I haven’t thought that I am overly opinionated, in fact I pride myself on being a fair and reasonable person, but I must confess that every time I see an ad on Facebook for a ‘Learn to Play the Piano’ course, I get really irritated and automatically assume that it is probably not that good.
I have to state that logically, I cannot dismiss any of them as garbage simply because I have not looked into any of them in any sort of detail, at this present time. Some of them might be very good and some of them might fall into the category of not worth the money they are asking for.
My reaction of ‘not another garbage course’ comes from the way they are advertised. They all seem to claim how they have revolutionized learning to play the piano and that the old ways are too long, too laborious and a complete waste of time. This irritates me because it is saying that MY methods are too laborious and ineffective. I know that the way I teach piano is an effective way of teaching someone classical piano. I also know that there is more than one way of doing things.
Despite my negative gut reaction, the fact is that some of these piano courses have been around for at least a few years, tells me that they offer something of value because if they were utterly useless, they would have disappeared by now.
I don’t like these advertised piano courses because of some of the claims they make: they suggest that if you take their course you will be playing pieces of music in a matter of weeks (this part is reasonable) whereas learning classical piano will take you months or years to play your first piece (this is simply not true).
I also get irritated at the claim that no one in their right mind would want to learn classical music. As a classical piano teacher, I know that there are many people who love classical music and want to be able to play it.
In writing this, I can see why my automatic response to any of these piano courses is to be annoyed or irritated, however the fact remains that I have no right to dismiss them as being useless or a waste of money, simply because I haven’t researched any of them well as yet.
My point in sharing this is: we all can have preconceived ideas and opinions. Those opinions that we may have held on to for a long time, might not have any truth to them at all and it’s time to readjust our thinking.
Here’s a list of commonly held opinions that I know are false:
“I’m too old to learn to play the piano.”
“I could never learn to read music.” There might be some exceptions but this is especially true if you have never tried.
“I don’t really play the piano, I just play what I hear”. Playing the piano by ear IS playing the piano.
“It’s too hard.” This is false, when you have never even tried.
What opinions could you have that may turn out to be false?