Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum New 14 year old student...

Any wisdom for starting a 14 year old (rather than a young child?) from scratch? Any method books you like? I'm thinking the Bastien/Schaum books I have for beginners is probably a little too juvenile. I have Nikolaev, too.

I don't hold myself out as a teacher, but because of the nature of my job (accompanist at a ballet academy) I tend to get requests now and again, which I generally refer out. This student still would feel more comfortable with me to begin with, so I said I would start her out with the idea that as soon as the student is comfortable, I would make a match with a compatible teacher.

Get an adult method book, and some supplementary pieces that might turn her on, and plunge in. I'm a fan of the Hal Leonard series.

Don't give her up so easily - you might be the best teacher for her.

Check out Piano Safari for the Older Student or Alfred's Premier Piano Express. If you're interested in doing a small amount of rote teaching along with teaching reading, the former has both. If you don't want rote pieces in the mix, I'd go with the latter.

Nikolaev's book is very good for a teacher who emphasises technique. For instance, the first seven pieces should be used for teaching the correct key attack - one finger, one note. Without the proper technique instructions, the student will only think that this is ridiculously easy.
Piano safari has much more interesting compositions compared to the Alfred's books.

Thanks. I definitely like a strong focus on technique. I think it's important to work on attack and motion from the first note press.

I guess the Nikolaev best meshes with my approach, but I'm not sure what this student's goals are going to be.

I was in a music store today picking up some cables to mic up the piano for the ballet studio's zoom classes (they're going to bring back in live classroom accompaniment so I get to go back to work! Yay!) and they had a piano method section.

I could only find Hal Leonard/Faber Piano Adventures for the Adult Student so I picked it up. Let's see. Between this, Nikolaev, and my own approach I'm sure we'll find a path!

Your student is 14, so this idea is logical. However, for the really young students, an initial focus on technique might not be the most productive and, in fact, may produce problems further down the line.

You can use things you have heard in ballet class to help her with why warm-ups are important, follow thru, proper technique, counting, etc...
good luck!