Youtube piano teachers

[clouseau]

Wondering what you think of the following people teaching piano in youtube, or if you know any others . First two are my personal favourites

Josh Wright
John Mortensen
Paul Barton
Ilinca Vartic
Steven Massicotte
Shirley Kirsten
Graham Fitch
Emma Leiuman

[keypeg]

You left out Jaak Sikk as a remote piano teacher (not precisely a "Youtube" teacher though).  

[clouseau]

Yes, Jaak Sikk is definitely worth mentioning. He goes much into psychological aspects as well.
Dave Frank has also a lot of quality content if you are into jazz

[richardb]

Yeah, I learned a lot from Dave Frank.  Another great jazz cat is Kent Hewitt.

[schubert960]

You guys have evidently forgotten about the greatest Youtube piano teacher of them all...

[clouseau]

LOL no comment

[perfect_pitch]

You guys have evidently forgotten about the greatest Youtube piano teacher of them all...

Oh wow... I haven't laughed that long in a while. Very good...

Anyway, back to serious answers.

[dogperson]

I would add Robert Estrin to the good tutorial list ....,
But of all of these, Graham Fitch is usually my ‘go to’ guy

[tinyhands]

For Jazz I really enjoy Aimee nolte, she makes it really straightforward and relevant. For musical harmony, check out Jacob Collier..that guy is a musical genius, so young but so knowledgable. I like Rick Beato too for general music knowledge, he covers everything from theory to music production. It’s like a University level course through all through You tube!

[mrcreosote]

There is so much taught online that I question whether it is worth trying to find a good local piano teacher for technique.

[dogperson]

There is so much taught online that I question whether it is worth trying to find a good local piano teacher for technique.

While I am a big fan of online training tutorials, they would not replace my regular lesson with my teacher. Why? I get real-time feedback and discussion about what I’m doing. My teacher can see and hear immediately what I’m doing, and we discuss solutions.  I ask questions, and she offers alternatives to addressing both technical issues  and interpretative questions.   Personalization is what you cannot get from a tutorial.

In case you’re wondering, I am an adult  restarter, who had years of child piano lessons and then a many decade gap.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

There is so much taught online that I question whether it is worth trying to find a good local piano teacher for technique.

A good piano teacher will be able to assess and diagnose problems associated with hand position (in particular) and fingering in a way that isn't going to be matched by general online tutorials, etc.

[mjames]

A good piano teacher will be able to assess and diagnose problems associated with hand position (in particular) and fingering in a way that isn't going to be matched by general online tutorials, etc.

^---this

You maybe think you're doing something correctly but self-diagnosis is usually poor among beginners. I was pretty much self-taught for the first 4 years and I could play some pretty advanced pieces reasonably well, but i had hit a "wall." Didn't know what the problem was and within the first lesson my teacher identified a whole bundle of subtle problems: the angle of my elbows, how I used the weight on my arms, the angle position of my wrists and a whole lot of annoying stuff. No more walls, was playing Liszt and Chopin etudes a few months later.

Bottom line is you may think you're doing fine imitating online teachers, but more likely than not you will accumulate bad habits unknowingly, especially when you don't have someone next to you to correct it. Also I think a good teacher will improve your self-diagnosis sills, so its a good investment in the long term.

[keypeg]

A good piano teacher will be able to assess and diagnose problems associated with hand position (in particular) and fingering in a way that isn't going to be matched by general online tutorials, etc.

The question was about teachers - not just tutorials (videos you watch by yourself).

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Unless someone is receiving direct one to one tuition via eg Skype my comment still stands. 

[keypeg]

Unless someone is receiving direct one to one tuition via eg Skype my comment still stands. 

You were referring to "tutorials" - which I'm imagining means those videos we tend to see out there - and that is the first thing I was addressing.

You appear to be someone who already plays piano well, rather than a student (?).  I wonder if you have had occasion to explore what's out there.  You wouldn't have much reason to do so if you're already a pianist or advanced.  You wrote:

A good piano teacher will be able to assess and diagnose problems associated with hand position (in particular) and fingering in a way that isn't going to be matched by general online tutorials, etc.

An actual good teacher who is in your area so that you can physically go to his studio, that is ideal of course, but not always possible.  I work with a primary teacher who is in another country.  We met in conversation and I knew in short time that I wanted to work with this teacher, and my dedication made the feeling mutual.  It is not ideal for physical form, especially since this teacher usually teaches in-studio and so is not set up for it, but when you are with a quality teacher you (mutually) find ways around it.  We do work on "hand position" among other things.  We work live on camera (Hangouts - Skype is dreadful!) and I send videos and sound files.

