Are teachers absolutely necessary?

[cmg]

Maybe I do buy into the youth's sense of self-entitlement, but maybe that way of being is simply part of growing up and not some issue to be labelled.  A 17 year old with no responsibilities beyond themselves is not going to be as aware of the need to work and sacrifice as you would expect of a far older person who has raised a family and committed to a job even during those times when you really don't want to.  That doesn't make their point of view right, but it does warrant more tolerance.

Forgive  me for sounding unsympathetic.  I do appreciate the travails of being a teenager.  I was one!  But self-entitlement is a particularly modern (recent) phenomenon. It's the result of a contemporary culture (since the Reagan presidency in America, almost 30 years now).  It's not an excuse.  It's cultural conditioning.  And it's an explanation for the cultural disease of self-entitlement.  It's precisely why we are facing a global Depression now.

Everyone has expected easy riches.  It's over.  This youngest generation must accept that life will be difficult for them.  The illusion of ease is ended.  Dislike my conclusion if  you will, but a new world order is approaching.  Major American economists are forecasting a second major Depression.  Indulgence and indolence are over.  No one has the luxury of being "raised with no responsibilities beyond themselves."  Think what you're doing to do your children if you raise them this way.   

[hikky]

Okay, here's your sophomoric approach to teaching.  You want someone who will "let you do my thing."  (That, by the way, is VERY 1960's of you.)  And, you assert, after stating you intend to do your own thing, that the teacher will  " . . . maybe help by giving me a direction to go in, and correct my mistakes or bad habits.  Are there teachers like that?"  Then, you, a 17-year-old rank beginner, arrogantly state that you ". . . don't want someone who is going to tell me every song I have to play and everything I have to do and force their way of learning on me."

Are you even remotely aware of the double-bind you put your teachers in?  You want "to do your own thing," but you want your teachers to "correct my mistakes or bad habits," BUT you " . . . don't want someone who is going to tell me every song I have to play and everything I have to do and force their way of learning on me."

I don't know why it's hard to see a difference between providing cooperative direction and insight and shoving things down someone's throat. I have my own ideas about what it takes to be good at anything, piano included. I've had a good level of success with those ideas in other fields of interest, but I'm not in any way trying to assume that I know the best way to become a brilliant player. I would be looking for a middleground with a teacher, where I could state what I want to do or the songs I want to learn and have a teacher who would give their expert opinion on my choices and do their best to make it happen in a way that is productive. I'm sorry if that's arrogant. There is a balance in anything, and I want a certain level of enjoyment in my piano studies.

Are you so self-centered that you're not aware of the arrogance of this position?  Are you so arrogant that you -- a 17-year-old beginner -- think you have the answers to your own piano curriculum?

Why would I not be self-centered? I'm playing piano for myself and for my own goals. What is more self-centered than that? A hobby is something that is inherently self-centered. You generally do it because it brings you joy. And again, I do not think I have the answers to my own piano curriculum. I think I have ideas that could use professional feedback in order to find a harmony between long-term and short-term satisfaction.

You evidently do.  That's why you've elected homeschooling.  What teacher could possibly deal, in essence, with your egotistical refusal to be taught? 

I've been able to learn a lot outside of just normal curriculum thanks to homeschooling. I was able to use my extra time to research health and employ that research to lose 60 lbs. I've become one of the top scholastic chess players in my state, self taught, which is really uncommon at this level. I've attained functional fluency in a second language that has no relation to my first language, while people in high school were learning basic conversational vocabulary in their 3rd year of Spanish classes. I'm not saying these things to brag, I'm saying them because I want to explain that I have used my own personal methods to achieve above average success in various things before. I do acknowledge that piano is somewhat different because of the need for dexterity, which is a bit different than completely mental skills.

Good luck.  You'll need it.

I think I'll instead choose to rely on hard work and the ability to admit a failed methodology and try again.

Are you joking?  You, the person who chastised K for manipulating you with "semantics" farther north in this thread?  So, a teacher, according to you, is only that person who "sets up a curriculum in order to guide a pupil's improvement"?  No, the definition of a teacher is broader and more refined than this and you know it.  It is anyone with expertise who offers you advice and corrections.  You are seeking teachers in every question you pose to serve your needs on this forum.  Yet, you feel teachers only inhibit your natural talents.  Make up your mind.

Furthermore, K asked you to define "good" (as in your statement "can you become GOOD with no input or feedback from anyone else at all" [your quote] and you managed to take offense at her challenge.

You want it both ways.  You KNOW you won't improve without "teachers" yet you insist self-study is sufficient to your ends.  Fine.  But, don't ask other pianists for advice on your next step in studying, if you have no respect or need for "teachers."

