Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Two teachers??

Sorry, I might need a bit of intro here, before I open my discussion…

Few months ago, I asked about group classes Vs individual tuition. My daughter has just finished the basic Yamaha school class (JMC2) with a discrete success. During the last year, the kid has also started private lessons. This was with pianist/composer who is also a polystrumentist and professional jazz/indie performer/compose. This teacher has a very special style based on improvisation, ear training and composing. Most of the time, the two of them explores with no musical sheet but in a pretty rigorous environment. Every now and them he puts together few kids (he teaches also guitar) to jam. My daughter enjoys this a lot and has learned to explore a lot.

At the beginning of last year, the idea was to drop out of Yamaha and just stick to the new teacher. Finally we ended up doing both for all the year as she still enjoyed the more formal environment.

My daughter, who has just turned 6, has no problem to practice at the piano on a daily basis. She knows she has to do it and she does it pretty diligently. This most of the time under our guidance as the school required this. She roughly practice 20/30 mins a day, some times she can go to 45mins, sometimes just 10. She did progress a lot. Let me add that I am an adult student who have been studying classical piano for the last 3 years, so I can help her a bit.

Now it is time for her to quit the school and go a bit more serious. We are considering starting with my piano teacher. He is classical piano teacher. He is very strict and rigorous, but patient and very knowledgeable. I think that our kid can deal with him and she is telling us that she wants to learn with him (she has been several time with me during my courses so she knows the studio). I will ask him to have a test with him soon.
At the same time, I love the creative and free atmosphere that she gets with the other teacher.

So here it is my question, do you think it is advisable to go for both? The idea would be to go to classical teacher on a week bases and perhaps to the creative one twice a month.
Should I be clear with both of them on this?
In term of time, my daughter has been going to 1 hour of collective class and 45m/1h of private course per week for the last 6 months and she can handled it.

Perhaps as more general question, how do cultivate both creativity and performance skills?

If it were an adult, I'd say yes, this is OK since the teachers are teaching different things. But for a child, I think it would only be confusing.

Why not ask your teacher if they can spend some of the lesson time on improv or composition since she seems to enjoy that?

Thanks a lot for the prompt reply.

You have a good point, I will talk to my teacher about this, but honestly I would be very surprised if he would accept. He is very traditional at least with me.

Fact is with the second teacher she would basically just play when she is there. A sort of fun hour. She also sings and try other keyboard instruments (she had a lot of fun playing and indian harmonium recently!).

buy yes, I see the problem of overloading her... still she seems to learn much faster than me ;-)

Every child is so different with what they can handle. Your daughter has already been attending two different lessons without problem. Why don't you just start her out with both and see what happens. You will recognize if she can't handle it. I would certainly tell both teachers.w

I never learned to improvise at all in my lessons and jazz/composing is a completely new realm to me. If she likes it and is aware of the difference I don't see why not if you feel like she can handle it. Especially if the creative teacher is completely teaching her improvisation. That's probably not something she's going to get with the classical teacher so I don't see a potential conflict or confusion happening. The only thing is that I think jazz lingo is a little different from classical lingo, but if she recognizes them as two languages I don't think it will be a problem. It would be much like growing up in a bilingual household.

Very funny you mentioned that. She is perfectly bilingual and she can switch between the two languages in no time and with no residual accent.

Well, with the "jazz" teacher she is not really learning the formal jazz structure, I think this would be too much. They just play together freely. Like she comes with a pop songs she likes, they look for, it they play it, the sing it and then they improvise on it. The complete lack of a formal structure made us consider a second teacher.

I'm all for it, but every other week is too long an interval between lessons for a young child. I'd say your daughter should see both teachers weekly. I wouldn't announce up front to Mr. Uptight Classical Teacher that your daughter also has weekly jazz/ear training with Mr. Jazz. This news can slip out later, after some trial months.

I'm assuming Mr. Jazz is ok with no home practicing. If I'm wrong on this, then you should choose one teacher or the other.

