Should I Look for a New Teacher?

[BbAltered]

I have been taking lessons for one year now with the same teacher. I wanted to study exclusively classical piano and forego jazz, improvisation, and other popular musical styles. When I first met my current teacher, I told the teacher I wanted to improve my sight-reading, and improve my finger facility and physical abilities - and from time to time, I have repeatedly stated these goals to my current teacher.

 

Over the course of the past year, we have explored some different piano music, and I've learned some new repertoire, and worked on dynamics and phrasing, and filled in some gaps in my knowledge of written music. This has definitely improved my playing.

 

Yet when I ask my teacher about specific technical issues (playing trills, strengthening fingers 3, 4, and 5 in the LH), I feel I get very little guidance. Early on, the teacher told my I commonly "drag" my fingers (when playing scalar passages, I fail to lift my finger when the next note sounds). This seems like a worthy thing to work on, yet my teacher has offered no suggestions for what I should do at home to fix this, other than to pay more attention to my fingers.

 

The other day, I asked my teacher for how to improve a specific trill. The teacher had no specific instructions other than to experiment to see what works best. There followed a longer discussion about my "dragging" of my fingers, and how this was a problem, but again with no specific instructions about what I should be doing to fix this.

 

So I have been with this teacher for a year. I feel I have made much progress, but not in the area of improving my stated goal of greater finger facility and technical skills. And when I bring up technical issues, the teacher tells me about a different technical problem I have, but does not suggest specific things I can work on to fix this problem. I am feeling frustrated with the lack of physical and technical instruction. It seems to me that if I am working with someone, and they have identified a specific problem that continues to be a problem a year later, there is at some level a failure of instruction.

 

So now I am wondering if I should seek a different teacher. Your thoughts?

[mate stubb]

Yes. You've been specific and clear multiple times about what you want, and the teacher has no help to offer. "Use the Force Luke" is not an answer.

[dongna]

Seems pretty clear... yes! There is no harm in looking to see what else may be out there.

[Al Quinn]

Yes, find a better teacher

[Michael Wright]

If they don't have any help for defined problems and goals, yes.

[Jazz+]

I see it another way: "Don't drag your fingers." The answer is in the teacher's observation. I would not blame the teacher if you can't go home and practice not dragging your fingers on scales.

Sight reading is another topic you simply need to practice at home. A teacher can't teach sight reading.

[hookie]

The teacher is not respecting YOUR goals. Find one who will. Best of luck.

[Docbop]

I come from a Rock, Funk, Jazz background on guitar and bass (also taught) and a few months ago decided to FINALLY learn to play piano. I was the opposite of you and didn't want a classical teacher IMO they rely too much on pedagogy and making students get uptight they aren't following a zillion rules of how to play. I did start with the typical classical piano teachers because that's all there is where I currently live. That did work for I had questions about technique and all I got was robot answers or they'd change the topic. So I quit and worked on my own for awhile and got some basic fingering ability. I finally felt I had enough basics that Skype lessons would work and found a excellent Jazz teacher to study with. Been with him a few months and things are progressing well getting as I call it "the mechanics of the piano" together and working on typical Jazz tune. Teacher said things are progressing on one or two more lessons and can start digging deeper in to tunes and comp'ing. So changing teacher can help even if only to get a second opinion.

 

Coming from a Jazz background (both schooling and playing) I learned "you are your own best teacher", and "do what works for you". Both things I heard from school instructor and from lessons with big name musicians. Like your "finger drag" I doubt there is an exercise for that, that is something you just have to look at your own fingers playing, look for possible issues, and either make up an exercise or just take any old exercise and just focus more on your fingers until you automatic stop dragging you fingers. I've had similar issues on guitar and bass and teachers would say "just focus more". You are your own best teacher and you only charge yourself and cup of coffee and a sandwich for lessons.

 

In Jazz world a lot of what you practice you have to make your own exercises up to address an issue. When playing bass teachers in schools would even say "just find a song that requires playing the technique your having trouble with and work on the song". By working on a song (or piece in classical terms) you working on something in a musical way, too many exercises are nice finger gymnastics, but your not moving or playing in a musical way. Look to yourself for answers, look to music for working on something, look at yourself playing and focus to work out of an issue.

 

Try another teacher, maybe a change will show you teachers only do so much the rest is up to you and how bad you want to fix something.

[Joe Muscara]

Short answer: yes.

 

Longer answer: There could be a couple of factors here, they might be the same thing manifested a couple of different ways.

 

I recently read this blog post about teaching music students and realized that this is a more common problem than people realize. "I can do it, so I can teach" isn't necessarily true. It's easy to forget how we got there. In the words of the author,

 

Once you get pretty good at riding a skateboard, hitting a tennis ball, or playing with a nice juicy vibrato, it can be easy to forget what it was like when you were struggling to do these things as a beginner. And be surprisingly difficult to remember just how unsteady, awkward, uncoordinated, or ineffective everything felt in the early stages of learning that new skill.

 

The other possibility is that the teacher simply doesn't know. I had a boss that was good at that. "I don't know" was not in his vocabulary. He never said it that I heard. But, there were clearly things he didn't know. He'd just go in a different direction with the conversation or topic. I'm pretty convinced it wasn't even conscious on his part by the time I met him. It was just something he did. Similarly, your current teacher might simply responding with what they do know in order to answer the question you posed.

[marino]

A good teacher should have given some serious thoughts to the technical processes involved in playing the keyboard, developed the skills to communicate these concepts to the student, and suggest appropriate exercises to reach those goals, which can often differ from a student to the next. These are not easy tasks; some musicians are great players, but are not interested in developing these things, which are especially important in classical music.

In short, yes, time to find a more dedicated and/or experienced teacher.