To Cancel Piano Lessons?

[RubysRoo]

I am not at all a competitive parent. For me my kids having active, full lives where they are happy, have good friendships, work at school to the best of their ability and are kind is more important to me than them being at the best school/top set in class/or any sort of prodigy. But I'm struggling with what to do about piano lesson. Would love to hear other people's opinions.

My 13 DD has been taking piano lessons for 3.5 years. Started b/c she wanted to. No pressure from me. One of 3 dc and she is the only one that takes piano. The same time she started 3 other friend's dc started ranging in age from 7-12 (dd was 10). 3.5 years on all my friend's dc are really doing so well, obviously the older ones on the whole progressing quicker than the younger ones, but my dd not so much. We just had the winter recital today and my dd plays more like the kids who started last term (September). She is clunky, makes many mistakes (every couple bars), and has no fluency to her playing at all. She practices minimally, she practices but not what is expected for her age and level - for example she will play 2 scales make mistakes in both and just carry on, never go back and play them again. She will play 1-2 current songs, loads of mistakes and doesn't do what is suggested like go through the bars she struggles with and just play those a few times, then go back and try the song again. She's 13 so she knows. Her attitude is that it is good enough and move on. Her teacher has addressed this, to no avail.

I wondered if it is to do with musicality. But she's very musical and her year at school had the opportunity to learn strings and she's doing remarkably well (teacher said on par with dc who have lessons outside of school, she doesn't), but she hates it. She also has a lovely voice but hates singing. That doesn't matter but kind of proves it isn't that she can't do it.

Here's my dilemma, these lessons are expensive. I pay £20/week which is £80/month (whether you have lessons in 1/2 term or not, you are charged the same monthly rate) plus the books and other items you need to buy like practice books (both the books with pieces in it and the school's practice recording books), they also charge £20 per family to attend three times a year concerts, and there's an annual registration fee of £50. They also insist on lessons It all adds up to about £100/month year round. That's a huge amount in our budget. And she's really not progressing. I mean I'd go so far as to say it sounds terrible though I'd never say that to her and I comment on positive things as well as make suggestions based on what the teacher put in her practice sheet. The school is amazing and I don't blame them, in 3 years she's had two teachers and it's the same with both, it's her hap hazard attitude that is the issue. She learns a song, stops practising it, and it's gone. Doesn't need to practice anymore as she says she knows the song now it isn't like she'll forget. And of course that's exactly what happened.

Today at the recital it was almost embarrassing and I hate admitting that as a Mum because everything in me says it shouldn't matter what stage she's at. A couple people came came up to us saying what a tricky piece for a beginner and well done for being so brave. Well, she's been playing 3.5 years and it's a piece that all my friends dc mastered within a couple terms of lessons. It's a very large music school, so these people didn't know she wasn't a beginner. All the kids playing the number of years she has are going in for exams at this stage and play with fluency. She honestly wasn't much better than those that started in January, and not even as good as some of the dc who started in September. She just shrugs her shoulders and says oh well.

What do I do? Keep paying £100/month when she won't follow teacher's recommended practice techniques, practices in 5-10 minute bursts with constant mistakes and never tries to fix it, and really isn't progressing? Or tell her unless I see some progress - more to do with attitude and not to do with mastering anything - this is her last term? She doesn't have to be ready to take exams, nor the best, or even amazing, but I think she should be willing to practice well, work at things to learn them and progress. I don't care how fast but progress.

FWIW she loves piano and says how she plays is good enough for her.

What would you do? £1200 for a kid to play a couple songs at the exact same pace/level/skill set over a year or two is truly a massive waste of money. I've spent just shy of £4000 on lessons and honestly she knows a few scales by heart and a song I'm sure she could have taught herself via youtube. I am a single parent, £4000 is a huge amount of money, I could have started proper retirement savings, we could have afforded a nice holiday somewhere like Cornwall for less than the cost of these lessons and I could have saved the rest. This dc is very intelligent - high marks at school - if she put her mind to it she could be at such a different place with her piano playing. I think more than anything I feel disappointment considering the sacrifice to make it happen - when she started I picked up 4 extra hours a week of work in order to make it happen. I already work more than full time hours.

TatianaLarina - given that the OP’s dd appears to be the only student not progressing, I’m not sure that method of choosing a teacher is helpful to the OP. Regardless of the effectiveness of the teacher with respect to other students, she is clearly unsuccessful with this particular child when it comes to progress rather than enjoyment, and doubling the amount paid per lesson is no guarantee that will change when the child only practises properly once a week, during the lesson itself. Regardless of the teacher, it is a well recognised phenomenon that the greatest musicians have all put in colossal amounts of practice to get where they do. This child has clearly stated she doesn’t even care if she is any good. I’m sure the OP could find someone far cheaper who would be just as good for what the child wants.

Where did I recommend doubling the amount she pays?
I advised her to stop paying for lessons altogether!

Our family rule is that I won't pay for lessons unless the dc practice. I do sit with them and support them in practicing, though.

There's really no point in having lessons unless you practice.

I can assure you the teacher is not benefitting from this. It's frustrating as hell to teach a pupil who refuses to practice properly. Particularly at that age!