Thanks.

Indeed, we are considering between 2/4 course p. month wit the Jazz Man. Just trying to figure out what is better for her in this sense.

For the last year the practicing has been 95% on her music school duties. She would play the other stuff any now and then and to her friends. Mr. Jazz said she should do what she wants and indeed be exposed to different enviroment is good for her. My guess is that he was not pushing on home practicing, since he knew she was working for the other course.

I think I would like the work load to stay this way, since Mr. Upright pretends regular practice.

I think it's great what you're doing! It's just the diplomacy between the teachers that you have to handle. On the surface it looks like a good fit, but the devil is in the details - and honestly leaving it hanging really affects your daughter the most. In the long run, it may work out but then ... it may not.

Personally, I'm a pretty straight forward person, and I would make it clear to both teachers that you believe that your daughter is benefiting and thriving under the current setup and that you wish for this to continue. After that let them air their concerns and work out a solution/compromise to the situation. That way you're not hoping for some "Hail Mary" pass to be completed at some un-determined time. For me my priority would be to know exactly what to expect and clearly what direction she's headed in.

Assuming the teachers agree - it will help them better assess a. why the student is progressing so nicely OR b. why she seems to be having problems in some areas.

In the best of worlds, you'd invite to them to lunch to meet and discuss how to divy up the teaching responsibilities. They may even find that's it something they can offer together as a "full package".

For myself, I have two teachers, that work together at the local college. I take two back to back lessons a week They work together to create my lessons, with one taking charge of the classical lessons and the other focusing on jazz/blues/pop etc. Personally, I'd never go back to doing just one or the other. It would feel like having one arm tied behind your back!

I also helped find and select the teacher for my niece and nephew (just becoming teenagers). One of things I made sure of was that the teacher taught from both the classical and play by ear approach, not skimping on one or the other. (We found a great one too! She's amazing!)

Anyway, I think what you've found for your daughter is great. But I think it's important that everyone else is very clear about their role in the process. The bonus prize for you, it will be one less thing to worry about.

If you do go with both teachers, I would let both teachers know about the other one. Otherwise you are giving your daughter the burden of never mentioning one teacher to the other teacher, even by accident or in passing, and I think that's a bad and hard burden to give a child.

Personally, I don't see any "conflict of interest" (to use a political/business buzz-word ) here - one teacher is teaching her everything from the basics up, the other is just getting her to listen and have fun with music on the piano.

When I was a student (albeit already in my teens), that was what I did with music - my teacher taught me the piano, including theory, ear training etc - but as well as diligently practicing what I was taught, I was also having fun on the side (by myself, and with fellow students) playing pop tunes by ear, improvising on them etc, as well as singing in the school choir, sometimes accompanying on the piano and conducting it myself. They complement each other.

At least, I think so......

That would actually be hilarious. Immagine a stiff super-technical traditional french classical professor next to a crazy creative spaced out spanish jazz teacher. It could be the beginning of a sit-com...

In any case, I agree with most of you. If we decided to go for the double option,
I will make this clear to both of them the existence of the other.

Already spoken with the Spanish one. He said that he is fine with him, the more different things she does the better it is and even if he push on creativity formality is equally important...

We will see the French teacher...

FWIW, it is traditional that piano student can improvise and compose. Many great pianists were also great improvisers and composers!

I second the advise to let both teachers know that they're studying with someone else and what those distinct roles are.

Thanks, I really appreciate. I did not use properly the term traditional, but here in France classical piano is approached in a pretty rigorous way. In any case, my teacher is very rigorous and all the emphasis is on the interpretation of the pieces. I do not think he would be willing to go on a free ride for the student.

In any case, I talked to him and he is happy to take the child over and has no problem if she keep seeing the other teacher as well. He will give a couple of courses before the summer, just to test and decide if this is doable.
It it works, my daughter will start on a weekly basis.

Thanks a lot for the feedback...