I don't know what you want me to reply to here. You're still putting words in my mouth, and even furthering the use of semantics. I'm talking about a piano teacher in the sense of a compensated help who is regularly spending fair amounts of time working to improve your ability, and you know that that's what I'm talking about.

Why does everything have to turn into a big debate on the internet? Why do I have to have completely polarizing views to yours, even if you have to force it with hyperbole and just plain fabrication? Some may think I have "growing up to do", but I would argue that I've at least tried to remain civil in spite of the fact that I'm being attacked simply for wanting a fair level of self-direction in my piano studies. Maybe I didn't explain myself properly, but I'll repeat once again that I never claimed to know the perfect method for piano study or anything of the sort. If I had, I wouldn't have decided on getting a teacher after all.

Maybe I do buy into the youth's sense of self-entitlement, but maybe that way of being is simply part of growing up and not some issue to be labelled.  A 17 year old with no responsibilities beyond themselves is not going to be as aware of the need to work and sacrifice as you would expect of a far older person who has raised a family and committed to a job even during those times when you really don't want to.  That doesn't make their point of view right, but it does warrant more tolerance.

I appreciate your being reasonable, but I think you're making unnecessary assumptions simply based on my age. Having a job is not the only method of committing oneself to hard work. I've done many things that require patient, consistent effort. Such as the weight loss I previously mentioned... if you think any average adult can deny themselves of almost all the foods and drinks they enjoy and are used to eating, cook and eat 6-7 bland meals a day and log everything that goes in their mouth, and exercise 5 times a week at an intensity that is just plain painful for a period of over a year, I'll concede on that point.

I practiced piano for 5 hours today, 4 hours yesterday, and so forth for the days before. I don't know what part of that is a self-entitlement mentality. I want to become a good pianist through consistent effort, not because I think I have some sort of prodigious affinity for it. I happen to know that consistent effort is the only way to get really good at anything worth getting really good at.

[m19834]

I can finally afford to have lessons and it is a great privilege to do so.  My life is very different now and I am a well-established teacher.  It hasn't been like this forever, though, it has taken a long time and a lot of sacrifice.

Apparently, these days, I pick little snippets from what people post and comment on those snippets.  And, that is what I am doing now, for better or for worse. 

I was thinking about this idea of lessons being a great privilege and how one must work in one's life to be in a position of being able to do this.  I do think it's true, having lessons with the right teacher can be of the greatest value, and it is something that I think one would not wish to take for granted.  Along the lines of privileges or not though, there are places in the world where eating everyday would be considered a great privilege, yet it is a basic form of survival.  While having lessons is not necessarily the same as being able to eat every day, it can actually be as important in some ways for some people. 

In that respect, there have been times in my life where I have thought that if I lost everything I own (hopefully sparing my piano), and every friendship and relationship I have, that I would fight to the death (it's how I have felt) to keep my lessons (and have actually thought I would keep my piano under a bridge and live under that if necessary ... hee hee ... maybe I could even find some students around there  ).  In some sense, having a house, having a teaching studio and/or a job, having some kind of established "life" that affords for me personally to travel to my teacher about 600 miles (each way) every month and have lessons, well, in some sense it's those very things that keep me from doing something like picking up and moving to where my teacher lives to have more than once a month meetings.  At the very least, that is interesting to me.  When I look it all that way, the idea of privilege vs. survival gets a little foggy ... for me. 

hmm ... bye bye !

[matthew from florida]

Quote
You evidently do.  That's why you've elected homeschooling.  What teacher could possibly deal, in essence, with your egotistical refusal to be taught?

I've been able to learn a lot outside of just normal curriculum thanks to homeschooling. I was able to use my extra time to research health and employ that research to lose 60 lbs. I've become one of the top scholastic chess players in my state, self taught, which is really uncommon at this level. I've attained functional fluency in a second language that has no relation to my first language, while people in high school were learning basic conversational vocabulary in their 3rd year of Spanish classes. I'm not saying these things to brag, I'm saying them because I want to explain that I have used my own personal methods to achieve above average success in various things before. I do acknowledge that piano is somewhat different because of the need for dexterity, which is a bit different than completely mental skills.
Quote

I must back up hikky on this one, I was homeschooled, and I came out with a much better education. My GPA was like 3.6. Homeschooling is more flexible, less expensive than private school, and gives opportunity to spend more time with your family (and hobbies, like piano ).

Forgive  me for sounding unsympathetic.  I do appreciate the travails of being a teenager.  I was one!  But self-entitlement is a particularly modern (recent) phenomenon. It's the result of a contemporary culture (since the Reagan presidency in America, almost 30 years now).  It's not an excuse.  It's cultural conditioning.  And it's an explanation for the cultural disease of self-entitlement.  It's precisely why we are facing a global Depression now.