OP if she doesn't want to practice then she can teach herself, as others have said, or just potter about. She seems happy enough to not be progressing much. Let her keep the keyboard to potter on, but stop paying for lessons.

My daughter had a friend who began lessons with the same teacher at exactly the same time and would have been well able for them.
She refused to practice and her mum couldn't face the arguments after work.

She made very little progress and gave up after two years. My dd is doing grade six with the same fab teacher.

I have the same rule Stompy. I'm a musician myself so I know how it works and how important practice is. I started teaching my 6 year old how to play guitar a week or two ago and he knows he will not be getting proper lessons from an actual guitar teacher until he's proved to me that he can and will practice every day (I only ask five minutes practice, it's the habit he needs to set). So far he's not proving that at all, but I'm happy to continue to teach him myself from a book my guitar-teaching brother has recommended until the moment that my son either practices or gives up.

I agree with those who have said the teacher is absolutely not benefitting.

It is soul-destroying trying to teach pupils who make little or no effort to practise.

I would give it until the summer with her new practice regime OP and then re-assess.

I find it a bit depressing that some posters seem to think good teachers are defined by how much they charge. I deliberately keep my costs low as I want piano lessons to be accessible. I hope that means my pupils’ parents don’t value the lessons any less.

By the way, I think it’s quite unusual to be tied into a payment arrangement for a whole academic year(?) Termly is more standard.

Cancel the lessons. If she wanted to she would havr progressed. She isn't interested.

I was a kid with quite a lot of natural musical talent who couldn't be bothered to practise and didn't put her back into learning to sight-read. I did sound quite good because I was able to play by ear and copy hands but my piano teacher was a very accomplished musician and an excellent teacher and repeatedly told my parents that they were wasting their money because I wasn't listening to him or practising, I was just waiting for him to play so that I could play it back. He ended up sacking me, effectively - told my parents he couldn't continue to take their money.

I never went back to it and whilst I was quite sad and shocked at the time and have always regretted it, what I think now (30 years on) is that if I'd really loved the piano as much as I said I did I'd have put my back into it a bit more. I definitely think that if you really love an instrument you play it all the time because you love it (and actually I did, I just kept playing songs I knew from watching people play them). You don't have to be told to practise when you love what you're doing.

The only thing I would say is - are you sure that she likes the songs she's being taught? I do sometimes think that if I'd been allowed to play a bit more modern/jazz stuff I might have been more invested in it. I was getting a very traditionally classical piano education and whispers I'm really not a massive classical music fan.

Sorry, in conclusion I think it's fine to tell her that it's too much money for her to fart about, and she either puts in the practice that the teacher says she needs to or you stop paying and she can learn from videos online as others have suggested.

TatianaLarina - OK. I’m not sure why you felt the need to comment that £40 per hour would not yield a good teacher, then, given that we have established that what constitutes good depends on what you want out of it. Fwiw, I think it is entirely possible to find an excellent teacher for a beginner pianist at that price. The trick is in knowing when to move on. My first piano teacher told my parents when she thought I could do with a teacher better suited to teaching at a higher level. The fact she didn’t think she was the best person to take me to grade 8 didn’t mean she had not been an excellent teacher for a young child beginning on the piano and up to grade 5.

Because a good teacher would have have taught DD how to practice. And if the teacher ain’t all that there’s no point shelling out precious money particularly as DD isn’t interested in practicing anyway.

given that we have established that what constitutes good depends on what you want out of it

We? I didn’t say anything of the sort.

TatianaLarina - so you are saying that the OP should have shelled out £80/ hour to get her child a teacher who would teach her how to practise properly, then.

No. As I have already said I’m saying she should stop paying altogether.

Because her child doesn’t practise properly....because the teacher didn’t teach her how to... Whereas a good teacher would have done...

zZZ you didn’t read my post, it’s fine. But don’t argue the toss.

Some kids don’t like practicing and don’t practice however good their teacher is.

Oh, but I did read all your posts, TatianaLarina.

This is from your first post: “£20 a lesson will not yield a good teacher anyway.” You also specified that the OP’s dd had started quite late at age 10, so needed a “good“ teacher, and that a “good” teacher would have taught her how to practise, even if “to be fair” she might not have listened anyway. In what way is that not saying that the OP should have found one of your precious £80 per hour teachers for her dd? Even if, “to be fair” that might have turned out to be even more of a waste of money?

In what way is that not saying that the OP should have found one of your precious £80 per hour teachers for her dd?

‘Precious’ Seriously?

Can you point to where I said: OP what you need to do is continue her lessons, and find an £80 an hour teacher? The answer is nowhere. I suggested she stopped. DD is not practicing, her teacher may not be very good, there’s no point to this. OP’s given it a fair go.

Hypothetically, if when she was 10 she had had a teacher who taught her how to practice and got her into good habits, she might be in a different place now. Or she might be exactly the same. My hunch is the latter. Personally I’d have given it a year if she didn’t practice in that time, I’d have binned it. That way she would have spent less money.

But I’m not saying she should have done that, she didn’t have the experience to know that.

