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[nataliethepianist]

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[nataliethepianist]

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[becky8898]

Hi Natalie  - contact the Music Teachers’ Association of California at (800) 834 3340 or (415) 978-9668, or goto there web sight  at https://www.mtac.org/. They should be able to help you. 

Cheers , Becky

[jian10]

Hi, Natalie,

So I'm guessing you've been taking piano lesson for about 7 years not 7 months as you stated.  
Let me give you some advise as a teacher who's been there and done that as a student.

Do not just look at the teacher's bio.  Where he graduated from doesn't mean he's going to be a great teacher for you. 

Since you live close to the conservatory, visit the school on one of their open house days.  Meet the teachers and talk to them.  Ask them if you can observe one of their lessons with other student.  You may have noticed that our S.F. Bay Area (yes, I live here, too) has pretty high standard and the competition is extremely high.  Are you doing the Certificate of Merit program?  Have you tried any competition? 

3 Great teachers at S.F. Conservatory that I know of are John McCarthy, Mack McCray and William Wellborn.  However, I don't know how much these teachers can/will train you in basic techniques.   You probably have to be at the highest level for your age to study any of these teachers.

Try to find a teacher whose students are frequent winners of competitions and who also teaches young students (age 6 - 12).  Unfortunately I do not know many teacher whom I can recommend in the San Francisco Area since I live in the East Bay Area.  Sharon Mann is a great teacher, too.  I'm not sure if she still teaches at the conservatory preparatory division.

But if you don't mind long driving, there are lots of teachers in the East Bay and South Bay.

Good luck!

[nataliethepianist]

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[jian10]

Natalie, do you mean you've been playing for 7 years but have been taking lesson regularly for 7 month?  That's great.  When I read your post, you reminded me of myself when I was your age.  Unfortunately for me, my parents and I have made bad decisions, and I had to go through rather tougher route to see what it really means to play/teach piano properly.  Now I'm helping many youngster so that they don't have to go through what I went through.

So here I am to help you in this forum.  I'm going to send you a message.

[avguste]

Hello Natalie

I would suggest you talk to a good friend of mine named Jacquelyn Weitz. She is currently attending the SF conservatory for the Artist Diploma and she also just won the SF Conservatory concerto competition this year.
Her website is https://jacquelynweitz.com/default.aspx .Tell her I am sending you. She can either teach you, either suggest a teacher for you.

[john90]

I'm no expert. All the above good advice most likely comes from those more qualified as teachers.

My suggestion is to quickly, consistently, reliably work through what you are given each week. Just do it. 9/10, not to absolute perfection, get it done. Now, pick your own fantastic piece, something that totally inspires you, something you would give anything to play really well. Complexity is no limit here. Systematically start on it and see how far you get. Take it slowly. You may hit problems, and you can see how your teacher can help if you like, or you can take those problems to other experts locally and see how it goes, try them out on a real problem you are interested in solving. They might make a good teacher, see how they react. It might take years to play that piece. Who knows. Try and keep the momentum going on the day to day material from your teacher, to keep improving either way.