Five Tips to Improve Your Piano Teaching

As a piano teacher, I am always learning something new. I try to learn new music and new skills on a regular basis, so that I have new things to share with my students. I try to learn about new music and new materials for my students to use in their lesson time. And I also try to learn something new from my students. All these things help me grow over time in my music ability and my teaching ability.

Go to school. You don't have to spend thousands of dollars on a masters degree to teach piano lessons, although a masters degree certainly wouldn't hurt. I would love to get one myself, soon! But there are other ways to learn. You can audit a piano class here and there, go to a music appreciation course in your community center, or take private lessons yourself. It helps further your music ability and knowledge, and helps you understand your students as they struggle to learn new concepts. You will be able to relate to them even better, and it is always great to learn new skills that you can then teach.

Go to concerts . It's a great idea to listen to other pianists play. Even pianists who may not be as technically advanced as you are have something to offer: they may play with a different style, a different skill, or with amazing creativity. There is something to learn from everyone and lots of events to listen to someone else play.

Read something. Try a book on music history, a devotional based on historic composers, or a library book about your favorite kind of music. Barnes and Nobles usually has a great variety of music books at bargain prices, and you might find some valuable nugget of information that inspires your next student to love music. Or maybe you'll find a new composer, genre, or style of music to love. Maybe you'll even want to try another instrument!

Personal practice time. There is nothing like sitting at the piano and struggling to learn a difficult piece of music to help you connect with your students. Let them know that you have to work on things hands separately, or at a slow tempo, too. We all have skills or notes that we struggle with, and that struggle makes us better musicians. Practice sight-reading, too!

Get to know your students. What is their learning style? What music do they like? What motivates them to play? Is a recital, a piece of music they love or something else? Find out what makes each student tick and use it to tweak their lessons so that they - and you - get the most out of each lesson. Make it fun and interesting and they will want to come back. Make it relevant and they may even want to practice!