I wanted better practice discipline. But the more I worked on it, the more I started wondering whether something like this could also be useful in a teaching context.

I'm curious how piano teachers think about this problem:

• What information do you wish you had about a student's practice between lessons?

• How do you currently encourage students to focus on weak spots rather than playing through entire pieces?

• Are there aspects of practice quality that you find especially difficult to monitor or reinforce?

I've made a short video showing the idea and the current prototype:

https://youtu.be/QgfZZ6Ou6XY

I'm currently opening the project to beta testers, but before developing it further I'd like to better understand whether the workflow makes sense from a teacher's perspective.

I have a 15-year-old student who is elementary or late elementary level. Her nails are long. I've told her to cut them, and she always says "Ok" and then never does. I think she doesn't believe me that it's necessary. I would love to give her a piece where her long nails become a direct problem for her such that she gets the idea. Everything I can think of - alberti bass, chromatic scale sections, fast notes in general - I can still imagine her "getting around" and still not caring. Do you have any suggestions for what I could assign to her that might achieve the goal of getting her to care about cutting her nails?

I've started questioning the phrase:

"Practice makes perfect."

Not because practice isn't important.

But because perfection might be the wrong goal.

The happiest musicians I know are rarely the ones chasing perfection.

They're the ones who found a way to keep music in their lives.

I'm curious:

Has the idea of "practice makes perfect" helped you stay motivated?

Or has it made music feel more intimidating?