Piano Video Lesson: Top 10 Piano Teacher Fails

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I'm Robert Estrin. Today is top 10 piano teacher fails. A few weeks ago, I put out a video of the top five piano lesson fails, and I thought it was only fair to do the other side of the equation. So today we've got the top 10 piano teacher fails, and incidentally, these aren't just about piano teachers, most of these apply to all teachers. So I think you'll be very interested in what I've got for you today.

Okay, number one, you go to a lesson and the teacher makes corrections, they assign new material, and you get all done and they say, "Now, practice." And you leave the lesson and then you go through those corrections, and you've got your new piece, and you go, "Well, how do I practice?" And you realize you have no idea even how to approach the practicing, because they didn't show you how to practice, so that is a really important point. When you leave a lesson, you should know exactly what it is you have to do and how to do it. Just saying practice isn't enough.

Along the similar lines, you learn a piece and you've played it for a long, long time. And finally, the teacher says, at the end of the lesson, "So for next week, I want you to have this memorized. Memorize this piece." And once again, you get home, you go, "Okay." And you start from the beginning, you see, "Let's see if I know any of it." And you remember just the first couple of bars, your fingers kind of just go to the right of keys because you've played it so many times. And then you go, "Well, now what do I do?" And so you can't figure out how to memorize because they didn't show you how to memorize. They just expect you to know how to memorize.

This is really bad at a number of levels. First of all, it makes you feel like something's wrong with you. The teacher expects you to be able to memorize and you can't do it. You feel maybe you're stupid, maybe you just aren't smart enough to know how to memorize. Well, nobody can just instantly memorize. I guess there's some amazing geniuses out there like people have photographic memories. Maybe there's some people who can just play music and it's memorized and that's all they need to do. Of course, if music is simple enough, maybe just sheer repetition will work, but if you just have one week to get something memorized and you don't have a method or a process, you're in trouble. So make sure if somebody tells you to memorize, ask them how, how to memorize. And if you don't get a clear, concise answer, then you might consider getting another teacher if memorization is important to you.

Now, number three, this is something that is so blatant and wrong and common that it's unbelievable, which is teachers give music that's too hard. Now, why would they do that? Well, it's a couple of reasons. First of all, you might be begging your teacher, "Oh, I really want to play this Chopin etude. I love it." And you keep begging them so part of it can be inspired by the student asking to play something that is really not appropriate for their level.

Another thing is that teachers oftentimes really like to brag to other teachers and pianists. "I have students playing Liszt etudes and late Beethoven sonatas," or whatever it may be, because it makes them feel like they're really good teachers. Or along with that, they like to listen to challenging music. Maybe they're tired of the easy pieces that they teach all the time. And if a student asks for something that's too hard, they just say, "Go ahead and do it." And they figure, at least they'll be listening to something that they like listening to more.

So moving on, this one is something true of almost all subjects, teachers talking over your head. They're talking as if you understand them, and you sort of do, but you sort of don't. And you don't even know what question to ask and you feel like it would make you seem stupid if you ask a question after talking to you like you understand.

This is particularly true with music theory. Maybe they expect you to understand some complex harmonic progression and they think, "Well, this is the C diminished, which obviously is going to be in the key of D flat." And you go, "Mm-hmm (affirmative)," and before you can even formulate the question, they're going to the next thing. "So this is the diatonic cord in this key. And you can see, well of course the key signature," and you're going, "Yeah." And you never really understand anything they're talking about. You sort of get it. And once again you, you think there's something wrong with you because you should understand what they're talking about. They seem so brilliant. And if they think you understand it, you should.

Well, sometimes teachers don't understand what you need to know in order to follow the whole chain of the conversation. You could be lost at the beginning and kind of nodding along, thinking, "Oh, I'll get this eventually by the end of this talk. I should get it." But then before you know it, you're onto the next thing and you never even get to it. So this is a real big problem.

Next we have number five, introducing something new, great. "Today, we're going to do harmonic analysis." And you spend a little bit of time with it, and that's the last time that ever comes up. And next time they bring up something else, like how to play scales and contrary motion. They do it and you never hear about it again. You never quite got it. And before you know it, you're going on two, three, four other things and there's no follow through. And so you have all these little tidbits of things that go by the wayside. And you never really get any of them because they're not consistent in the instruction.