Another form that now exists is a kind of platform hybrid: Artistworks has its commercial version, but some private teachers have their own form.  There is a fee that can be monthly or annual for access to the teaching material.  Students also submit videos of their "homework" and receive a video response by the teacher as feedback and advice.  In most such platforms all registered students see the exchange for all students - both the student's homework and the teacher's response - which is almost like a kind of "masterclass". Some of these teachers will also do one-on-one live with the student for a regular fee (say $50/hour).

If you do a casual search you'll see a lot of junky "tutorials" and I imagine that this is the kind of thing you probably have in mind.

[keypeg]

Just on the Skype angle- since some students may be going the on-line route, esp. if they have no options locally:

... one to one tuition via eg Skype ....

Skype really sucks and has gone downhill in the past few years.  It got especially bad when they decided to kill off "ambient sound", and a sustained note was considered ambient sound.  I.e. a whole note sounding like a 16th played staccato.  We switched to Hangouts a few months ago, where there is a "studio" option designed for streaming music instead of speech.

[Bob]

Are these more like presentations/master classes since there's no interaction?

[dogperson]

The question was about teachers - not just tutorials (videos you watch by yourself).

The OP is titled ‘online piano teachers’,  but if you look at the original list of names it is indeed about piano tutorials and not remote teachers.

[keypeg]

The OP is titled ‘online piano teachers’,  but if you look at the original list of names it is indeed about piano tutorials and not remote teachers.

Yes, there is a list, but in the opening posting Clouseau also asks if we know of others.  He then acknowledged one whom I mentioned.

The line is a bit fuzzy, because we see a kind of platform where there are organized tutorials or lessons, but also a closed forum where students submit their homework which the teacher comments on, giving further advice quite similar to regular lessons, but without the in-time interaction.  Well, what I wrote before.  With some teachers, that feedback can be private, and it can be lengthy.

[keypeg]

Are these more like presentations/master classes since there's no interaction?

In the ones I highlighted, the "platform" type (I've sort of invented a name), you will see a set of organized tutorial videos that are organized by grade level, topic (graded) (posture at the piano, technique, reading skills, these can all be part of that set).  I have seen from 350 - 250 teaching videos, all carefully done by teachers who seemed to be good teachers with lots of experience.  This part is without interaction.

When a student submits a video, then the teacher will create a video response.  It's a kind of "time-delayed interaction", like when we communicate in the forum here.

[ted]

I have not yet worked out why internet tutorials, not just for music, turn out to be such a disappointment. On the face of it the idea seems very promising but I have viewed hundreds and picked up only three good ideas which helped me a little, but nothing startling. Of course I could be getting dense and past it I suppose, the fault might lie with me.

[keypeg]

I have not yet worked out why internet tutorials, not just for music, turn out to be such a disappointment. On the face of it the idea seems very promising but I have viewed hundreds and picked up only three good ideas which helped me a little, but nothing startling. Of course I could be getting dense and past it I suppose, the fault might lie with me.

My first thought is that I'm reading that you have been playing piano for some 50 years; your posts seem to show someone who is fairly knowledgeable and comfortable in things piano, so you wouldn't have much by way of learning needs.  My 2nd thought involves where you're looking, and what you were looking for.  Obviously if you already have the tools you need, there won't be answers for needs since you don't have any.   But also, what one finds at random tends to be the more junky things.

The things that have helped me have tended to be in areas of foundations of various kinds, as that is exactly where things have been out of order for me.  They are probably things that are already obvious and working for you.  I've gone that route more for my other instrument, which I have sort of gradually returned to, and this has been more in the way of paid portals.  You may find sample lessons on general Youtube but out of context. (hm: I guess that I missed the "Youtube" part of the title, if that was meant literally, rather than generally as "on-line - not in person".)

[clouseau]

Apologies if the thread title was  not precise enough. I meant people making tutorials about piano on Youtube. But any other suggestion is of course welcome

[ronde_des_sylphes]

You were referring to "tutorials" - which I'm imagining means those videos we tend to see out there - and that is the first thing I was addressing.

You appear to be someone who already plays piano well, rather than a student (?).  I wonder if you have had occasion to explore what's out there.  You wouldn't have much reason to do so if you're already a pianist or advanced.  You wrote:An actual good teacher who is in your area so that you can physically go to his studio, that is ideal of course, but not always possible.  I work with a primary teacher who is in another country.  We met in conversation and I knew in short time that I wanted to work with this teacher, and my dedication made the feeling mutual.  It is not ideal for physical form, especially since this teacher usually teaches in-studio and so is not set up for it, but when you are with a quality teacher you (mutually) find ways around it.  We do work on "hand position" among other things.  We work live on camera (Hangouts - Skype is dreadful!) and I send videos and sound files.

