Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum QOTW: Do you have a piano lesson/self-taught "off-season?"

My teacher takes a break in June, July, and part of August. Roughly corresponds to the summer vacation for the school kids here in Georgia, USA. But I keep working during that time, on my own.

Sam

When I finally had my piano I was searching for a teacher because I was a total beginner. But unfortunately I have no connection to the music world at all and therefore I had "to pick" the teacher myself (without recommendation) and unfortunately I "picked wrongly" every time I tried - and I tried so very hard...
In piano teaching had just about everything from an alcoholic (at one point I had to hold her with my left hand to stop her from falling down, whilst I tried to continue playing on the piano with my right hand...) and this moment made me realize there was no future to learn anything from her, she obviously had too many problems to sort out first... I also had students as teachers but unfortunately they were not overly serious to teach me because it was only a "job" for them whilst they studied... and then I had a teacher who talked about himself all the time...needless to say I learnt nothing at all... one particular teacher even had a 22nd century computer- laboratorium on the first floor where she experimented with the tones of her pianos and that was a real shocker because it made me wonder whether she was really playing on her CD's or whether it was all "done up artificially on the computer"... and her friend who lived with her was a computer specialist/computer whizzard...
...After recovering from these off-putting experiences I took a long break and after feeling I had recovered enough from these experiences and terrible shocks (until these experiences I always believed music was sacrosanct and I was not aware that for some pianists it is "only a job"), I searched for self-learn-piano books and started myself to study and learn on my own. My "tool" is, that I record my own playing on a CD and then criticize how I play and which mistakes I make... and then I delete the CD again and continue to learn better and record again etc... my most important values are my tonality and to make sure that I "let my piano breath" whilst I play. I still make many mistakes but at least it is great fun now and I enjoy it very much and I am learning a lot... My terrible teacher-experiences have finally gone, where they really belong: into complete insignificance...
My only regret is that I had no connection to the music world and never had a chance to be taught about a recommendable piano teacher who is a real enthusiastic positive piano teacher, because I imagine that learning myself on my own is harder... but there again, as an adult beginner learning in my spare time, to learn myself is perhaps the only option anyway...

... I have been going to Summerkeys, an adult music camp, for the last 3 years in June or July....

I'm self taught, but then again, I never taught myself anything. Anyway, since I'm self taught, that makes me the teacher. As the teacher, I've decided to give my students [that being myself], a break for the summer. So I really don't get taught anything during the summer months. Then again, I don't get taught anything the rest of the year either.

Hmmm, now I'm confused.

Piano is hard!

Maybe I should just teach myself instead. That would probably be much easier but I'm not sure if I could afford it.

I'll start saving today.

Maybe, for those of you who don't have lessons all year around but wish you did, we should revive that self-teaching support thread, or maybe use the FOYD thread, or even start a new one - Orphaned Piano Students or something.