As I said £80 is the going hourly rate in London. Manchester or Edinburgh would be much less. And OP is only having 30 mins lessons.

hi OP,
Scrap the lessons and spend one months tuition fees ish on an annual subscription to Simply Piano. (you can try out a free trial first). Your daughter will absolutely love it and have loads of fun. All the backing and teaching for songs that make you sound great. It doesn't sound like it comes naturally to her and while it's great she enjoys it you can keep the thousands over the years for other priorities.

I wouldn't tell your daughter the real reason why she is stopping lessons. I would just say can she take a break for a bit as they are very expensive and it will allow you to do x,y,z together. but for now she can teach herself with simply piano.

I took my son to group tennis lessons since he was 5. He enjoyed it, tried hard but found it really difficult and never progressed beyond what other people could do as a beginner. We recently made our excuses (clashes with ....) and he has stopped going age 10. I don't regret it - it was a lovely activity but it's not going to be for him long term. Plenty of other activities to try.

Some things come naturally to people (yes they might have to practice but they have the aptitude) some skills don't and no reasonable amount of money or coaching can buy a skill if the aptitude isn't there.

TatianaLarina - there was no need whatsoever for you to tell the OP that £20 per lesson would not yield a good teacher; nor that starting at age 10 meant she needed a good teacher - unless you were really wanting to tell the OP that you were not at all surprised by the dire results of having chosen the teacher she did - ie that you felt she had wasted her money from the start and might as well give up a bad job. There was also no need whatsoever to tell everyone that a good teacher in London charges £80 per hour. Clearly what you mean by “good” is utterly irrelevant to this situation - or you might as well admit that you actually were telling her what you thought she should have done (and any other human being who has ever spent a “mere” £20 per half hour lesson on music lessons).

Obviously you have issues Walkaround I’m not interested in your inventions.

You need to sit with her and show her how to practise properly, not nag. When I sit with my kids and tell them which bars to play 5 times over, they get much better, but they never do this on their own, despite knowing how. I don't do this often enough but they like the attention of me sitting with them.
She needs to learn the lesson of working = improvement and at 13 this is a good time to learn it. She's saying it's good enough to cover her lack of confidence. She needs to realise that the kids that are good are practising. (And that kids who do homework well do well in exams, if you want to extrapolate..)

TatianaLarina - yes, I have issues with your arrogant rudeness about the vast majority of music teachers in the UK who charge reasonable prices for children to be able to access music lessons - prices which are nevertheless still inaccessible to huge swathes of people. Your comments were unnecessary and unhelpful to anyone who might be wondering if their child had anything to gain from having piano lessons, but who couldn’t afford £80 per hour, as you more or less said that would be a waste of time. And that is not an invention - I quoted your own words back at you. You do not think £40 an hour will yield a good teacher, even for a 10-year old beginner, and I say that is absolute bollocks. Why say it if you don’t want to put people off unless they can afford to pay £80 per hour? You have also rejected all my suggestions that a reasonable cost depends on the context (eg a world class concert pianist has different needs from a teacher to a ten year old beginner and therefore probably needs a different teacher, which does not mean one teacher is good and the other bad, unless they try to swap roles with each other, even though one teacher would undoubtedly charge far more than the other). You have still failed to explain why you felt the need to assert that you need to pay £80 an hour in London for a “good” teacher for any type of student, regardless of the student’s age or current standard.

Maybe she needs a different teacher or style of teaching. My dd who is severely dyslexic and never got on with traditional styles of music lessons, LOVED the Simply Music method for piano. It's orientated towards feeling the music and learning how to improvise and just playing. Very little formal practice is required, but it's the first time I found that my dd actually did practice. You can look on their website and find a local teacher to you: simplymusic.com/
My dd is now beginning a career as a singer/songwriter and would have been much further behind without her foundation with the Simply Music method.

Well I have issues with the repetitive tedium of your posts and your invention @Walkaround

In broad terms why is it worth finding a decent teacher? Because anyone starting aged 3-10 you’ve no idea which child will just tinkle about and which will be talented, or at least serious about it, and want to take it further to whatever level. Even if they don’t, it might as well be done properly if you’re paying for it. And the child may come back to it as an adult.

It’s worth then finding someone who provides a decent foundation of technique, practice skills, sight reading, theory, aural etc.

Music in this country is generally very badly taught compared to Russia and Eastern Europe and E.Asia - China, Japan and Korea.

Too many teachers in the U.K. don’t even teach the basics. And too many parents, who are not experienced musicians, end up with their kids learning with teachers who take money for old rope, let them skitter through pieces and scales, without really getting anywhere. It’s not fair. Particularly not to someone like the OP whose resources are limited.

In OP’s case it’s all moot DD doesn’t practice anyway. For her level of commitment it’s not worth her having lessons full stop. And certainly not worth paying more than she is.

I have repeatedly told you that £80 is a London figure. I said right at the start that it’s the going rate for the really good, most experienced teachers in London. However, you can get teachers at the London colleges for significantly less, which has been covered several pages back. The Royal College is £25 + travel expenses for 30 mins. But those are current students or recent graduates, they’re not teachers with long experience.