Now we go to number six and this one is really interesting. Have you ever gotten some abstract instructions? You're playing a piece and they say, "Over here, make it sound like butterflies flying through the wind and the flowers." And you're going, "Wow, that sounds great." And you're just so impressed with the imagery and you think, "Okay, butterflies. Now what do I do to make it sound like butterflies?" You love the whole concept of it so much that you don't want to ask, "Well, how do you make it sound like butterflies?" Well, abstract kind of comments can sometimes give you some vague idea of what you're after, but if it's not followed through with specific instructions, how to achieve that sound, it's kind of meaningless. It might sound good, but you need more than that.

Now we're getting to some of the really heavy things. These are some really destructive things that teachers can do. Head trips, being passive aggressive like, "Okay, well that's good if you think you like it that way," or something of that nature where you just feel like this small, because they're saying things to you and making you feel terrible. And why is this so destructive? Well, first of all, it's hurtful, but also, it might make you just give up on the whole idea of piano or whatever it is you're studying. Because if you're constantly demeaned at lessons, then you lose the whole joy. And what's the point of studying piano if you can't enjoy it, right?

Okay, now we get, this is progressive, teachers who yell. Teachers who yell, there's really no excuse for this and it really is verbal abuse. "Why don't you know your scales? You should know this by now!" Or, "You didn't memorize this piece? I told you to memorize it!" Any kind of yelling, there's no place for that in a piano lesson.

Now, I will say this, exceptions, well, one tiny exception. I notice that with online lessons, I teach students in a dozen different countries. Occasionally, the technology doesn't cooperate and a student is playing and they're playing a sonata and I need to stop them. I'm going, "Hey! Hey Jim! Jim!" Trying to get somebody's attention online. But that's a different story. I'm talking about yelling at a student because they're doing something wrong and the teacher thinks that they need to yell to make their point. No, that's not an appropriate way to make a point. End of story.

Worse than that, and believe it or not, I've heard so many stories about teachers who hit. Hitting is absolutely wrong in any circumstances. The old story, you've probably heard it, with the teacher with a ruler, every time there's a wrong finger, whack, whack, boom. And boy, the thought is, the teacher thinks, "Oh, if they know they're going to get hit, they're going to play with the right fingers." Well, aside from the potential for damage, pain is not a good way of getting people to be open to concepts and instruction. Hitting is just absolutely wrong.

Now, a funny kind of story is that when I first started teaching many, many years ago, well actually it wasn't when I first started, but early on in my teaching career, I had a student who had hit me. It was a child, but a child who was old enough to know better. And Janine, if you're listening now, I forgive you. She was actually joyful to work with and it really didn't hurt, but it was kind of weird to be hit by a student. But hitting from a teacher, or a student for that matter, is absolutely inappropriate, obviously.

All right, this has been kind of a long ride here. We're down to number 10, and this one can be so frustrating. Not letting you play through anything. You start your piano lesson and you start playing and you make a mistake early on and the teacher stops you. "That was wrong." "Oh, okay." And so then you try to continue and you're kind of put off by this. And so you go on and you make a mistake again, just because you're not in your groove anymore. And before you know it, every time they stop you, you're afraid of being stopped so you're not even concentrating on the music anymore.

This is so counterproductive. A teacher has to let you play through your music so they know how to guide the lesson, to see the points that need to be covered during the course of the lesson. They must listen through. Even if there are several things that they think they absolutely must discuss with you, if they don't hear everything, how do they know the priorities of the lesson? They don't. Worse yet, it doesn't give you an opportunity to you to show them the hard work you did. You want to show them all your achievements for the week and to feel good about it and then get to work. So if you have a teacher that doesn't let you play through things during the course of a lesson, that's not going to work. It's not going to be a very useful or valuable lesson for you.

So those are 10 teacher fails. I wonder if any of you have any others that you could share here at LivingPianos.com or YouTube? Thanks so much for joining me. Again, I'm Robert Estrin, this is LivingPianos.com, your online piano resource. And if you ring the bell and the thumbs up, more people who love piano will see these videos. Thanks so much for joining me. See you next time.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/top-10-piano-teacher-fails/

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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