How to tell if I need a different teacher

[mellipop]

Hello to all the teachers,

I was hoping to get some advise regarding figuring out if I have the right teacher for me or if its just a 'communication' thing...

I've been learning from my current piano teacher for 18 months. Originally, I was having fortnightly lessons due to my schedule but have been taking weekly lessons since November 2010. I get on really well with my teacher and like the way she explains things but I've feeling increasingly overwhelmed with working toward an exam (4th Grade AMEB). I have been practicing what she gives me to work on which was major and minor scales in similar motion, the first page of list A two hands together, the right hand only of list B, haven't started list C and have no extra's yet.

I just got back from visiting my family in Western Australia and while I was there I had two piano lessons with my sisters teacher and my mum is a flute teacher, so she was listening to me pracitice as well.
The teacher was shocked that I hadn't learnt all my scales and wasn't getting further with my pieces and spent 4 hours with me over two days teaching me all the scales required, finding two extra's and working through the pieces with me. So I have been practicing everything we went through and feel like a completey different pianist.

So! I'm not sure if I should have this conversation with my current teacher and see if she agrees with this approach that seems to have really helped or if I should find another teacher. AND if I look for another teacher, how do I find a really good one??

I would love to hear from anyone with an opinion or advice on this. Part of me is feeling very guilty for contemplating this, but the other half of me feels like I don't want to lose time going forward as I want to keep progressing and being nurtured/taught/challenged...

Thanks!

[keyboardclass]

It's pretty obvious your teacher doesn't have that 'Wow!' factor.

[quantum]

Teachers can have contradictory approaches to teaching.  One teacher may emphasize topic A, the other teacher topic B, and so on.  Really it is up to you to decide what methods work best with your learning style. 

[soitainly]

 I can't say if you need another teacher or not, but 18 months and not knowing scales seems kind of odd. I think that once you know the intervals and theory behind scales you should learn them on your own fairly early on. A teacher shouldn't be there only to tell you where to put your fingers, she should be a guide to help you learn piano. She should motivate you and show you what you need to learn, but the bulk of the work and study has to come from the student. I know teachers try not to overwhelm their students with too much too early, but if they are spoonfeeding then they aren't helping the student in the long run.

[honeywill]

You seem to like your current teacher, but perhaps she hasn’t been moving you on very quickly, and you have realised that you are capable of more. Why not go back and show her what you have been doing - teachers aren’t mind-readers, and she may change gear now and give you more challenging work. I think you should at least give her another chance.

The other teacher being “shocked” at what your teacher hasn’t taught you seems a bit un-professional to me. I think it is unnecessary and unfair to criticise another teacher when you haven’t met them - your current teacher may have very good reasons for doing things the way she does, and the other teacher’s remarks have undermined what was previously a good teacher-pupil relationship.

[slane]

Yes you need a different teacher.

I did AMEB to grade 5 so I know how boring it can be! And it shouldn't be.
I wouldn't be so worried about the scales. As someone else pointed out, you need to "learn" those yourself. They're not really something you learn, so much as master.
What worries me is "the first page of list A two hands together, the right hand only of list B, haven't started list C and have no extra's yet. "
I know what you mean by this but are you talking about music???
The point of AMEB is to demonstrate the music that you've learnt, not collect the necessary number of pieces, in order, as listed in the standard series 16 (or whatever) book!

As an adult learner this is what I would do. Start asking the good piano kids who they learn from.
Get a copy of the syllabus and maybe the AMEB handbook for grade  3&4 which includes the CD of all the grade book pieces.
Then I would look up the scale requirements, set my metronome to whatever speed I can play them at and start practicing. Then tomorrow increase the speed by 2 stops on the slidey scale (my metronome is analog, not sure how the digital ones work).
I would only spend ~20% of my practice time on technical work.
And at the same time I would be going through the syllabus and finding all the music that you can download from amazon, theclassicalshop, hyperion etc. and make myself a CD or load up an mp3 player and listen until I knew what I wanted to play. You can also play music from other syllabuses for extra pieces, for instance the music for leisure syllabus but also the NZMEB syllabus.
This way you're not playing "The first page of list A", but music you really have a connection to. You will be making music! Not stamp collecting!
I only have a very old syllabus but in grade 4 there's a whole bunch of bach's little preludes, some from his french suites, Haydn sonata XVI/11 two clementi sonatas, Bartok mikrokosmos (of course), pieces 10, 11 12 and 13 from schumann album for the young. All of which you can get the music for from IMSLP. The new syllabus is probably even more interesting. Warn your mum that she needs to accompany you to allens with the mastercard. lol!
Then I would go to my teacher, new or old, and say, this is what I want to play. I think we can have a collaborative relationship like this. And he or she will probably dance round the room for joy. You should also mention you feel overwhelmed. There is a tendency to squeeze kids through these exams, where the emphasis is on the exam, rather than the musical learning journey. You might want to spend some time broadening your repertoire at a grade 3 / easy grade 4 level.  

Edit: YOu didn't mention how long you've been doing grade 4. How long you've been playing these pieces hands separately? Not 18months surely?

And another edit .... I understand about the guilt. The first teacher I had was pretty hopeless.
She got me through one of the John Thompson courses very quickly, then gave me an AMEB preliminary piece to play. She told me she "loved" it and I had to play it perfectly. She never told me how to play it perfectly and I didn't get a new piece even after year. Finally my mother got me out of there and put me with the woman who had the good rep. in the neighbourhood which turned out to be deserved. But I resisted the change because I was worried about hurting the first teacher's feelings. I was only 8 admittedly. But sometimes relationships like this don't work out and you just have to cut those ties. Its actually something that can come up quite frequently in professional relationships and you just have to be civilised about it and move on.

edit again ... read this blog
https://elissamilne.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/repertoire-rules-for-students/
You don't have to believe it all, but its a very interesting perspective.

[mcdiddy1]

This is seems to be more of an issue with communication. The bottom line is you have a goal you want to achieve and you want to communicate that very clearly with your teacher. You achieving great results is not necessarly the work of great teaching but it may be the result of having a different format of lessons. If I could have four hours in two days to work with my student towards a goal they would see much faster improvement rather than the 30 mins we have. If having a two hour lesson a day works better for you, then you might want to communicate it to your current teacher and give that shot. There is no magic formula for teaching, you either have the knowledge (pedagocial and technical ) of the instrument, the ability to communicate or you dont.You are not going to reinvent the wheel, so you have to communicate to your current teacher about what you need, observe the results and make a decisision

[tb230]

I agree with the above. Also, it's quite a different approach getting weekly lessons and having intensive tuition over a couple of days, the two aren't really comparable. I would definitely have a discussion with the current teacher, though, to make sure that your lessons are tailored to your specific needs.

[mellipop]

Thank you for all of your replies...

I have since had a conversation with my teacher which was rather difficult at first but we were able to map out a new lesson approach that works better for me and we'll revisit it at the end of the term.

It turns out that as I'm an older student, my teacher didn't feel as comfortable as with her younger students so communication on both sides has made a big difference in this particular case.

I found all your replies very helpful, so thank you!!