What is your piano lesson like??

[casparma]

Hello all,


I am just curious about what are other people's piano lessons like, and to compare abit with mine...


I go to a conservatory in Europe once a week. Each time takes 20-30 minutes.
No doubt I am curious, my lesson is actually less than half an hour..

Whatsoever, I feel abit strange with my piano lessons.  As some of u know I started when I was 14, and I am 15 now, I have only learned basic music theory, and just finished Duvernoy, and a book of sheet music called Quatre Sonata, for which I dont know the author. Now, I am starting to play Clementi's Sonanta.

But I never "learn" anything about Perfect Pitch or Relative Pitch.....
For eg, if you have a c sharp played, I will probably guess it wrong. Or, I could not recognise the music pattern (triad, chords, etc), and what major/minor it is.


Do you guys have the same thing?? or completely different??


thanks for any response

[lagin]

Hi, I have four hours of piano lessons a week.  45 min learning harmony, that is, how to analyse and compose music, then I go to another teacher who helps me study for my music history exam for an hour.  Then she teaches me piano for two hours.  We go over technique, pieces, ear training, and sight reading.  We don't do everything every week though.  Technique, sight reading, and ear training only get worked on every 4 weeks or so, but of course, I do them on my own at home, too.  It's only this intense because of the grade level I'm at and because I can only see her once a week.  These lessons are registered through the music school the teachers work at.  Harmony, History, and Piano, are all seperate courses, and are paid for seperately. 

[casparma]

ohhh...

thanks Lagin,

so, in your case, Piano lesson teaches, and ONLY teaches you how to play piano....

hmmm...

[etudes]

i have abou 1 -1.5 hours per week
all with the repertoire (not enough  )
but i dont think we can seperate between Piano Teacher and Music teacher
i think Piano teacher at least should teach all you need to developing yourself to become a great musicians (not only great pianist)
yes we have harmony class history class Ear training class
but mainly as basic your piano teacher should be able to teach about all of music
not only how to play piano

[chopin_ice]

I used to have a great teacher...and she taught me about 45 minutes of playing, and around 30-45 minutes on theory. But since I've shifted, I've changed teachers and the new one I have only teaches piano...only had a couple of lessons with her so far and we've only played pieces...I'm planning to ask her if we're going to do sight-raeding, aural etc...and I think she will, or at least I hope so...

She doesn't teach theory though, so I have to find another teacher for that...But I agree with Etudes, piano teachers should teach you about music so you can develop to be a great musician...and not just teaching you to play the piano. Hmm...am currently looking to maybe find another teacher for myself...

[keys]

My teacher taught me up until gr.  2 rudiments, and then I went to two other teachers for history, harmony, analysis and counterpoint. My piano lesson is supposed to be an hour a week, but usualy lasts at least an hour and a half. I usually work on around eight songs at a time (advanced rep. ARCT) we usually have time for  three pieces each lesson. I just play through the piece and she gives me her opinion on expression and dynamics, keeps me on track. She taught me ear training, sight and technique as well when I was at that level.

[casparma]

Etudes, can you be more specific? what do you mean by a teacher should teach you all of music, not just playing piano??

I mean, you cannot say you can play piano, but you can't read music sheet paper.

My teacher does teach me some basic music theory, but from now on, I am like playing sheet music, which is according to my level, and teach me new music concept from it if something is new in the piece, and I suppose to make notes of it.

But nothing as I said, Ear training, and Harmony analysis.

[Siberian Husky]

if you want to learn about pitch and musicality...enroll yourself in beginning vocal classes...i heard that helps TREMENDOUSLY..u dont have to be the best singer..or even like it...its just to get accustomed to recognizing pitches and tones

[etudes]

Etudes, can you be more specific? what do you mean by a teacher should teach you all of music, not just playing piano??

I mean, you cannot say you can play piano, but you can't read music sheet paper.

My teacher does teach me some basic music theory, but from now on, I am like playing sheet music, which is according to my level, and teach me new music concept from it if something is new in the piece, and I suppose to make notes of it.

