Piano teacher method - eccentric, genius or wrong?

[Eggproducer]

DD7 has been learning piano for about 18 months. Initially I taught her, and then - in addition to our lessons - she had a lady come to the house once a month, who I found on a tutor site. This lady has moved house, so we had to find a new tutor.

I had a recommendation from a friend for a tutor who taught her (e.g. an adult). He is now coming every week.

He seems a little "eccentric" but pleasant enough and DD likes him.

I'm just a bit concerned by his method; DD has never really "cracked" reading music. Her timing is OK, but she will regularly confuse any note above E in the treble clef and any bass clef notes other than middle C are a mystery to her - particularly if they're not crotchets.

I find this all very odd because she's a voracious reader of books (reading 2-3 years above her actual age), and as I child I eventually read sheet music as fluently as I read English.

This new tutor is basically teaching her to memorise music - e.g. the shape her hands make etc. rather than read it from the stave. (I just heard him say to her, "So you play that note eleven times, count 1 to 11".) Whilst our last piano teacher was a tiny bit sniffy that I had stuck some note names to our keys, he handed DD a marker pen to "mark up" the lower keys with note names too!

I asked him about his method and he said that for Grade 1 most children will eventually learn their pieces off by heart anyway (I know this is true - I still remember mine) and really music reading only needs to be good enough to pass the sight-reading part of the test. He will teach the theory a bit later.

This is really, really different to how I learned (and how her previous teacher taught her too). I guess I just wanted other views about whether this is normal or if we should look for a different sort of teacher, as I totally understand that teaching methods evolve.

I suppose it’s a little like learning the violin via the Suzuki method which is the way a lot of youngsters start?

Both mine were rubbish at reading music aged 7 so I think if she’s enjoying it, then I would not panic at this stage. Disclaimer: I’m not a music teacher! But my kids have done all the early grades on 2 instruments each

And obv can now read music v well and passed the theory exam for G5

Thanks all. I guess because I read music so fluently, I will say things to her like, "Your left hand is playing the wrong notes DD - check" - and expect her to be able to rectify the mistake, but she can't see what she's doing wrong because she can't read the music.

I would be very wary. I have a music degree and dh is a music teacher so we started off teaching dd ourselves and she was doing beautifully for the first year then we decided she would be best off going to a proper piano teacher as it's never ideal to teach your woen child (dh is an accomplished pianist and accompanist but its his second study) and things went rapidly downhill. She stopped being able to read the music, she was memorising it and progress was very slow. Her sight reading which had been excellent for her age and stage of learning became non existent. She gave up after a couple of years and now as a singer she still struggles to note bash for herself on the piano or read the music.

Ds on the other hand learnt to read music alongside recognising chords and scales and his progress was rapid despite him being far less diligent than she was.

@Comefromaway Thank you, noted.

She's playing music with the new teacher which is far above her ability to sight read / note bash - I guess it's whether he can back that up with methodical theory learning too.

We might try it for a term and see where we are at Christmas.

I’m trying to remember the name of the specific method/tutor books he used. It was all about hand positions and shapes.

I would be very wary of any music teacher who doesn't teach pupils how to sight-read.

It's all very well getting youngsters to be able to memorise Grade 1 pieces but there will be trouble ahead when the music becomes more complicated.

That is just my opinion. I taught DD for some months and then she had a piano teacher. He did teach her to sight-read.

I am struggling with the concept of teaching anyone to play an instrument if they cannot make the connection between what is on the staves and what is on the instrument.

Personally I cannot see how progress can be maintained.

Having said that I would be very interested to know how your DD is playing by Christmas.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Considering dh makes a living by sight reading (accompaniments for auditions) I’d agree with you Jemima.

There are a lot of different skills involved in music, and they can be learned/ worked on in different orders without it neccessarily being wrong. The Suzuki method has already been mentioned up thread. The graded syllabuses focus on some skills more than others but there are many roads to rome.

Yes, reading music is an important skill but it doesnt have to be rate determining step for å 7 year old.

Agree with Mendingfences. It doesn't need to be so one-dimensional and music education can be done in many different ways. Two kids who were taught well in any method would be equally a great musician in 10 years time. My main concern would be if the teacher and the method suit to the child.

This is why I'm struggling - there seems to be two very distinct, very different ways of learning.

I learned a very "academic" route - I read music fluently, and can sight read pretty well. But I'm bloody awful at improvisation and can't read grid chords at all.

My daughter is academic too - and personality wise, quite a lot like me, but she really does seem to have a roadblock on remembering note names on the stave. I'm therefore not sure if we should gloss over this for now, in favour of actually getting her playing some interesting tunes, or go back to basics, and revise her really early piano books to try to cement the learning.

Maybe a bit of both - I might let the teacher play the exciting music with her, getting her playing some Grade 1 pieces, and I can take 15 minutes each week to go over old material with her.

Whereas ds has been learning for 2 and a half years (ok he was an older starter). He can sight read really well, play by ear, work out chords and jazz up accompaniments.

