Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum why won't students ask their teachers?

Or, the student liks the teacher, but recognizes a significant gap in the teacher's abilities, and attempts to supplement it elsewhere while carefully trying to avoid hurting the teacher's feelings. (might work, then again probably not, but seems worth trying)

Or, the student has started to wonder if the teacher is dead wrong about something major, and wants another opinion on it. (And very well could be right, given the wide range of teacher skills in an unregulated profession)

Thankyou for sharing your experiences.

IMO The first reason to ask something here is, obviously, that communication lacks between teacher an pupil. Fear to be rude, little chance of finding another teacher that suits your convenience/budget...who knows.If you take just half an hour lesson a week, you can't grab it all: fingers, tone, rythm, reading, feedback. What to ask first? Maybe it's the same to the teacher: what to teach first? I won't ask any technical question here, I guess. I pay my teacher to solve them. But what if I don't understand where he/she is trying to get me? What about thinking the teacher is missing some crutial points that you read or watch everywhere? It is so easy to be offended!

The second is...that it takes some months to read every single thread here, so sometimes it is better to ask directly.

I'm an adult beginner, started on last September, and I already have some questions that I don't dare to ask to my teacher. I just don't want her to feel uncomfortable. We are doing well in some aspects, but I have an overall feeling of being...lost, or bewildered by her apparent lack of plannification. I know that one of these days I'll fix it, but meanwhile it would be nice to contrast my doubts with other teachers. I concentrate on reading you, so far, but who knows, perhaps some day I'll sin.

The sense of lack of planning is something you might want to address in the ABF to get a clearer idea. This is too common, and a couple of things such as defining goals often help bring it into a better direction.

Why not ask your teacher first? How about this as a possibility. As teachers, you have probably had many adult students, so there is nothing unusual about the relationship. For an adult beginner, however, this is a very unique situation. To be back in the position of being a child in terms of knowledge vs your teacher is so unusual, the relationship just seems very awkward and uncomfortable. I agree that it may not be logical, but from an emotional point of view, this information asymmetry is so threatening, a safer course is to anonymously post questions to PW.

Here is an example of why students might ask questions here, rather than asking their teacher first. The OP was about a parent wondering about volume discounts since only one hypothetical travel fee is incurred for teaching three siblings. She has discussed this with another parent, perhaps to see if she's thinking reasonably before raising it with the teacher. Getting confirmation that at least one other person thinks this is reasonable, she asks the teacher.

And it turns out that if the teacher is like the teacher who posted the post I linked to, that she would be offended by being asked this question, and by parents discussing her policies together.

So it makes sense that we students ask our questions here, in order to get a broad range of teacher opinion in a forum where asking our question can't poison our real-life teacher-student relationship. Because who knows what inquiry that might seem innocuous to us will offend our teacher. Better to find out here before risking it in real life.

= OR = Instead, THINK about the situation, DECIDE upon what to do, and ACT upon your decision - all on one's own! Checking with others is seldom, if ever, necessary. (Well, maybe with surgery.)

If you think about things without having the information, then you think yourself in circles, and then act on poorly based decisions. You go from frying pan into fire over and over. There are numerous scenarios, which have been described before. Checking with others is often both necessary and recommended. If you do have the wherewithal, then obviously it is silly to seek information that you already have.

Ed, you may have all the answers for everything in your life, but others of us are not so omniscient. Hence, discussion forums.

So--at my lesson, things are pretty structured and focused (well, the teacher is focused at least; I am scatterbrained as always). We both pay attention to my pieces, how I play, what's happening, what's not happening, what needs to happen, and what needs to stop happening.

When I'm home, goofing off on the internet, there is hardly any structure. The cat is in my lap; I'm drinking a beer. I might watch a little youtube, check email, read blogs, browse ebay, and read forums. My mind wanders. Maybe I'll have an idea. Maybe a question will percolate. If my teacher were sitting here, sure I'd ask him, but he's not. So I ask on the forum.

That's about how it would go down for me.

PianoStudent88,

It has nothing to do with having all the answers, and I certainly do not pretend to any such loftiness. It does have to do with independent thinking, deciding, acting (or not), and then seeing where that leads. That is a great way to REALLY learn. Most of us would not fall out of KeyString's pan, and into her fire too many times before we would notice a pattern, and change our actions. After all, we are discussing getting a few music lessons here, not another moon shot, or solving world hunger.

I believe many on this thread remember those days BEFORE social and technical forums. How, Oh HOW, did we ever survive?

I for one asked questions of my Magic 8 Ball.
Q. Does he like me?
A. My sources say no.

It could supplement for this forum when internet is down.
Q. Should I get a new teacher?
A. Signs point to yes.

Q. Is this the average song learning time?
A. Try again later.



But the answers that float up on this forum are more varied than the Magic 8 Ball answers (and sometimes they are more informative).

The internet is great for accessing all sorts of info.

But I really think that the parents who get together and decide to pressure the teacher into lowering their rates, would not especially come onto a teacher's forum. Their whole problem is that they don't want to see it from the teacher's point of view.

As for those who have a beer and wander round the internet while fondling the cat, honestly, I don't think they consider that they might be led up the garden path. And really, is it all that hard to ponder a question till lesson day?

I'm not against internet chat, of the forum, I just would like those with teachers to use them properly.

Ann, Yes--definately! The Magic 8 Ball is brilliant.

You could make one with music specific answers.

