If you are learning piano for the first time then you might be thinking of getting youself a piano teacher to deliver your piano lessons. But it’s sensible to think hard about it first because there could be problems with this approach to piano lessons for beginners in particular.
1. Not all piano teachers can teach. For generations, people who have learned piano as a child and have become reasonably adept at it have turned to teaching piano as a way of earning a living. And a very honourable profession it is too. If you can get a good teacher to give you piano lessons then you are very lucky. For, the unfortunate fact is that there are many people out there, who, no matter how good they are at playing piano, are just not good teachers. Being able to impart information in an effective and memorable way is a skill that has to be learned, and may piano teachers seem to focus on the technicalities of piano playing to the exclusion of the educational aspect. The result is that you might have a piano lesson every week for years and still feel you haven’t learned very much at the end of it all.
2. You might not get on with your teacher. Everybody is different and I’m sure you’ve had the experience where you take an instant dislike to someone, even if you can’t put your finger on the actual reason. This happened to me some years ago when I book some piano lessons with a young man piano teacher that had been recommended by a friend. I was told that he was knowledgeable, friendly and polite. He was all these things but I had an instant antipathy to him when he arrived at my house. I just didn’t like his manner and couldn’t get on with him at all. Now this sort of extreme example doesn’t happen very often, but if if does happen to any degree then it’s bound to influence your learning the piano experience. It’s just something to think about, that’s all.
3. Real live piano teachers don’t come cheap. It depends where you live of course but you’ll probably find that most piano lessons for beginners come in at between $35 and $75 per hour. If you’re learning piano from scratch then the likelihood is that you’ll need at least one piano lesson per week for a year. It soon adds up, I can tell you. You might end up spending two or three thousand dollars on employing a piano teacher before you know it. It’s as well to be aware of this commitment before you start because it’s not always easy to get rid of teachers once they start teaching you. They’ll tell you that you need a few more lessons, then a few more, then a few more. You don’t like to stop because you don’t want to buck their advice.
It sounds like I’ve got a real downer when it comes to real humans providing piano lessons for beginners but that’s not the case. Many piano teachers provide a first class service at a reasonable price, but they’re not always easy to find. The truth is, piano lessons for beginners don’t need to be very sophisticated, you’re a beginner after all and sometimes having a human piano teacher is just overkill when it comes to your limited requirements at this early stage of your piano lessons.
