Having two teachers at once? (preparing for conservatory)

[simonechristine]

Dear my fellow pianists,

I just moved to Paris and currently I am thinking about attending a conservatory here for composition next year. In the meanwhile, I want to become competitive in piano. I also would like to start composing and receive comments from professionals. The pieces that I work on will later become my portfolio for admission.

I've found two amazing concert pianists (who are composers also) here teaching at the grand national conservatory in Paris willing to take me as a student.  It would be great to work with them both since I really need to broaden my experience and receive professional advices from more than one perspective.

I've never had two teachers at once before, so I am not sure if it's a good idea. I mean, do students in a conservatory usually study under multiple teachers? I am interested in hearing what you think, especially you who have gone through top professional training.

Thanks a lot,
Simone

[lorditachijr]

I have heard of students having multiple teachers. Many child prodigies would attend weekly lessons with their regular teacher and have monthly lessons with some famous concert pianist. I don't think I've heard of many cases where students have two regular teachers. At a summer camp I attended, I was having weekly lessons from two teachers. I thought that if I worked with two I would get things done twice as fast. This was true with my pieces I was just starting because we were working on technical things in both lessons. But after a few weeks of this, I realized that I was playing my pieces one way for one teacher and another way for the other teacher since they were telling me different things about interpretation. After the camp, I think I had grown more in my musical individuality and had learned not just to do everything a teacher says to do. In my opinion, the best thing you could do is to listen to them both play (recordings), and have a trial lesson with each of them. After that you could decide who you think would be a better teacher for you. Of course a situation with multiple teachers may work out completely differently for you, and these suggestions are just from my personal experience.

Good luck!
John

[jollisg]

Now when the school starts in some weeks, I will start having two teachers. I will have lessons with my teacher who I've had the last 5 years (weekly), and I will also have lessons with a teacher on the Royal College of Music (in Stockholm, Sweden). I will have lessons with him like 1-3 times/month. I don't know yet. I think it's great.

[asiantraveller101]

Preferably not. You may have one teacher as a regular one, and the other probably for occasional coaching, but not both at the same time. The reasons are:
1. It is too confusing to have 2 different teachers with different approach and interpretation, unless you are working on 2 different set of pieces. However, I don't think you want to do that either, since it is going to take you a lot of all time to try to practice 2 sets of pieces. Moreover, you would have to be a real advanced player to be able to adapt back and forth between the two teachers and their technical and artistic requirements.
2. Some teachers do not like that idea. They may feel that there is a conflict of interest. If you are going to do that, it is best that you inform both of them.
Well, that is my opinion, but you need to do what is best for you. Good luck in your piano!

[simonechristine]

Thank you all for your advices and good wishes!

[jollisg]

2. Some teachers do not like that idea. They may feel that there is a conflict of interest. If you are going to do that, it is best that you inform both of them.

In my case, it was actually my teacher who suggested me to have another teacher 

My best advise is to ask your teacher (one of them?) what he/she thinks 

[amelialw]

I did that in music school.....once for a period of time I had 3 lessons per week, all under different teachers...to be sure I learnt alot from it but I almost went crazy practicing 3 sets of pieces I had 2 teachers right from 1st year...one was assigned to me and the school agreed to let me take on lessons from another teacher in school so that carried on all the way till I graduated.
I still have 2 teachers now who are both aware of it and don't mind. One (who taught me for 5 years in canada) teaches me each time I return/ she comes back to singapore. My other teacher teaches me while I'm here...so far it's been good and both of them work on the same pieces with me as well!

My advice is talk to both teachers who have agreed to teach you...if they say okay you could try it but avoid working on the same pieces with both teacher cause it could end up in a wreck or create misunderstanding etc. In my case there's sort of a mutual understanding between both teachers already...