Hi I wonder if I could pick your brains - I have a lovely teacher who is in her eighties she has a great personality and is a fountain of knowledge. To begin with things were great I was steadily moving through the book and making good progress. Two things have happened recently thought

She is obviously lonely or chatty! as a lot of my lesson time is spent with me listening as she tells me musical stories from her youth. While they are really enteraining they are, being harsh, eating into my lesson time.

Secondly for the last 4 weeks I have been on the same two tunes - I am now bored to tears. Last week I asked if I could move on and she said no - "they had to be at concert performance level before they could be put to bed" Now I am all for getting it right but, does it have to be perfect and at this level before i can do something new?

I am a complete beginner but also learn the sax - my sax tutor will often say - lets move on clare, you have got all you can from that tune - when when it is not perfect. I love this approach and feel that it encourages me to practice

what do you all think about my piano teachers methods?

Thanks clare

In general (though there are exceptions) your piano teacher's methods are reasonably what I'd expect from a teacher of that age. Most of the adult pupils who come to me now cite this sort of rigid teaching as how they learnt in the 1950s (and consequently gave up!).

I think that your sax teacher has the right approach - all pupils get to the point where there is nothing more to be gained at that point in time from continuing with a particular piece. It's very difficult to get a piece up to 'concert standard' unless you've actually got a concert, performance or exam etc. to work towards.

Much as she sounds very sweet, I think you know yourself that if you want to move on with your piano, she isn't the right teacher to do this with you.

I agree that there is an advantage to getting occasional pieces up to performance standard so that A: You can perform, B: You know what is involved in doing that. But most repertoire, particularly at lower grades, should reasonably quickly pass by. The point is to get the learning out of it. Why did she set a particular piece? If it's to learn to co-ordinate your two hands and you have now done that, move on. If it's to introduce your first sharp or flat key and you have done that, move on. If the piece has been set for fluency and you are not yet fluent then continuing with it would make some sense.

This seems to represent the "doing over learning" thing we learned in my education degree. It's very common for teachers to focus on what the class is going to produce, not what they are going to learn. If the lesson is all about mixing paints to produce new colours then the A grade does not go to the child with the most impressive looking finished painting, in fact it probably goes to the kid with paint all the way up his arms and and end product that looks like a splodgy colour sampler. She seems overly focussed on what you are going to produce over what you are going to learn from producing it. She's also taking your money to regale you with stories. It is sad if she doesn't have someone to do this with socially, but that's not your responsibility to pick up the slack for that.

You could try being frank with her that this is not what you expected, and then if she is determined that this is the way it needs to be you can look for someone else, but personally I think it's a touch unfair to just leave without giving her a chance to change. Who knows if perhaps she has singled out those two tunes to be brought to performance standard just for practice in doing that, and she will then go back to making swift progress?

Hi thanks for your replies - I had not considered who "set the pieces of music" and interestingly enough I do - in as much as I choose a song from the book because I like the sound of it. I work randomly through my book selecting what I want to do. She does ask me to work through scales moving my fingers my tapping them with a pencil I know she is an old traditional teacher - I have heard on the grapevine that she has some of her younger children in tears. She has tried shouting at me, but at the ripe old age of 50 I can laugh at her/with her and point out that shouting does not help!!

I have tried twice to ask if I can move on........................ and was beginning to think that learning the piano was different to learning the sax! She teaches a lot of the children in my village and I know the parents rate her.

Clare

When you are a child, you don't get to choose your teachers (music, school, anything). They are just there and they teach you and that is that.

You do get to choose your friends though, from childhood onwards. And you pick the people that you get along with. If you don't get along with someone, you don't have them as a friend.

Colleagues are a bit different. You don't get to choose them, although if there are ones you don't get along with you can avoid them. Or change job if they are that bad. Or, you may find you can compromise - "I won't indulge in workplace homicide if you don't mention your weight more than ten times per day", as a completely random example not related in any way to any of my workplace experience.

