Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Is it better to learn using a grand or doesn't matter?

I am reading so much in between the lines here.

Therein lies a problem. A lot of teachers don't have a grand.

No, that's absolutely not necessary for the first few years. Teachers should have acoustic pianos (regardless of what their students have at home), not necessarily grands.

When the student has advanced to the level of the Études d'exécution transcendante (Liszt, Lyapunov, Sorabji et al), I'd allow that the teacher does need a grand. But almost certainly, he/she won't be the same teacher that the student started with. I don't know of any teacher who can teach beginners and conservatory-level students equally well. Well, except perhaps Anna Kantor, with one student.......

Didn't Chopin teach using a small upright piano?

There are some teachers who can and I know one. But most conservatory teachers don't have the training or experience to teach beginners.

I, for one, wouldn’t want a “conservatory” teacher to teach me as an adult beginner. Too much pressure. However, at some point, I think I would appreciate it, just not right now or in the next couple of years.

But where do teachers graduate from, if not conservatories? Isn't that where piano pedagogy classes are taught?

I went to a conservatory(s) with an adult program taught by conservatory professors as an adult beginner with some experience with organ lessons but otherwise self taught. If you show them you are hard working and dedicated they will welcome you with open arms. If you go in there like you know it all and are unteachable no matter how well you play, they probably will want nothing to do with you. I always approached my lessons with the understanding that I had a lot to learn and my experiences with all my teachers was always great.

Why would you assume that just because a teacher was conservatory trained that you would be under pressure? That's tantamount to saying that all teachers at any given level of training teach the same way.

My teacher has three masters degrees (performance, pedagogy, collaborative) and she teaches beginners whether they be young or adult with equal satisfaction among her students.

Regards,

Absolutely! Before the virus scare, I took lessons from a retired department chair from a large Soviet conservatory. (And I hope to resume once the scare has passed.) She generally doesn't teach adults because she's encountered so many of your latter category. So in my first two or three lessons with her, she was actively trying to run me off!

But I buckled down and worked my butt off, and did everything she told me to do. A month after I started, she admitted to her harsh tactics in the early lessons, and told me that I was a joy to teach. I told her I wanted her to continue being hard on me, because I want to improve myself as both a player and a teacher.

In my own teaching practice, I've encountered a few adults who thought that they knew better than me. Okay, fine. On your way, then, and good luck. Thankfully those have been very rare. The vast majority of my adult students have been a joy to work with.

I get what you're saying, but what I feel is what I feel. It might be an assumption but it is how I feel. Sometimes pressure comes from within. Not only that, but "conservatory" teachers often come with a heftier price tag, which also adds to the pressure of needing to be diligent all the time and hard-working, so as not to "waste" the lessons. Also, please see my response about my definition of "conservatory", which I think might differ from yours.


Ok, I was using the term "conservatory" as meaning the likes of Juilliard and Curtis. I guess that's not what others are thinking?

I take lessons from a Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) trained teacher (ARCT in piano performance & pedagogy), who also went to university to get her bachelor (piano performance) and masters (piano pedagogy) music degrees. I don't consider her to have gone to a "conservatory".

Perhaps I should change my definition of "convservatory"?

I did not have a 7 foot instrument as my primary practice piano until I had already received 3 degrees in piano performance, and had been working as a full-time piano professor for 5 years. My conservatory-trained teachers while growing up (one with a degree from Oberlin, the other with a degree from Eastman) had their students taking lessons on a used 5'7" Steinway M, and the other teacher had us play a Yamaha C3 she bought new. Both had 2 pianos in their studio space.

As a beginner for practicing at home? Your P515 digital (on a good stand, with the keyboard and your bench at the correct height) will work just fine.
So would a new 45" studio upright of moderate quality.
So would a younger used 48"+ upright of good quality that has not been abused.
So would a new or used grand piano in good condition.

Growing up, I didn't feel the need to have a grand piano until I had studied for over 10 years and knew I might be heading toward being a piano major in college. Even then, the "step up" was to a younger used 5'3" grand piano at age 15. All the pianos I had were maintained regularly. I, nor my teachers, ever thought my instruments were getting in the way of my progress.

When I used "conservatory teacher" on this thread I meant someone who teaches at a conservatory and not a conservatory trained teacher. I know a teacher who teaches piano majors at Mannes and young, motivated students at the Kaplan School for the Gifted.

It doesn't sound like he/she would teach ungifted beginners, let alone no-hopers like myself.

My kiddie self wouldn't have stood a chance........

If you're the kind of person who'd be sidetracked by "harming"( i.e. making mistakes and playing freely-)on a new grand or upright piano , -- use an old piano or digital.
I've read that teachers prefer students to learn on a realistic weighted action -keys- . I never read that the type of piano is the primary cause of problems in changing to another piano acoustic or otherwise.

Grand, upright, digital, weighted, etc. I imagine none of it matters that much. I’m sure there’s plenty of amazing pianist that got there with the most basic low end keyboards and I’m sure there’s tons that had amazing grands and are not so good. Same goes for any sport or talent it’s not the equipment that makes them great, it’s their perseverance. Even at my level I’d love to own a grand if I had the space and means which I have neither but I sure still enjoy my time playing on any keyboard I have.

There's nothing to read into. The stencil spinet is stuck next to the closet inside the guest bedroom of a 3-million-dollar mansion, inside one of those gated communities that you need to get through TWO gates to get to their house. The spinet has never been tuned. The family definitely had some issues with priorities.

The oldest kid is actually one of my all-time best students, a complete rescue job from a Transfer Wreck. But the other siblings are a few DIMES short of a dollar.

Ian