Another form that now exists is a kind of platform hybrid: Artistworks has its commercial version, but some private teachers have their own form.  There is a fee that can be monthly or annual for access to the teaching material.  Students also submit videos of their "homework" and receive a video response by the teacher as feedback and advice.  In most such platforms all registered students see the exchange for all students - both the student's homework and the teacher's response - which is almost like a kind of "masterclass". Some of these teachers will also do one-on-one live with the student for a regular fee (say $50/hour).

If you do a casual search you'll see a lot of junky "tutorials" and I imagine that this is the kind of thing you probably have in mind.

My concerns are directed at the scenario where a pupil is finding certain types of passage difficult due to issues with the hand position and / or resulting tension. Firstly, everyone's hand is different, so generic advice regarding hand position can be valuable but also ultimately limited. I have attended masterclasses where video analysis of pupil hand movements has been carried out, down to examining movements in slow motion. My technique is not perfect, but pretty solid and also quite natural, so I've not had much cause to use these analyses  (with the exception of one particular issue in the left hand),  but other attendees certainly got use out of this. My point, ultimately, is that indeed this could be addressed to a certain point online, whether through tutorial or specific feedback after the event,  *but* the difference is if the teacher is a remote teacher then the best he can do is to describe the problem and how to fix it, or produce video for the pupil to attempt to mimic, whereas a teacher who is physically present merely needs to move the hand to how it should be ideally placed, which is much more practical. I hope that makes some sort of sense. I have no issue with remote teaching of interpretation, remote commentary on performance grammar, etc.

[ted]

My first thought is that I'm reading that you have been playing piano for some 50 years; your posts seem to show someone who is fairly knowledgeable and comfortable in things piano, so you wouldn't have much by way of learning needs.  My 2nd thought involves where you're looking, and what you were looking for.  Obviously if you already have the tools you need, there won't be answers for needs since you don't have any.  But also, what one finds at random tends to be the more junky things.

Closer to sixty-five years actually, but you might be right, I might have long ago escaped or corrected all the gross mistakes people discuss on the internet. I look for ideas which are new to me, original and striking, ideas which I might profitably incorporate into my own music. I am grateful that the internet has brought me into personal contact with a good many very talented players and composers I would almost certainly never have met in any other way; but that is not quite the same as directed learning.

I hasten to add that Dave Frank is different. He is in a class of his own, never didactic, always jolly, broadminded and a true music lover. I am not a jazz devotee but I have picked up several ideas from his videos; probably not the ones he intended but that doesn’t matter.

[keypeg]

Closer to sixty-five years actually, but you might be right, I might have long ago escaped or corrected all the gross mistakes people discuss on the internet. I look for ideas which are new to me, original and striking, ideas which I might profitably incorporate into my own music. I am grateful that the internet has brought me into personal contact with a good many very talented players and composers I would almost certainly never have met in any other way; but that is not quite the same as directed learning.

I turned sixty-four recently.  When I played piano as a child self-taught I did not ever see anyone else play the piano, and used books that were passed on to me from a relative.  I later learned that she was taught (early 1900's) to balance a pencil on her hand and use only her fingers; essentially I ended up playing like that simply because the repertoire promoted it.  I had no piano for 35 years and when I did get one, I already knew that "technique" or "good movement" existed - because of my experience with another instrument.  So my pursuit went in that direction.  How I ended up with a regular teacher in a different country who doesn't usually teach remotely is a story by itself.  If weighing optimum conditions (in-studio, in-person) versus excellent teaching, then you will choose that teacher in suboptimum conditions and make it work; rather than optimum conditions with a mediocre or even subpar teacher that can misteach you in-studio.

I was on my way to practising, about to work on the assignment, with the guidance and instructions I've been given and thinking of the irony of this thread.  Because I'm in the middle of this kind of music work.  But NOT via some "Youtube teacher" spewing out what one tends to see out there.

[clouseau]

Agreed. There is no substitute for real life private lessons.
Much can be gained though, from watching videos, if you know what to look for. The basic problem in my view with online tutorial is TMI (Too Much Information). Someone inexperienced, sees on his screen hundreds of videos, all declaring to improve one aspect or another, full of advice and practical tips. In youtube you will find advice ranging from practicing with a penny on your hand to doing pushups. How can someone short out the right stuff, if he is not an experienced and well trained piano player in the first place? It is easy for someone to be misguided.
That is not to say that real life teachers will agree on everything. But in real life you have one teacher who consistently teaches you in the way he/she learned, without any conflicting information, not 100.

