Is my teacher correct?

[Mercedes]

Hi, I am new here and my name is Mercedes.  I havn't had a chance to read everything here yet but what I have already read has been quite helpful.

Here is my dilemma:

I have been working with a teacher for 2 years now whom I am seriously starting to doubt.  I have come to this teacher with a number of things that I know I need to do or want to do, and my teacher consistently shoots them down.  Here are a few examples:
 
I wanted to learn all of the Bach inventions and sinfonias, and I began the project on my own only to have my teacher become very unenthusiastic and often asking me "why do you want to learn these?  For teaching?" until finally I stopped.

I need more work with music theory- I don't feel confident that I can accurately analyse any piece of music, and upon telling my teacher this s/he says things like:  "theory is a completely different thing"  "learning music is not like theory class"  "only look to see what the chord is, if it is out of the ordinary and calls your attention to it"  and tells me that I need to think less about this stuff.

I want to learn how to sight read better and upon telling my teacher of this s/he states  "well that is a completely different skill, it doesn't really matter"  "who cares, you don't need to know that"  and I completely disagree.

My teacher also changes from week to week in what s/he thinks I should do with shaping the music.  S/he will tell me one thing one week and then completely the opposite the next with no recollection of having said the other the week before.  It takes me quite a while to get my repertory finished this way.  I start to wonder what is going on, but I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt and think there is a reason for this.  Is this normal behavior?

I am also feeling very uninspired by this teacher and I have a great struggle wanting to prepare very well for my lessons anymore.  Does it matter how I feel about my teacher and whether I am inspired or not?

These are a few things amongst a few more.  I am perplexed and becoming discouraged in my study, and I wonder if my teacher is correct about these things?  Can somebody help to shed a little light on this for me?

                            Thanks in advance,
                            Mercedes

[bernhard]

Your teacher is incorrect.

Every field you mentioned is essential. You should and you must pursue the study of theory, sightreading, Bach inventions and sinfonias and so on and so forth. Pianists should not be typists.

Maybe your teacher is unwilling to teach these things to you because they are too simple form him/her, and s/he is uninterested.

Maybe the opposite is true: Maybe s/he does not know enough of these subjects to teach them to you.

In any case I can see only two choices for you:

1.   To change teachers.

2.   To stay with this teacher and simply follow his/her guidelines and in this way learn from him/her only what s/he can/is prepared to teach you and learn the other stuff by yourself without involving your teacher.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Mercedes]

I am leaning on the side of thinking that maybe these things are not simple for my teacher, based on comments that have come before.

I have considered learning these things on my own as a result.  I am also starting to seriously consider changing teachers, or getting a different teacher specifically for these things along with the one I have.

                                     Thanks for the feedback,
                                     Mercedes

[dolce cantabile]

maybe just to add, I think you should change teacher. I used to have a teacher who would tell me how bad I played every week, and I got so diacouraged that I eventually stopped....
Now with my current teacher, she is supportive and tells me it's ok when I got mistakes...makes me wanting to practice more so that I don't disappoint her!

[dorfmouse]

Your teacher sounds at best insensitive, at worst incompetent. Decent teaching does not leave a student feeling consistently perplexed and discouraged. If you feel you are doing your best to understand this teacher and yet working with him/her is destroying your motivation and trust, then why would you want to stay?

[Mercedes]

Your teacher sounds at best insensitive, at worst incompetent. Decent teaching does not leave a student feeling consistently perplexed and discouraged. If you feel you are doing your best to understand this teacher and yet working with him/her is destroying your motivation and trust, then why would you want to stay?

Your question and comments seem quite accurate to me.  I suppose I do not wish to stay at all. 

Reflecting on what I wrote and on comments received by people, I have realized that I do not expect my teacher to teach me these things directly.  I do wish that if I need help with these areas that I could come to my teacher with questions, but this is not really the point.  The point is that I feel I should not be discouraged in my own desires to pursue these things as I feel they are essential to being a competent pianist, as somebody mentioned above. 

The very fact that my teacher discourages me from it, even from studying these things on my own, gives me the impression that the two of us have very different and perhaps largely incompatible ideas about what it means to be a pianist as well as an artist.  And although I am sure there are things I can gain from my teacher's perspective, I am beginning to wonder if this perspective is really what is best for me and the best center for my efforts.

With this teacher I am training to perform, but I constantly feel a sense of incompetency as a pianist because of these other areas of knowledge in which I am lacking.  I also feel quite unconfident in my preparation of pieces should I not have accurately and completely analysed them.  Why would I want to step out on stage feeling this way?  It occurs to me that perhaps theoretical analysis is more or less a simple intellectual exercise, though I am hungry for it nonetheless and I feel it is an important step to take.  The very fact that my teacher does not understand this leads me into having serious doubts in my mind as to whether or not this teacher is truly right for me.

I simply feel that I don't know how to change my situation.


                                         Thanks,
                                         Mercedes