A bit of both sounds good. DS learnt piano in a traditional way while learnt violin by ear. This combination worked well for him. He has good ear, good at harmony etc but also no problem with sight reading and plays both instruments at advanced level now. But he always preferred violin perhaps partly because he found playing by ear more fun and possibly more suited. Let her learn in the most natural way for her and supplement her weakness as you suggested. This way she can enjoy the journey more. Learning something in a way you are not wired is counterproductive, I think. Why does she have to be pushed into a certain method when the other option is available which might suit her more?

My girls are taught by a jazz pianist who has never done any of the conventional things like scales or grades or formal theory . I deliberately went to her because my own piano experience was so dreary and left me as a very plodding unmusical player . I did get twitchy at one stage as DD1 has a good ear and was just learning pieces by heart and her sight reading was very poor- it held her back at one point as her repertoire was basically limited to pieces she could remember. However we stuck with it as it was all about the enjoyment of the pieces - they chose what to learn , and about regular low stress performance usually singing as they played. Now at 12 and 14 they both read music ok, but what they have nailed is taking pieces apart, playing with chords , adapting pieces and performing. They are very unlikely to go into music as a career but Dd1 now plays better than I do by some distance, and got there having had fun which because fun wasn’t my experience of learning piano, was my priority. On the other hand she has taken no grades at all and I suspect we got very lucky with the teacher . That’s a long way of agreeing with magna - there is more than one route and a mix isn’t necessarily a bad thing

My dd learnt the traditional way, but had friends who learnt like this.
What she found was at first they whizzed ahead at passing exams (although as they could do none of the sight reading component, only generally got a pass) until about grade 3/4.
Then the teacher said they needed to learn to read music. That meant going back so far all barring one gave up within a year, and that one took so long getting to the next grade that they took it well after dd and the other traditionally taught ones had gone well ahead.

It is a method that may suit some children, but I think if you're thinking they'll want to get further, then I think the other way generally will be better.

Well, that's why I think a bit of both is a good idea. If a child clicks better with an untraditional way of learning (whatever that means as I don't really think doing exams is 'traditional' but actually it's rather quite a recent method and also very much area specific) then why not. Meanwhile OP can help her with a bit of exercises at home. You don't need to go extreme and stick to only one method.

I think it's a very good idea to let her play old and easy pieces at home. Lots of them. They should be easy enough that she doesn't feel it's a chore. Keep it fun and don't spend lots of time on each piece. Quantity rather than quality. And just slowly, very slowly, upping the difficulty as she goes. She'll start reading them like reading books after a good while of doing this.

Having said that, I'm not a musician nor a teacher. So this is just my opinion... I just feel grateful that DS did mix and match as necessary and it worked so well for him.

However, you may want to listen to your instinct. If you feel uncomfortable or doubtful with the teacher then you may want to reconsider whether to continue with the teacher or not!

I think you could play some note-reading games with her - google Susan Paradis for a lot of printables and ideas for games.
You could also try a note-reading app on tablet or phone (I've not used any of these but some piano teachers swear by them).

She should also learn some key notes in the bass clef - eg. middle C which she already knows, the C below and then the F in between. Get her to pick out all the lower Cs in a piece of music. Encourage her to count up or down from C to find a starting note.
She should be learning to follow the pattern of the notes going up or down in skips or steps from the starting note. None of us that play the piano actually read every note in the sense of "That's an A. I'm now looking for an A. Now I'm playing an A" but we read based on the distances between the notes on the staff. At some point it just becomes automatic that you see a note and know where it is so you can actually get the piece started or find a note when there is a big jump! But obviously it has to be taught.

Teacher's approach seems a bit ropey to be honest.
They marked up the keys with marker pen???

I think we may be at the end of the road with Mr Eccentric.

In today's lesson I heard him play a phrase that we'd practised together wrong (missing out w couple of notes). I asked him about it and he said, "I'm just doing it that way to make it easier for her".

So not only is he not teaching her to read music, he's not even teaching her to play it properly.

Also he told her to hold a tied semibreve to a crotchet for "five seconds".

Sounds like he doesn't know what he is doing.
What qualifications does he have?
I'd move on to someone else to be honest.

My "spidey sense" was tingling trouble when you mentioned the "play that 11 times" [actually it had been activated by the marker pen tale as well]. No child learning to play music - as opposed to learning to recreate a series of finger movements on a piano - needs to count as high as 11! The key with Suzuki method is that you are learning how to play music, then learn how to read it a little later. So listening to a good recording of what you are learning, rhythm and pulse exercises, musicianship skills, are all key parts of early learning. It's never just about memorising the pattern of a piece. [doi training in teaching Suzuki violin, which was how I learned as a child though did traditional approach piano]

I hope you find someone with more experience who is able to find the right approach for your daughter to enjoy making music and progress.

Nope, your child needs to learn to read music. Its great to be able to remember pieces off by heart, but if you can't read music you are buggered for learning new pieces. This guy sounds completely bonkers. Get someone else!

My DDs both wanted to play, but wanted to be able to play like I do after about 2 lessons. They didn't want to practice. A good grounding in musical education is the best.