When you are an adult, I think sometimes we still keep teachers in that category we had them in as a child. They are our teacher, and that is that. What we forget is actually the situation has changed. The relationship you have with your teacher is critical. They don't have to be your friend, but you do have to be able to get along with them as a person and also with their teaching methods.
A teacher who everybody rates as brilliant may well be brilliant, but if their style of teaching doesn't suit you, then they won't be a brilliant teacher for you. And then, as an adult, you can decide whether to swap them for someone else, or make compromises.

You say that you had been "steadily moving through the book" so it sounds as though she has been happy for you to get what you can learn from a piece and move on without "perfecting it". It sounds to me that she has now decided that there are othjer things you need to learn:

- just how much more work it takes to get a piece to a standard that is fit to be performed
- that in the process it is possible to become bored!

I don't think 4 weeks on two pieces is at all excessive. I have been playing piano for more years than I am prepared to admit, and sometimes I even get paid to give a classical recital. Yet to get a new classical sonata or long romantic piece to a standard that is fit for public performance can easily take me 6 months. And I must add that I NEVER get bored with the process.

I would simply try to talk to your teacher about why she is so insistent on getting these two pieces right. If I am correct in my guess as to the reason, perhaps you could persuade her to let you have a say in choosing the pieces that are going to become part of your performable repertoire.

Interesting, maybe have a think on that. Before you give any weight to someone's reputation you need to know how well placed those people are to confer a good reputation on them. Are these local parents knowledgeable musicians (probably not, statistically speaking). Are they experienced instrumental teachers? Unlikely given that they are sending their children elsewhere for lessons. So what is it about them that qualifies them to rate her as a teacher? Is it exam results? It often is as those are easy to quantify without knowing how appropriate the result really is and how the children have been preselected to ensure passes. Is it that they like her because of the very behaviours we are questioning: "She doesn't take any nonsense, and she must be good because she makes them do it properly before they are allowed to do anything else." Perhaps, rightly or wrongly, they value the very strictness that you are finding undesirable.

Roserodent - you may be onto something there..................... will have to think about it hmmmmm

You may have hit the nail on the head there...she may be a fab teacher for children, but not for adults. Not all teachers are good at teaching adults and there's a world of different between children and adult pupils.

She may also be a good teacher, but not the right teacher for you at that stage. When I was little I used to have a teacher who was a real witch, or so I thought. She was really exacting and I could do nothing right. I lived in fear of lessons because I never understood why she was so driven by the little things. 25 years later and I find that my current teacher is just as exacting, and tells me in great detail what I do wrong, but I am better able to understand what she is saying, and why.

Ultimately if she isn't the right teacher for you, it doesn't matter how good she is or how many people think so.

[quote name='RoseRodent' date='Aug 1 2012, 07:46 PM' post='1163116']
[quote name='clarem45' post='1163076' date='Aug 1 2012, 01:47 PM']She does ask me to work through scales moving my fingers my tapping them with a pencil I know she is an old traditional teacher - I have heard on the grapevine that she has some of her younger children in tears. She has tried shouting at me[...]

She teaches a lot of the children in my village and I know the parents rate her.

[/quote]

My first thought is reducing small children to tears doesn't sound like an ideal teacher for them either! Whatever it is that the parents like about her-could be exam passes, or that she does get them practicing because they're scared not to.

You used the word "village"! In some villages, because the pond is small, some fish become very important, and word-of-mouth dominates. It's hard for anyone to judge piano teachers unless they've been taught by several; I'd ignore general opinion, and go with what works for you personally.

This thread has actually got me slightly angry. I don't want to write out of place, and I'm horribly aware that without knowing all the details, I might be being totally unfair and misguided. But sweet little old ladies can also be misguided bullies. Unless a child is outright badly-behaved, doing things which are dangerous, malicious or hurtful to others, I don't think it's ever right to reduce them to tears. Particularly in music, which for 99% of people is only a source of fun and pleasure, and will never be more (and there is no shame in that).

