How to locate is quality teacher

[steve jones]

Any ideas the best way to locate and vet a good teacher? I know plenty, but I have no idea if they are any good or not. I guess I would need to be a teacher myself to tell!

(Incidentally Im in the Midlands, UK, if anyone is from the area)

[celticqt]

Well, I found my teacher through the grapevine - hanging around at the local music store and mentioning to the people there that I was looking for a good teacher, did they know any?  And they did: there is usually a spot in every community where the music poeple "hang out." 

I would try to set up an interview with a potential teacher before beginning any sort of lessons, as this will give you an idea if you are compatible personally or not (no use trying to study with someone whose personality ticks you off), as well as letting you hear each other play.  Good luck!

[leahcim]

Any ideas the best way to locate and vet a good teacher? I know plenty, but I have no idea if they are any good or not. I guess I would need to be a teacher myself to tell!

I have the same dilemma. Certainly here [Beds] there's not much imagination w.r.t piano teachers - "Piano teacher ABRSM, all ages' is about all you'll get w.r.t advertising and not much in the way of web pages where they explain their teaching.

Word of mouth perhaps - but the only people I know who play their words put me off their teachers or they live miles away.

Other than that, it's a case of ringing / speaking to them all, and perhaps having an interview / sample lesson with a few.

Bernhard claims the teacher appears when you're ready or something similar - and that inexperienced teachers aren't a bad thing for inexperienced players, you still learn something - on the other hand he also teaches absolute beginners and gives very appealing numbers for the length of time they take to learn - if you're 37 [or even if you're not] it's self evident which sounds better

But, you're evidently intelligent enough to read through the posts here and decide whether Bernhard or Hanon or someone else is onto something, so I suspect you'll be able to fathom out whether a teacher is telling you what you want to learn.

At least that's my rationalisation of what Bernhard says above - I'll get a better teacher now than I would before reading this group both because I think I know what I want from them, but also because I know what to take with me [a realistic plan of what pieces I want to learn, what exams I do / don't want to do etc etc - all of which is discussed in here] as well as having a better idea of how much of a buffoon I am on other things. It's a cliche, but knowing what you don't know is more helpful than "not even wrong"

So my criteria, FWIW, not well-informed, biased and prejudiced is :-

(a) Practise I don't care about too much about - unless I get a teacher that wants to teach daily - and I doubt I will - then I can use the practise methods that are in here, or the teachers and see what works best for me.

(b) Technique on the other hand is what I want to learn - all this stuff that is contained in the phrase "it's easier to demonstrate than to write down" because I've struggled with Fink's, Bernstein's, Bernhard's and Richard's descriptions - perhaps because it's the co-ordination that's the key rather than the individual positions or movements - as well as the more obvious fact that you need someone to say "Yes / No". They've all helped [if nothing else, they are all the same in many fundamental ways that I think I know what I want to hear from a teacher]

(c) Avoiding giving too much away and having the teacher tell me what I want to hear - because the chances are they'll know about all of these methods and techniques - whether they know how to teach it or whether think it's right or not - I want them to tell me how they teach and not say "Yes" - and I'm sure they don't want to hear "I read on the internet..."

(d) Avoiding people that teach total beginners who are kids on the whole. They need at least one adult student who they can show is being taught proper technique from day one and that they are teaching that adult in the belief that the adult is learning the piano [not making up the numbers or getting therapy from it]

Apart from that, the plan is sit down, play something and let them say what's wrong, what they'll do to fix it [they might have their own ideas anyway, it's not like there aren't equiv "What should I tell students" threads here]

There are a couple of existing threads with lists of questions, but unless the teacher is really struggling to communicate, I don't think a formal list of generic questions to ask is going to help that much - it might help with stuff that didn't occur.

[steve jones]

celticqt,

Thanks for the advice. My uncle actually owns a music shop (which I worked at during university), so I should be able to pick up some numbers from there. I guess I shall have to do some interviewing and see if I cant find me a good one.


leahcim,

Excellent post, appreciate the input. Im totally with you on point (b)! This is the kind of stuff I need demonstrating infront of me, and then guiding through.

I do know a decent teacher, she taught me classical guitar about 15 years ago. Problem is, I know she has arthritis problems and is unlikely to be able to demonstrate much of the virtuoso stuff. I'll definately her a try, but my hopes are high.

Anyways, I'll keep you all posted on how I get on. Im right by Birminham, so where must be decent teacher there somewhere!

[pianistimo]

hey, leahcim, i think you're wrong on d).  i teach total beginners and most of my students have been beginning and intermediate kids.  the adults i've taught have progressed quickly and moved on in about 2-3 years.  i haven't had any complaints.  there's a difference, too, between the average beginner adult who is taking piano as a sort of hobby after work vs. a college student who wants to become a professional concert pianist.  i would hope that after master level classes, i could have a few good things to say to an adult like that too, but i think the idea is to learn 'how' to learn.  to teach yourself by watching not only the method, but absorbing also the things that are unspoken or alluded to.

i think quality teachers attract students by word of mouth.  a student likes them and tells a friend or someone who asks for advice on teachers.  if all your students are happy, you'll incrementally gain students every year from just word of mouth alone. 
 

[leahcim]

hey, leahcim, i think you're wrong on d).  i teach total beginners and most of my students have been beginning and intermediate kids.  the adults i've taught have progressed quickly and moved on in about 2-3 years.

Why am I wrong? If you've taught adults then you haven't only taught beginning kids
But yeah, it's wrong because there's no perfect way of finding a teacher.

The reason for (d) for me is to eliminate teachers who get away without teaching much w.r.t proper technique or movement because they teach very young kids who don't grok the movement well enough to learn it. Mebbe they teach them for a couple of years before getting them to move on. They might have taught those young kids a lot of stuff - but a lot of that stuff I bet Steve already knows from playing the guitar - they also might lack experience w.r.t a method or approach to use that's aimed at adults.

It's also to eliminate teachers who have issues w.r.t teaching adults - especially the myths and to show that they are happy to teach an adult who is serious about playing but nevertheless isn't going to be his/her shining competition winner. If someone has been teaching for years and never taught an adult, I'd be cynical that they don't really want to, but perhaps times are lean. That kind of thing, but there's no hard and fast rules and the posts would be even longer if every possibility was considered.

Now of course, at some stage you might not have taught your first adult, just as you must have a first student - so as I said, it's prejudicial, but we need some way to pick a teacher from the phone book when all they say is "piano teacher" - and the teacher with experience is going to be able to demonstrate it. All else being equal which would you pick?