Everyone has expected easy riches.  It's over.  This youngest generation must accept that life will be difficult for them.  The illusion of ease is ended.  Dislike my conclusion if  you will, but a new world order is approaching.  Major American economists are forecasting a second major Depression.  Indulgence and indolence are over.  No one has the luxury of being "raised with no responsibilities beyond themselves."  Think what you're doing to do your children if you raise them this way.   

That is so true, and I believe a major reason why that has happened is public schools. They have been failing for decades. The only reason grades are not falling faster is cause they keep dumbing down the tests.

Anyway hikky, you have a good plan. I just wish I could put in 4 hours a day!

[end]

nyonyo:

I don't know if hykky answered your question: why he thought you were Japanese. I'll try to do just that, but read the disclaimer. And please, don't be offended. I find mistakes in almost all posts here, including my own (what's normal in my case). And the fact that you can write so well in a foreign language is something to be proud of. I'm proud of myself (just kidding).

It really depends on your personal goal.

I think that's OK. However, I also believe a native would have said "goals".

If you have no intention to play piano seriously, a teacher is not necessary if you can do what you want.

I think one would have written ...intention of playing...
The sentence "...a teacher ...   what you want." doesn't really make sense. Read it again and you'll see. We all understand what you mean, but I understand it like: a teacher is not necessary if all you want is to do as you please.

But if you want to play well, I really find that it is hard to improve fast without a teacher who can help you to correct your problems.

"... help you to correct...": I believe a native speaker would have said help you correct.

___________________________________

Now, a disclaimer: English isn't my mother tongue and I've never lived in an English speaking country. I've learned it alone and I'm exposing my own shortcomings here.
In general, I'd say you should look into the use of infinitives and adverbs. These are usually the hardest issues when learning a language. Mainly adverbs modifying the verb. And prepositions, of course.


I'd be delighted if a native speaker would correct my comments, because I'm also puzzled with hykky finding nyonyo was Japanese. A Frenchman, for instance, would have written in the very same way.

Can anyone find out what is my mother tongue by the way I write in English? I'm really curious.

[hikky]

nyonyo:

I don't know if hykky answered your question: why he thought you were Japanese. I'll try to do just that, but read the disclaimer. And please, don't be offended. I find mistakes in almost all posts here, including my own (what's normal in my case). And the fact that you can write so well in a foreign language is something to be proud of. I'm proud of myself (just kidding).


I think that's OK. However, I also believe a native would have said "goals".


I think one would have written ...intention of playing...
The sentence "...a teacher ...   what you want." doesn't really make sense. Read it again and you'll see. We all understand what you mean, but I understand it like: a teacher is not necessary if all you want is to do as you please.


"... help you to correct...": I believe a native speaker would have said help you correct.

___________________________________

Now, a disclaimer: English isn't my mother tongue and I've never lived in an English speaking country. I've learned it alone and I'm exposing my own shortcomings here.
In general, I'd say you should look into the use of infinitives and adverbs. These are usually the hardest issues when learning a language. Mainly adverbs modifying the verb. And prepositions, of course.


I'd be delighted if a native speaker would correct my comments, because I'm also puzzled with hykky finding nyonyo was Japanese. A Frenchman, for instance, would have written in the very same way.

Can anyone find out what is my mother tongue by the way I write in English? I'm really curious.

I did answer the question in a longer PM, but anyway it was just me making a false assumption.

If you're not spending a lot of time re-reading and editing your posts after you write them (I know I still do that in Japanese), and if you don't have any problems understanding the vocabulary used in things like news, political discussion, etc.. I'd say your English is just about native level. I certainly wouldn't have guessed from your post that English was not your first language, but I think that goes to show the effectiveness of studying language without formal lessons.

I only really noticed one strange thing in your post:

Can anyone find out what is my mother tongue

The way a native speaker would say that is "what my mother tongue is".

But no, I would have no idea just from that 

(Sorry to take this thread even further off topic)

[janborbe]

yes they are. Please see this vid

[pianisten1989]

Unless you are uber on seeing your own misstakes, great musicality, and has got a huge talent of technique, so noone needs to teach you any technique.
...
But I don't know anyone who has, not even Liszt was perfect already from the start, so I don't think you are one of those wonder childs.

It's one thing if you read like, math.. It's very logical, and you can read a book on how to solve almost any problem.

Music isn't the same, there's no rights, or any logic. So unless you want to be a new Bernard (

) You should get a teacher, who can help you with your misstakes.

[vongoldschmitz]

I am pretty new and have to say that i am very happy with my main teacher and i think it also helps me a lot in many ways.

So if you can, get a teacher. Better two and take the better one.

[xmrbrightside89]

Just one word: YES!