[keypeg]

My concerns are directed at the scenario where a pupil is finding certain types of passage difficult due to issues with the hand position and / or resulting tension. Firstly, everyone's hand is different, so generic advice regarding hand position can be valuable but also ultimately limited.  I have attended masterclasses where video analysis of pupil hand movements has been carried out, down to examining movements in slow motion.

In all honesty, I don't think much of that kind of thing. If this is being addressed in some kind of masterclass on-line, it's not going to help anyone.  Even for the student involved, he'd be better off getting helped in a series of lessons that address all the possible underlying issues, and build the missing skills.  If a student plays for a (decent) new teacher, that teacher may say, "I see what's causing you problems.  We'll be working on this over the next few months in a series of steps, so bear with me and work with me."  Those steps will also suit that and not another.

*but* the difference is if the teacher is a remote teacher then the best he can do is to describe the problem and how to fix it, or produce video for the pupil to attempt to mimic, whereas a teacher who is physically present merely needs to move the hand to how it should be ideally placed, which is much more practical.

That is assuming that the in-studio teacher is a decent teacher who knows how to teach such things, and that is not always possible. 

One problem is with the original question which seems to go toward the average Youtube tutorial that you will see.  I was thinking more in line of the types of things I've experienced and seen.  As mentioned, I have been working with a private teacher regularly across countries.  I have also been involved in platform-type things.  These have not been about how to play piece x or y, but tend to go toward building things including technically.  They are things you may not think about because you will be beyond them.

For example, a freebee is "Piano-ologist".  He has a beginner series that runs into some 40+ videos where you first learn how your body moves, limb by limb, individually, and then combined.  This may seem assinine.  But for a lot of adults including myself, we may tend to sit "in position", what moves are the fingers extended from that ramrod perfect posture torso, and we are not physically connected.  Aim at being "relaxed" and you may get collapsed jelly, which is ineffective too.  So as you learn you can rotate, move in and out, feel tension and relaxation here and there, THIS is the base under the base under the base. .... Jaak Sikk begins with a single finger, one movement at a time.  Too many teachers of adults "make it interesting", go fast, "address the intellect of abstract thinkers".  What both of these particular teachers have in common is they invite the student to explore and listen to their bodies and to the sounds they produce.  You cannot go wrong by "seeking greater comfort and ease".

These are the types of things that I am thinking about.  You would have no reason to look for such things.  Otoh, I have known teachers who teach in-studio sometimes pull up such tutorials as a teaching resource.  Or - if you have a private teacher and think such a resource is helpful, have your teacher look at it and critique it.  In fact, I have always done so.

Does this put a different angle on things?

[keypeg]

Agreed. There is no substitute for real life private lessons.
Much can be gained though, from watching videos, if you know what to look for. The basic problem in my view with online tutorial is TMI (Too Much Information). Someone inexperienced, sees on his screen hundreds of videos, all declaring to improve one aspect or another, full of advice and practical tips. In youtube you will find advice ranging from practicing with a penny on your hand to doing pushups. How can someone short out the right stuff, if he is not an experienced and well trained piano player in the first place? It is easy for someone to be misguided.
That is not to say that real life teachers will agree on everything. But in real life you have one teacher who consistently teaches you in the way he/she learned, without any conflicting information, not 100.

That's it, in a nutshell.

This also brings us into another dilemma: How, if you are inexperienced, will you know how to find that first teacher, and be able to tell that what he consistently teaches you in the way he/she learned, is not sending you up a creek without a paddle?    It is a real problem.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I would argue that anything which enables a pupil to gain a relaxed, fluid technique and produce a good sound is a plus. I suspect that a considerable number of pupils are in effect handicapped by starting teachers who leave them with "learned" suboptimal hand positions, and who consequently reach a certain level but can't progress beyond it because they can't play scales, arpeggios, octaves or whatever types of technical figuration without stress or beyond a certain basic velocity. I was probably lucky in that my initial teacher left me able to acquire these with minimal difficulty (I was by no means a prodigy in any conventional sense but could play the Waldstein, Appassionata etc by 15).

I don't agree with you about the video analysis, particularly the slow motion aspect. Maybe it's more relevant to advanced technique, but I doubt it. I think it's the most graphic manner I've ever seen for demonstrating when a pianist is making his or her life difficult through uneconomic or inappropriate movement. If, for example, you're playing octaves and your hand is flapping around in the air, or going from the outer edge of the white notes, far into the black notes, and all the way out again, then it goes without saying you are reducing velocity and increasing stress and fatigue - and it's far far easier to see this when you're not concurrently involved in the act of performing the technical octave process.