But nothing as I said, Ear training, and Harmony analysis.

yeah i mean all in the musical way not only about reading music
i think sight reading should be done at home or sometime do 4 hands with teacher (quote from H.Neuhaus the best way to develop sight reading is playing 4hands)
if your teacher does teach you something about basic music theory so that is better than nothing 
and the music teacher esp.instrumental teacher (if we count voice as a instrument) should teach music not only how do we deal with this passage by using this mothing  they should be more specific like how music goes how is the chord progression (until u can know by yourself)like why we should make a crescendo here (not only becoz your teacher said we should make the teacher should explain until it sink in to our heart)if u dont have a basic of this it would be dangerous to go further without basic
yeah u suppose to make notes of everything that is new for u until you get similar with it
i hope it help
 

[etudes]

My teacher taught me up until gr.  2 rudiments, and then I went to two other teachers for history, harmony, analysis and counterpoint. My piano lesson is supposed to be an hour a week, but usualy lasts at least an hour and a half. I usually work on around eight songs at a time (advanced rep. ARCT) we usually have time for  three pieces each lesson. I just play through the piece and she gives me her opinion on expression and dynamics, keeps me on track. She taught me ear training, sight and technique as well when I was at that level.

becareful someone here
i think here we should use the word piece more than song
you work so hard at the same time
i cant handle 8 pieces in the same time
too much for me

[lagin]

ohhh...

thanks Lagin,

so, in your case, Piano lesson teaches, and ONLY teaches you how to play piano....

hmmm...

Yes, with sight reading and ear tests once and a while.  She brings in a bit of theory if it relates to the piece, but I learn most of that from another teacher as I said before.  My piano teacher did teach theory to me at the beginning, but now that I'm more advanced, I just have a seperate lesson for it.

[kilini]

My teacher is useless. She just listens while I play some pieces and occasionally comments on OBVIOUS mistakes. Pretty soon, my hour of piano lesson is done and I have to come back next week.

After six months, I still have not a bit of ear training or theory.

[Rach3]

It's really hard to describe a 'normal' lesson with my teacher, since he's unbelivably inconsistent with regards to scheduling, etc. [I'm surprised that I just had two scheduled lessons in two weeks, for him an amazing achievement of regularity... both lessons were nearly two hours].  'Normally' I would first play something on the size of a sonata movement (or a part of it), and then he would ask all sorts of questions, starting with the overall structure/inent/context of the piece, then focusing on individual interpretive issues, such as "how do you play this note?" or "this measure?" and I would play the note or measure in question, and explain my reasoning,  and he would ask many questions, vaguely like a socractic dialogue, getting me to figure things out. So I might play a measure twenty or more times in a lesson, and discuss it for half an hour, as if it were (and in fact often is) far more important than the other thousand measures in the piece (example, the end measure of op. 111). We also spend a lot of time on technical issues - he might talk for a while on what kinds of wrist motions are involved in a passage, or what kind of hand positions are easiest. Or, in an entirely different kind of lesson (like my most recent one), I come in an ask a ton of fingering/technical questions, very relevant ones and well-prepared too. For example, when I began working on the Brahms concerto this month, after doing a lot of reading I came in with the confusing technical issues (i.e., what I hadn't figured out how to play), which were all basically resolved with a novel fingering/wrist motion I hadn't thought of. Or sometimes I come in with prepared questions on issues such as phrasing or color, or in one case, "should this note be accented?" (it's important!).

In short, lessons are roughly half spent on technical dilemmas, and half on interpretation. I don't really do theory or ear training any more. Some lessons degenerate into discussions about performers, editors, how well a certain piano has been tuned, or whether or not a certain autograph was authentic (as it turned out, no, it wasn't).

[paris]

hi. i have 3 hours of piano per week, then 1.5 hour of harmony, 1.5 hour of poliphony, 1.5 hour of music history and 45 min. of learning about sonata, rondo, mazurka, scherzo... (in a way that we analyse structure of those pieces)

[Glyptodont]

I am not nearly as immersed in piano as some of the people who have replied here.

I have one 30-minute lesson per week.  I really do not have time to play everything I am working on at home, so I pretty much decide where I need help the most, and we work on that. 

Sometimes the teacher will say, "I only want to hear you play page 3 of this next week, because I already know you can play page 1 and 2."  This is intended to get as much benefit as possible out of a half-hour lesson.

I am a senior citizen, so the teacher is really not very bossy and demanding.  I mean, for me it is just a source of enjoyment.  I hardly look forward to any career as a performer or anything.

Hope my experiences help  . . . .

[pies]

­