In the process of booking a trial lesson with a jazz piano teacher (kindly recommended by TSax). My current teacher is great, but she doesn't teach jazz as such and I'm really keen to get started with jazz theory, chord voicings, improvisation etc.

If it goes okay, the plan would be to continue classical lessons with my current teacher so I can work on my general pianistic skills and concentrate solely on jazz with the other. Now of course I'm fretting whether having two teachers on the same instrument will actually work...anyone here manage it?

Also, I haven't discussed this with my current teacher - don't really want to tell her until I'm sure the second teacher/set of lessons is what I'm after. But if I do decide to pursue it, I'll need to tell her and I'm worried she might be offended that I've gone elsewhere for the jazz side of things.

Any thoughts?

As you will be doing totally different things with each teacher I don't think that either should have a problem with it so long as you are open about it.
If you are comfortable with the extra practice you will need to put in then it sounds ok to me.
Not exactly the same thing but I had a separate theory teacher for the higher grades and both she and my piano teacher at the time were happy with the arrangement as long as I was open about it. The theory teacher did ask that I'd let my piano teacher know what i was doing.

I go to different teachers for Classical and Jazz piano. I consider classical piano the more important and it is in those lessons that my flawed techniques are being reconstructed and extended through the medium of Bach Preludes and Fugues and Chopin Etudes.

Jazz lessons are concerned with quickly grasping sequences of harmonies and quickly coming up with improvisations (=making it up as fast as you are playing it) based on the combination of riff/melody/baseline and underlying harmony finding suitable arrangements of basic chords and accompanying figuration to fit in with them.

They are complementary. The jazz instruction makes classical pieces easier to understand and memorize. The classical training provides the control and dexterity to play all styles.

I'm glad you're speaking to Alex - I'm sure you'll enjoy learning from him.

As others have said I don't see why the set-up you're envisaging shouldn't work well and I'd be surprised if your classical teacher was upset by it - she might even be relieved that she no longer has to try and teach you in areas outside of her expertise.

In my own experience I haven't had the disasters with more than one teacher that people talk about here. For the last 4 years I have had one main saxophone teacher (although, sadly, she's moving on). Since she's a busy performer there have been occasions when she has passed my teaching onto someone else, occasionally just for one or two lessons, last term for a couple of months. I've found the opportunity to get a fresh view on my playing and how to improve a useful experience - sometimes the alternative teacher will be working with me on the same problem as my regular teacher but will express it differently and things will fall into place.

As well as the individual lessons I go to a regular jazz workshop led by a sax player with a very different style of playing to my teacher. Although the workshops aren't for teaching instrumental technique, inevitably it does crop up from time to time. I have also been on summer schools led by different teachers again. With all of these teachers I've never been in a position of receiving contradictory advice - a different slant on things maybe, but often in a useful way. My primary teacher is genuinely interested to hear what I've been doing with other teachers, what advice they've given me and how they've explained things.

I think that the position as an adult, already having a reasonable degree of competence, the pitfalls of more than one teacher are much less than for a child starting out on an instrument.

I don't see it being a probelm so long as one is open and honest about it with both parties. I study with two, well actually three teachers...Two for reed making and one for playing, all three are wonderful and I find that their different approaches have been a huge benefit to me and my playing. My Oboe teacher is a wonderful woman, hugely experienced and well respected in the Oboe world, my reed teachers are both superb proffessional players of some quite considered standing and have taught me the art of reed making very succesfully up to the point where I can go away and experiment quite happily with my reed making to get more or less what I am after. Saying that I would not hesitate to ask my Oboe teacher for input on the reed making and vice versa my reed teachers for musical opinions..I am a grown up and can sort the wheat fro the chaff and make my own decisions regrading what I consider appropriate advice.

Honesty is always the best policy and both teachers should be aware of the other...it is vital that information is shared and constructive, there is rarely only one correct way to do something so a happy medium should be found...fresh ideas and ears are always welcome...

I would like to add however that I would not reccomend two teachers until technique and a certain musical level is reached...that may add more confusion than would be required...so maybe for a novice one teacher at the outset is best...says he almost totally contradicting himself...

Regards

Andrew

I'd like to add that my classical teacher (a wonderful person, and the best teacher I have ever had for anything, next to Mr. Taylor in the last year of primary school)

has recommended that I should take some extra lessons on learning and playing Scriabin with another Utrecht-based concert pianist, and she thinks it is good to experience different approaches and different points of view.

I am going to have 2 teachers when I start uni as I don't want to leave the teacher I am with but the uni insist I go to their teacher. My own teacher knows and would rather I stay with just her but as I can't do that I have to do it this way

Perhaps things get tricky with more than one teacher on certain instruments rather than others?

With violin there are substantially different ways of doing things; some teachers teach what's called the 'Franco-Belgian' bow hold, other teachers teach the Russian. With the left hand some teachers advocate the thumb being opposite the first finger, some opposite the second finger, some between the two and some where it falls naturally. Some violin teachers start off with plucking, some with bowing open strings. Some teach one kind of vibrato, others teach another. For these sorts of reasons I think two violin teachers is generally a bad idea unless one is teaching, say jazz and ther other primarily classical and technique/related issues.

I teach two children who also learn in school; one comes to me only in the holidays, the other in term time. I'm teaching the holiday girl how to improvise and play jazz and keep well away from technical issues even when I see problems because I don't know the other teacher's approach. The other girl's other teacher is a friend of mine and we've agreed to teach from different books. I'm allowed to approach technical issues because the other teacher's approach is very similar to mine and we discuss her progress from time to time; she comes to me because her school lessons are very short and shared and she was making very little progress before. She carries on with her school lessons because she enjoys the group situation and gets to participate in school music.

So in the main I would say for violin: only if the two teachers are teaching different areas, or have come to an agreement amongst themselves. I can't say for other instruments.

Firstly you are doing the right thing about being up front. Many Classical teachers are completely at sea when it comes to teaching Jazz Piano, others are not it depends on their background. Likewise there are Jazz Pianists who cannot teach Classical styles, but they are thinner on the ground "choose to" is more the case.

Dancers have different teachers for Ballet and Jazz so why shouldn't musicians.

However there is a huge But coming along. Both teachers need to communicate inorder not to undermine the fundamentals of the others methodology. This is very unlikely to happen with any instrument other than the voice where there are fundamental technical issues that can be reconcilled, but could cause a huge clash too.

Thanks everyone. In retrospect, I probably should have discussed with my teacher first, but I guess it's only a trial lesson - initially I just want to find out how it could work. I love my current teacher - although I found her a little crusty at first, I've really grown to like her and think she's exactly the right sort of teacher for me.

But she said to me one day that a friend had tried to teach her jazz and she just 'didn't get it.' I am very much in awe of her playing, but she said to me (rather wistfully) that it was much better to be like me i.e. able to read and interpret music, but better at playing by ear, improvising etc than the former.

Obviously she is not clueless about jazz. I have no doubt she could get me through the ABRSM jazz exams! But I don't just want to learn exam pieces/jazz pieces. In the long term I want to learn play from lead sheets etc. At the moment it seems like a long way off, but I have a feeling that learning jazz skills as I go, in little bite size chunks will work better for me. That's the idea, anyway!