There are so many online piano courses and even apps that are out there all claiming to be the easiest, cheapest, most fun way to play the piano. Some of them are quite good while others are merely teaching you pieces of music in a way that keeps you tied to their system, rather than giving you skills so you can learn to play any piece of music that you desire.
Regardless of whether these online learn to play the piano courses, a piano teacher will give you the personal touch. They can help you with technique, like no online course can. They can adjust expectations to what is going on in your life. They can encourage you when learning to play the piano goes from being fun and new and exciting to feeling a bit like hard work.
Let’s face it, not just with learning the piano, but with acquiring any new skill. There’s a honeymoon phase where its all new and exciting and the possibilities seem endless. After a period of time, which can very much vary from person to person, the reality sets in and it can become daunting or even overwhelming. A piano teacher, because they are a real human being can help you through those phases.
I know myself, that all through school when I was taking piano lessons, I had a piano teacher that was positive and helped me immensely. She made a real difference to me and looking back on those years, I can more fully appreciate what she did for me. She always welcomed my confusion and my questions and used them to teach me something more.
My piano teacher was particularly helpful when I broke my left wrist when I was a teenager. First of all she was understanding and sympathetic. After a few weeks, when my arm was still in a cast, she helped adapt some of my music so I could still play even though my thumb was completely immobilized. Even when my arm came out of its cast, certain movements still caused pain and she helped me by coming up with various strategies to minimize the pain. As I had pain in my wrist for about a year afterwards, she helped me sit my piano exam by recommending a particular wrist brace that I could easily slip on and off during the exam without the examiner noticing it. I could not have continued playing the piano through that year without my teacher’s help. Certainly no online course (not that they were around back then) would or could have helped me. If it wasn’t for her, I probably would have ended up quitting.
As a piano teacher I have needed to support students through things like broken arms and parents breaking up. I’ve helped a student get through a piano exam even though their best friend died suddenly a few weeks prior to the exam (I would have completely understood if the student or parents had wanted her to withdraw from doing the exam). Again, no online course would have helped.
I have known and do know many piano teachers. We all encourage and support our students in the best way we can. We all understand that sometimes the learning to play the piano gets tough and we all get that their are times in life when practising the piano goes all wrong and is completely frustrating. We get that particularly adults that are learning to play the piano have heard, so many times, that it is ideal to learn a musical instrument when they are a child. We know about the doubts of ‘what if I’m just not good enough’ because we have lived through those phases ourselves. A piano teacher can help you through these rough patches.
Learning to play the piano, or any other instrument, as an adult can be daunting to say the least because people seem to think its completely amazing if you can play a musical instrument. The number of times I have met people and then after a while it comes up in conversation that I am a piano teacher and they respond with “oh, wow!” or something similar. It’s actually quite amusing that people suddenly think I’m an amazingly talented person because I can play and teach the piano. I’m not amazingly talented, I just love music and love the piano and started piano lessons and learned and learned some more. I’ve spent many hours practising and spent a huge part of my life improving my skills. That’s it. All music teachers, not just piano teachers, know that it doesn’t take a huge amount of talent to master a musical instrument, it takes time, effort and persistence to gain the skills you would like.
A piano teacher is always a better choice because they give you uniquely personalized lessons according to your needs and goals, as well as the personal touch. Even the most brilliant online course can’t compete with that.