I do understand that some retirees that are wanting to learn to play the piano in their retirement, did actually take some piano lessons when they were younger, but for whatever reasons, they quit and after many years have realized that they do want to be able to play and want to start again.
Sometimes their piano lessons, when they were children , were not pleasant. Back in the day, some piano teachers were mean dictators and some would even fall into the category of being abusive. I am not surprised that people as kids, found reasons to quit playing the piano.
Things are different these days. I can confidently say that piano teachers have improved over the years, because every piano teacher I have met, has a professional attitude and is interested in helping their students to learn as best they can.
Piano teachers treat their piano teaching as a small business. In order for our small business to thrive we need to provide a genuine service to our clients, who are our students and it is our job and our responsibility to make sure that learning is achieved and that it is done in the most enjoyable way. This means that we need to be pleasant in our demeanor and we need to be willing to answer questions and solve problems.
Piano teachers, or at least the majority of piano teachers are willing to learn and expand their teaching skills. I know for myself that I do not know it all and that there is always a new technique for teaching that can be learned. My opinion is that the more methods and tricks I have for teaching something, then the quicker I can teach a new concept or technique in the way a student learns the best.
I had three piano teachers when I was a kid and the second piano teacher yelled a lot. I found out when she had to gave up teaching, that she had been unwell and that if she had been well, she probably would have been a pleasant piano teacher. Unfortunately, I endured a piano teacher for three years, that would often yell at me for making mistakes. As a result, I would feel very anxious and stressed going to my piano lessons. Sometimes I would go home afterwards and cry. In some ways I don’t know how I lasted for three years with that teacher.
Unfortunately, I have heard from many adults that they have experienced similar or worse when they were young. Fortunately, this is extremely unlikely to happen these days. This is because there are many piano teachers and if we don’t make our students lessons as pleasant as possible, then they are going to go elsewhere and we know it. Most of us are aware that there is competition and if we fail to deliver then they are going to go elsewhere. I know that there is another piano teacher who has similar experience to me, that lives in the same suburb as me.
As well as having other piano teachers that live and teach to each other. Technology has made it that you don’t even need to live in the same country as your piano teacher because you can have lessons over the internet through platforms like Zoom and Skype. I personally know of two piano teachers that have students in other countries.
The bottom line is that piano teachers are so much better than they were years ago because of professional attitudes, societies attitudes and competition. If you are not wanting to get a piano teacher because of past experience when you were younger, you can be confident that will not happen again.