Play again slowly
Play again and concentrate

Practice your scales
Tempo uneven, use a metronome

Yes! Time to practice
Use more feeling

Ed, first, let's DEFINE what we are talking about. Your posts describe one kind of question, and then act as if all questions are of this nature. For example, someone asking a technical question about chord names, scales or similar which can be found out by research if a teacher's answer isn't understood. There are OTHER questions and scenarios. I and others took the time to outline this.


It depends on WHAT questions and issues are coming up. Supposing you have a student who is told to hold a pretend ball in his hands and only move his fingers, and when it hurts his teacher says that this is "normal"? Supposing that the student's practising is ineffective and his teacher can't tell him how to practise.... and no "thinking" alone won't do it. This is one issue that I pursued way back when, and some of the most powerful answers were nothing like what I would have come up with on my own. In fact, that's why people do better under good instruction than on their own.


Again, WHAT kinds of issues are we talking about? The question about a set of chords, or how to practice, what lessons might consist of, what a a teacher is really looking for but can't articulate. MANY of us, including people who are now professional musicians and teachers, can tell tales of "if only I had known". No, the student cannot change anything without answers, or if the issue is not with the student's actions. Floundering endlessly, trying every possible thing, when the problem may lie in the instruction, or in how the instruction is understood, that leads absolutely nowhere.

We are talking about different kinds of things. Instead of having a jolly old debate and making the "other side" seem silly or absurd, how about putting our heads together and seeing that different issues require different solutions.


I figure that if it takes 5 years of lessons, that is some 3,650 hours of practice @ 2 hours/day. If done effectively, it can yield a lot. If ineffectively for any reason including wrong goals, poor instruction, poor understanding of instruction, etc. that is a lot of wasted time, and possibly heartache. This is worth spending time on properly, rather than saying it's not important enough.

Now what about moon shots and world hunger? Some of the issues involve learning, learning how to learn, working with teachers, defining good teaching and good learning, and other things. What about world hunger to learn? People with little or no access to teachers or resources can find them now. Any single person who begins to learn, especially in such areas, will affect others. Some of us teach what we know on the side pro bono. The person I taught theory a few years ago,started teaching sisters, brothers, parents, peers - enthusiastically, everywhere. How great a spin-off does even one person's learning have - how much of a possible snowball effect?

We can "do" little about world hunger and other big problem titles. That does not make our efforts trivial. I aim for microcosms more than macrocosms, because it's the little everyday things that affect the big things - collectively. Moon shots? How is that important in any universe? Has landing on the moon improved a single life anywhere?


Life should be about more than "survival". And I do remember those days, and not with fondness. I remember the 6 months of piano lessons I had at 16, where the teacher cooked in the kitchen while I played, and did not explain key signatures to me. I spent 30 years restricting myself to music that had less than 2 sharps or flats, and when I found out how logical it was, at first I was angry. Then the anger turned into determination that others should not be left floundering as in "the good old days".

By the way, I did find solutions through my ability to think. I got by on them, but in comparison to what I could have learned and used, they were relatively ineffective. I don't miss that era.

I do not for one second yearn for the days when we had to figure everything out without having access to any information, risked misguidance with no way out, and the rest of it. The ABILITY TO THINK .... yes, this is important. But it is not just about the questions you isolate in one small area.

This unfortunate negative turn takes us away from some important things that the opening post was about. There is no reason for that kind of conflict.

In fact ....... in the opening post, teachers WANT students to ask rather than just thinking for themselves.

Nice post keystring.

Not too much of a rant, then?

Nothing wrong with a good rant now and then, to my way of thinking. This is the internet, afterall.

= OR = Instead, THINK about the situation, DECIDE upon what to do, and ACT upon your decision - all on one's own!


I disagree because some people don't ever think like other people so they would never come to the same conclusion, but other people would come to same conclusion as everybody in the room.

Checking with others is seldom, if ever, necessary.

Well, I disagree, because, in some religions women must not hold a positiion of pastor and must only make sandwiches and coffee whereas in other religions women are equal.

(Well, maybe with surgery.)

Well, if you know a little bit about surgery, you know lots of the risk of infection, and lots of lawsuits stem from anesthetic.

And the best one of all is that as a young person, you generally don't think something will happen or you won't get caught. But if you are an old person you know that things happen all the time and the chances of getting caught no matter what you are doing is like 99 to 1 that it will happen.

A young fellow who came to the office said he wanted to be a soldier and go to a foreign country to fight. I asked him if he lost an arm or a leg how difficult it would be to find work or be able to meet and support a wife and family and he said he never thought about that. But I realized instantly that he hadn't realized that but now he had.

The discussion has moved on, but I wanted to address the original question. I would bet that a large part of it is that many students are at least somewhat intimidated by their teachers, especially young students. I know I was as a kid. I probably still would be now if I started lessons again, and I am a teacher. I can't tell you how many times I've heard from a parent that a student had a question or a concern, even about totally silly stuff, and I've said, "You know, she can tell me that. I don't mind."

Like, one student apparently hated the song she was preparing for the recital. She had another song perfect and played it all the time, but she'd passed it off a few weeks before the recital, and when I asked her if she was okay with the other song as her recital piece, she said yes. The day of the recital, Mom asks if it's okay if she plays this other song, and I was like, "Totally! If she can play it well, by all means she should play it at the recital!" And she did. I don't get why she didn't say so herself at her lesson a few weeks before, and the only conclusion I can come to is that she was intimidated by me. Which is weird because I totally don't see myself as an intimidating person.