The comment about assuming the studio teacher is competent is true, but it works both ways: why should one assume the online teacher is competent?

[keypeg]

I probably misunderstood you about the video analysis part.  I thought you were describing a masterclass where everybody watches a one-time analysis of one student by the master teacher, and everybody goes home and can magically improve their playing.  For the student who has had his playing analyzed, he might need one-on-one work afterward with a teacher, because knowing what you're doing wrong, and fixing it, are two different things.

In my on-line experiences there have been things of similar nature, and since the work involves sending videos when you're not working live, you really do get to see these things.  Among the things that were pointed out to me at various times, not all by the same teacher:
- when I stopped at every note I played in a kind of stop-start-stop, and to aim for a continual flow-through even when the notes was held.  This made a difference, and it did not involve someone needing to move my hand or shape it
Other things are harder to describe because they happened in real time, where the teacher says "do this" - you do it, he observes, based on what he observes he has you do something else, and your playing technique improves.

The comment about assuming the studio teacher is competent is true, but it works both ways: why should one assume the online teacher is competent?

One should not assume that either is competent.  More importantly, one should not assume that a studio teacher is competent and superior, and that is a trap right there.

The thing is that one cannot always find a good teacher locally, and sometimes, not any teacher at all.  One thing about the on-line teachers who are in platform environments, is you will also see how they handle the playing and problems of other students.  This can give you insights into your own difficulties, but if you have any experience, it can also give insights into the teaching.  I got burned some years ago.

I suspect that a considerable number of pupils are in effect handicapped by starting teachers who leave them with "learned" suboptimal hand positions, and who consequently reach a certain level but can't progress beyond it because they can't play scales, arpeggios, octaves or whatever types of technical figuration without stress or beyond a certain basic velocity.

Yes.  And sadly they won't know the cause of this, and think it's because of their own "lack of talent".

I was probably lucky in that my initial teacher left me able to acquire these with minimal difficulty (I was by no means a prodigy in any conventional sense but could play the Waldstein, Appassionata etc by 15).

That is indeed a fortunate thing.  Btw, Menuhin said somewhere "If a teacher does not harm his student along the way, that is already a good thing."

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Yeah, re the video analysis thing, ALL the students were given the option to partake of analysis of their own playing, and then given one-to-one feedback / help as required.

[keypeg]

Yeah, re the video analysis thing, ALL the students were given the option to partake of analysis of their own playing, and then given one-to-one feedback / help as required.

This sounds like a good thing, and also promising.  Because if you start to learn to observe yourself, there is a certain amount of self-teaching that is also a component of working with a teacher, since students cannot just pose as empty vessels expecting to be filled.  It sounds potentially good.

[pianoworthy]

The only two on the list I am familiar with are Josh Wright and Paul Barton. I find Josh Wright is very traditional and academic in his approach and teaching. Certainly I'm sure that approach works for many people, but I find myself fundamentally disagreeing with a lot of what he has to say.

Paul Barton however is a lot more creative in his style and he has helped me tremendously in learning a lot of the difficult repertoire he covers, but his tutorials are definitely geared towards more advanced players who already have a well developed technique. He doesn't do many tutorials now though unfortunately.

[clouseau]

The only two on the list I am familiar with are Josh Wright and Paul Barton. I find Josh Wright is very traditional and academic in his approach and teaching. Certainly I'm sure that approach works for many people, but I find myself fundamentally disagreeing with a lot of what he has to say.

Paul Barton however is a lot more creative in his style and he has helped me tremendously in learning a lot of the difficult repertoire he covers, but his tutorials are definitely geared towards more advanced players who already have a well developed technique. He doesn't do many tutorials now though unfortunately.

I find them both very good. I would argue though that Josh is traditional. He presents a lot of fancy/unorthodox techniques which are not generally taught. I found that some of those work well for specific situations. He gives a LOT of material to think about and try out. Further, he is a very skilled pianist himself, i think he made it to the finals of Chopin Competition 2015. His playing certainly convinces me.

Paul Barton is also good and has a lot of creative ideas himself. I like that he provides background information on the pieces he teaches. But sometimes I think he goes too far... for example practicing Chopin op 10. No.4  with a penny on the hand or cutting each line of Op 28. no 8 from the score and sticking into a big piece of cardboard(just the one line), in order not to be distracted by the other notes...At any rate, Im sure one can fish useful information out of his videos.

[keypeg]

Paul is good for advanced music: Josh is good for students who already have some playing ability. They are both about pieces more than about learning to play.  Jaak gives playing ability from the ground up, as well as very basic concepts.  That is not just for beginners; if you started wrong, need to remediate, or never learned to approach things right, you get a kind of remediation.