Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum What and How Should I Look For an Instructor?

A tall teacher can be good too, say over six three, then they can loom over you and watch your fingers carefully.

Where can I find this teacher please? He sounds really lovely, with his bad breath and his nasty manner. I'd really like to replace mine with him, as I fear I'm having too much fun learning piano. It ought to be about hard work; hard work and a tall, insulting teacher - that's the way to go.

As part of your teacher search: don't send them emails in bold italics.

I would address your questions, but I find it so completely irritating to read your posts in what comes across as breathless over-excited shouting, that I'm just completely uninterested.

Regular typeface is easier to read than bold italics.

I am sure some folks will answer the specific questions you posed. In the meantime, Nancy Williams outlines a three step process at her blog. Step one is below, click on the "next post" button at the bottom of the entry, to see the next post in the series.

http://www.nancywilliamspiano.com/2013/01/14/how-to-find-good-piano-teacher-getting-started/

I have no connection with Ms. Williams or her blog.

Here are two old threads:
old thread 1

old 2

The Nancy Williams' links are giving an error this morning. To summarize: What kind of music (classical, jazz, popular songs)? How much time are you willing to commit? 15 minutes a day, an hour a day, two hours? What are your musical goals? Examples might be: to play songs from a fake book and have people sing along, learn to play a few pieces that you already know, or play some high level classical masterworks?

Find some teachers using the directories, or a piano store, or piano technician. Interview them over the phone. Be sure the teacher has some adult students or is comfortable with adult students, many are not.

Many teachers will offer one free lesson, but it often takes a few lessons to make an informed decision.

The bold italics are annoying. If the original poster is as insistent in person about stylistic things like that, it may cause personality friction. As to a few specifics, most start out with one teacher, one lesson per week, 30, 45 minutes or one hour. Most teachers prefer that you come to them.

If you know with all your heart that you are in love with a particular type of music, it will behoove you to find a teacher who also loves that type of music.

Different teachers have different rate structures, but certainly some teachers will charge additional fees for travel.

I wouldn't attempt to work with more than one instructor at a time. If you're like me, you'll find it sufficiently challenging to improve one set of assignments per week, much less two.

I'd second Sand Tiger's suggestion to read the 3 successive articles on that website having just read them myself.

This is a good starting place: http://www.mtnacertification.org/

I'll simply add that you should look for and lean towards someone with credentials.

Cid, many consider it a disservice to suggest to people who are new to the forum, that they use the 'Search' feature. It is a temperamental creature... and some consider that suggesting it means that we are too lazy to answer you in the first place. But for your question, I happen to know that we had a long and detailed discussion on this very topic, within the last two years. I think it would be an advantage to you to hear the many voices which enriched the discussion... and you can even revive the thread, if you want. And then it will be current again.

This kind of discussion is ever-new, and is always useful to at least several members.

[i][b]Yeah, my style of typing may be annoying to some but in all honesty its just writing and I like it, So just deal with it.