So you have decided to take piano lessons in your retirement but you are not really sure how to find a piano teacher. There are a number of choices including having a traditional piano teacher, having a piano teacher where you have lessons via Facetime, Skype or Zoom. There’s also the option of buying a ‘how to play the piano’ course from the internet.
There are quite a number of courses that you can buy that claims you can learn to play the piano in a set number of lessons. I’m sure that these courses do offer some value but I question how good they are because they are missing the personal input and what I mean by that is that you don’t get the feedback of what you are doing well or what you are doing badly. You also don’t get the feedback of what minor tweak could change things from okay to terrific.
While I have never looked at any of these courses in depth, I have only seen their advertising material, I see very limited value out of these. I think the old school face to face lessons or the lessons with a teacher over zoom are a much better option. Maybe I am too ‘old school’ myself but I really think that you can’t get better than one on one personal instruction.
So how do you go about finding a piano teacher that suits you? You could certainly ask anyone who you know that plays the piano, regardless of whether they are currently learning or whether they finished with lessons a while ago. If you don’t know anyone to give you a recommendation, then you can contact a local music store. Many music stores have lists of various instrumental teachers and they certainly could give you names of a few teachers to check out.
Another place you could get a recommendation from is music teachers from the local high school. High school music teachers need to liaise with piano teachers and other instrumental teachers from time to time, so they can get to know them and form an opinion on how effective they are as a teacher.
If lessons are needed to be over Skype, Zoom or Facetime because you can’t easily get to face to face lessons, then try and do a google search to see what comes up. If you find someone that seems to be exactly what you want, then try and see whether you can find any online reviews before you get in touch with them.
Regardless of whether you are looking for a piano teacher for face to face lessons or lessons through a platform like Zoom or Skype, feel free to ask any prospective teacher all the questions you want. You need to find out for yourself if you think that their teaching style is going to suit you. Some piano teachers are very strict and regimented, while others show a more relaxed approach.
You also need to consider what sort of music you want to end up playing. While the basics are all the same, no matter what type of music you want to ultimately play, you need to find out whether they can teach your genre. For instance, you don’t want a jazz focused piano teacher if you are wanting to play even medium level classical music and vice versa.
In discussing what is possible with a potential teacher, do let them know what your goals are. Give them information about yourself such as if you had lessons when you were a kid. Let the prospective teacher know if you have some physical issues such as arthritis in your left hand or a bad back. I think its better that teachers know this information ahead of time because they can make the necessary adjustments. This can really make all the difference as to whether piano lessons are going to work for you or not.
The last thing I want to mention about finding the right piano teacher for you is that you need to be able to not only get along with your piano teacher, you need to be able like them as a person. All of the adults I have taught over the years have been people I have genuinely enjoyed spending time with. Actually, with most of them I have sometimes enjoyed sitting down and having a cup of coffee with them after their lesson, chatting about all sorts of things that don’t have anything to do with music. I think it really is important to enjoy the company of your piano teacher. If you can get along well with your piano teacher, you will most likely enjoy your piano lessons. The wrong teacher may not be a bad or sub-standard teacher, they are just not the right teacher for you.