If a teacher keeps you at something because they want you to get it perfect, the two of you need to agree on the definition of "perfect". Are we talking Alfred Brendel's idea of concert level performance, or are we talking "school end of year concert"? A good teacher helps you understand what you're doing; what is it about your playing that isn't currently good enough, and what can you do to get it there? If you know what you're trying to overcome, life is interesting. If you're just having to plug away playing the wretched thing again and again, it's more a matter of hoping that eventually by chance you'll satisfy her, without knowing why. That's dull and not educational. If her approach were "You could stop here, but if you do, you'll miss out on this, this and this, all of which are things you will need to improve at some point", I would respect her much more.

The very fact you are posting the question suggests to me that you don't fully trust her approach, and it isn't working for you. If you do choose to find another teacher, don't feel guilty. She is ultimately reponsible for her style of teaching. You can either tell her you're just too busy at the moment, and can't give it the time it deserves, or some such excuse; or you can tell her honestly that her teaching style doesn't suit you, but she might find that hurtful and you may not feel you want to. Although I'm a fan of communication, I don't think there's much point in trying to get her to change her style - if she's been teaching that long, she probably won't.

In fairness, I think that depends on the child. Some children are tough and it really takes some upset to bring them to tears. I was (still am, darnit I hate my eyes!!) a crier. Any slight sense of being 'in trouble' in any way was quite enough, or even just a feeling I'd let someone down, was somewhat over-awed, someone raised their voice at me, not working to my own potential... The list of things that make me cry is embarassingly long. It's not because I'm hugely sensitive or am fantastically upset, it's just that my eyes will cry about anything, even when it's something that is not really bothering me that much.

I had a pupil who would cry almost every lesson. I looked for ways to tell her what she needed to improve without sounding critical at all, but no matter how gentle I was she would become tearful very easily. She gave up after Grade 3.
I spoke to her mother several times, and she said she was like that with everything, and not to worry about it.

It makes you feel sorry for the child; how on earth is she going to get through lifes ups and downs unless she can toughen up? She made me feel like crying in sympathy very often!

yup, sorry, I didn't have natural criers in mind (which is weird, because despite being male, I can burst into tears at the wrong moment very easily). I'm afraid I had in mind the old-fashioned knuckle-rapping teacher. The main points I wanted to make are (a) music has little relevance except for the fun it makes, so if it becomes so un-fun that you give up, something has gone disastrously wrong; (b) everyone has different aims in mind, and the teacher who applies one standard to all of their pupils is making a mistake (unless they are lucky enough to be able to select only those pupils whose aims exactly match their own ideals). Some people want to get really good, others just want to have a lot of fun. There's no rights or wrongs about it.

It's important to be compatible with your teacher. Sometimes that means having identical, comfortable aims. Sometimes it means swapping freedom for the excitement or useful consequences of being taken outside your comfort zone and forced to do something different(ly).

She might just grow out of it - I was a child like that once! I don't cry over evreything now.

I think it's a common misconception that people who cry more easily are less tough. It's not so much that we are deeply and horribly affected by what people say, just that it comes out of our eyes more easily than it does with some others. I can cry about things which don't bother me at all. I take a lot of hormone treatment for a genetic disorder and it makes me like a pregnant woman - crying because I lost my slippers, crying because there is an Andrex ad on the TV, crying because... just because OK? It's absolutely maddening, but it's unrelated to how worried or bothered I am by something. It's a bit like equating how fast someone runs away from something to how scared they are, if they are not a fast runner, or are a 95 year old on a walking frame then they will run less fast, but it's not an indication of how they feel inside, maybe the person who stood rooted to the spot was totally paralysed by fear. People who only cry when they are severely upset just assume that another person crying means they are extremely upset, but crying is my go to place for when my emotions can't quite work out what to do, if someone shouts at me I cry out of surprise, not a deep sense of hurt. In actual fact, I know I am really upset when I find I cannot cry.

It's better than my other gut reaction which is to laugh if I don't know what to say or how to feel. Someone tells me their grandad died and I have to cover my face because I just know I am going to laugh out loud. Stupid, stupid body!

I've done silmilar things RoseRodent, by not listening to a conversation properly. If someone starts off telling me a funny story and then rapidly switches to "oh by the way my dog died this morning", I'm still laughing and grinning on auto pilot - oh dear!

I know I care about something (or someone) when I cry. It usually surprises me drastically.