Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Would you keep the student or want them to drop?

Student cannot increase lesson time - they have a 30 minute lesson a week.

They are finishing Alfred 4 and learning 4-5 songs a week.

I just cannot pay more for piano. As it is, my daughter is dropping one sport. My daughter's goal with piano it to play music. She plays because she enjoys it and finds it relaxing. Her teacher is disappointed that my daughter's main focus is not music.

At this point, would you keep the student or find it too difficult to continue with them under the time constraints?

She said she would have to cut assignments back because there isn't enough time, they can only cover 3 pieces in 3 minutes. I totally understand that.

My daughter doesn't do any testing or competitions for piano, that isn't her.

I think you must mean 3 pieces in 30 minutes, right?

Yes, 30 minutes.

Any students of mine who are entering exams or competitions get a 45 minute (or more) lesson. If the student wanted to stay at 30 minutes that would be fine, but on the understanding that it means no exams/comps. It sounds like that's what you want anyway so if I were the teacher I'd be fine with keeping your daughter on for 30 minutes.

I wouldn't drop the student, but I'd make sure the parent understood that the shorter lesson time meant slower progress, and possibly more disappointment and frustration.

Why would progress be slower? The students time isn't changing.

Really the only issue (to a parent who knows nothing about piano)is she can't cover the 5 pieces in 30 min. She is moving too quickly for the teacher to be able to review and teach.

I don't mind if she had fewer pieces that were challenging.

Call me confused. Is the teacher threatening to drop your daughter, since you cannot afford 45-minute lessons? If so, then she is perhaps no longer the teacher best for you.
I'm assuming you already have an ongoing relationship with this teacher.

What normal piano teacher encourages students who enjoy the piano to quit?

She just seemed disappointed and unhappy when I said no. Then she went on about less pieces, less theory. I am concerned that she will have less interest in teaching a student who is not passionate about a bigger commitment to piano.

I don't want the teacher to put in more effort. I liked things the way they were before she talked to me.

Contrary to the belief of those who don't take lessons themselves, as well as many who do, sadly, piano lessons aren’t to learn to play pieces or even necessarily to acquire technique (though these are certainly indirect benefits). What they’re for is to learn how to learn to play piano - or in other words, to learn how to manage your time at home based on your goals so as to facilitate maximizing one's time, effort, and ultimately, progress (i.e. to learn how to practice). What lessons are for, or should be (at least for the beginner), is learning how to become independent so that one can, in effect, be their own teacher - else, what's keeping the student's success from always being reliant on another individual's instruction?


As far as lessons for the advanced student, these will typically consist of interpretive instruction as well as how to address and overcome the myriad technical difficulties found in the advanced piano literature.

Well, I think until her teacher loses interest she will continue going to lessons.

My daughter has just signed a year commitment to a sports program. When that is up, we can re-evaluate her priorities.

The goal was never for her to become a professional musician. It was to learn how to read and play music for her own enjoyment. There is a lot of pressure on kids to have excellence in everything.

Splendid reminder, Bob. We all get enmired in the business of "knocking off" one piece after another. It all becomes almost silly without the big picture. Yet we often forget the big picture. Happens to me, too.

Just to continue the conversation, I will tell Maggie and others that I do not teach 30-minute lessons, since I find them too short. They remain very common in piano teaching, however. My advice would be to switch to another piano teacher whose 45-minute lessons you *can* afford. I imagine your present teacher will indeed become less committed to your daughter, from what you have described.

Progress would slow because there is not time to cover everything in a 30 minute lesson. If a piece is only reviewed every other week then it will probably take longer to complete.

I teach quite a few 30 minute lessons because parents simply can't afford to pay for extra time. It is a short lesson and as students advance its not always possible to cover everything you want to. With those working on longer and more complicated pieces I might only assign three pieces and try to cover two of those and rotate. Sometimes it's only possible to cover one. So yes, things take longer but if the parent and student are okay with that then I don't see a problem.

I would keep the student, on the condition that he/she learns just one piece per week and no theory. I see the direct result of kids who are taking 30-minute lessons for years on end. They don't get very far, but if there's no pressure to get far and piano is done for fun, then we can all agree to make it that way.

The teacher's request may not have anything to do with whether a kid wants to be a professional musician. Very few kids who take piano lessons at a young age will become professional musicians----even though who put a lot of time in piano. But the lesson time does usually increase because there is simply more stuff to teach, this is true regardless of a kid's career aspirations. Whether your daughter's teacher will drop her... you can probably get an idea by finding out about her other students, whether they all give piano a higher priority. If most of them do, then either the teacher is able to convince them all, or she did her selections.

I agree with you a lot.
When new fresh beginner sign up with me, I usually teach only 30 minutes. Then after each year, I ask then to increase 10 minutes. After three years, they should have one hour of piano lesson. I asked them to increase regardless of they want to do CM test, or no CM test, play piano just for fun, or aspire to be professionals....etc...

Usually parents' reaction would be...
1. Yes, let's increase and pay more in tuition
2. No, I like to keep the same way it was

In case of reaction 1, all parties are winners
In case of reaction 2, I will explain that we do need more time to go over more material, if that is the case, parents would expect to see decrease in material being taught in 30 minutes because songs are now simply longer.

In my studio, parents has the ultimate choice of choosing how long the lesson should be, but they are also fully aware of the benefit of longer lesson and consequences of shorter lesson for higher level.

I would keep the student and enjoy teaching a motivated student.

Not all parents can afford longer lessons. But it is frustrating when a parent comes to each lesson driving a new BMW, travels to exotic locations every summer, and lives in a huge house - and then says they can't afford 45 min, let alone hour lesson. Well of course you can't - you spent too much on the car, the house, and the yacht.

And these are very different priorities than almost all music teachers have. So it can be difficult to understand how a parent makes those priority decisions. I'm not saying I believe this to be the financial picture for the OP. Just explaining this is something we often see as teachers.

It is much harder work for the teacher to work with an advanced student (or intermediate) with insufficient time. But I certainly wouldn't ask the student to slow down their learning. What kind of sense does that make?

That's a catch-22, isn't it?

Of course no teacher would want to slow down the learning of a well-motivated student, but if the lesson is stuck at the 30-minute level, there's only so much that can be accomplished, unless the teacher is willing to let the quality of the pieces slide.

It's disheartening for my daughter to be told she will get less work, she is the kind of person who enjoys being challenged. I have a call into a friend who has a teacher at about the same rate with 45 minute lessons (only lessons would be at my house which isn't ideal). We will wait until summer is over and try it out.

What use is it for the teacher to give the same number of pieces as at lower levels, if they can't reasonably be taught in the lesson time available?

It seems your daughter would be getting the same amount of work: work that can be covered in 30 minutes of lesson. As pieces get longer or more complex, that will translate to fewer pieces.