Avoid These Piano Teacher Mistakes: 3 Things I Wish I Knew

Common piano teacher mistakes to avoid. After 19 years of teaching, I’ve realized these are all mistakes I’ve made, and by highlighting them, I hope to help new piano teachers avoid them.

Piano Teacher Mistake #1:  Expecting Similar Results From Different Students

The first piano teacher mistake to avoid is falling into a trap of comparing students’ progress without room for differentiation. Let’s look at three types of students to better understand this potential piano teacher mistake.

The Average Piano Student

The Average Student moves along at a steady pace.  They graduate songs every couple of weeks and make consistent progress. 

These students are the most common type of student and become the standard for our expectations.  

The Slower Piano Student 

Now enter the Slower Student, thus named because as teachers this is often how we view these students who can never quite move at the same pace as our Average Students.

Never assume a student who is not moving as quickly through the materials is just lazy, slow, or less talented!  I have found that the students who move at a slower pace always have some hidden factor to be discovered.

Here are some examples of reasons a student might move through a method book slower than the average student:

Practice-Related Discoveries

• They may not have a supported practice routine at home
• They may not know how to effectively practice at home
• They may not retain the lessons and practice things incorrectly at home
• They have questions at home and there are no musicians to help them

Special Needs Discoveries

• The student may thrive with a different learning style than you usually implement in lessons
• The student may have a learning hurdle that is keeping them from telling the hands apart, the clefs apart, or the notes apart
• The student may just simply need more time with each song and concept to fully integrate it

Talent-Related Discoveries

• The student may have natural musical ability and not feel challenged by the songs they are assigned
• The student may not like the music they are assigned
• The student may excel at one aspect but be held back by a deficiency in another aspect (such as, excelling at sight-reading notes, but not be able to interpret rhythms)

Other Discoveries

• The student has doubts about their ability and thus does not put their full effort into it
• The student is content at the level they are at and the pace they are progressing
• The student is highly competitive and needs a tangible goal or competition to feel the motivation to achieve

Sometimes just coming to an understanding and getting to know your student, their feelings towards the piano and their assignments, and discovering what happens during at-home practice sessions is all you need to best serve the “Slower” Student.

But at times, a different method series, a different path, a different strategy may help their talents come to light, spark interest and inspiration, and fuel a lifetime of practice and progression at the piano!  

It’s up to you, Wise Piano Teacher, to know your student and find the best path for them.

The Fast Piano Student

The Fast Student learns every new song and new concept quicker than you expect.  You could assign them four new pages in every method book and they will come back with all of them learned up to tempo.

These students present a pleasant surprise at every lesson.  Songs you would normally work on for 2-3 weeks only take them 1 week to learn and they barely need any guidance!  You’re happy with their progress.  They’re happy with their progress.  So there is no “issue” to be addressed and these students may just slide their way through their method books at a slightly accelerated pace.

The caveat with the Fast Student is that they may be held back by taking the same path as the Average Student.  

What is a teacher to do with their Fast Students?  Here are a few options to get you thinking:

1. Keep the current method series.  Sight-read in class.  Instead of assigning every single page like you do for the Average Student, try sight-reading certain pages during the lesson time.  If the student can sight-read it mostly correctly the first time, perhaps you can call that good for that page!  This will ensure you’re not skipping over any concepts, but you are moving that student along at a quicker pace.
2. Find a new method series or individually-selected books to try.  Experiment until you find the perfect balance of challenging the student, but without overwhelming.  
3. Supplement the current method series.  Series like Faber’s Piano Adventures and Alfred’s Premier Piano Course offer a wide variety of supplemental books at every level.  While the Average Student may do best with just the Lesson, Theory, Technique and Performance core method books, you may find that the Fast Student can handle a supplemental pop, jazz, classical, composing, scale or other book with ease.  
4. Stick to the same method series, but skip a level.  I have done this with one or two of my students but this is my last pick for options, and it has to be just the right situation.  But occasionally a student will thrive by just skipping over Level 1 entirely and jumping into Level 2 (for example).  Use this option with caution and make sure all technical skills and theory concepts are covered for the “skipped level.”

As your studio grows, it can be more difficult to keep track of your plan for each student, especially as you experiment with new methods and materials. Using MyMusicStaff for my piano lesson studio has been a game changer. MyMusicStaff makes it easy to keep notes on each student from week to week, and helps me remember important discoveries and feedback from the student. To get a free month’s subscription to MyMusicStaff, use my affiliate link and try it out for yourself!

Keep an open mind, listen, and serve each unique student individually and you’ll avoid this piano teacher mistake.

Piano Teacher Mistake #2:  Always Introducing New Songs With the Same Routine

The second piano teacher mistake is to fall into a routine when introducing new songs.

When I first started teaching piano lessons, I thought, “I want my students to learn how to read the notes, so I will always have them sight-read a new song.”  And I took this to the extreme.  Even young students, I had them follow the same routine for every new method book page…

1. Identify the first notes.
2. Figure out the position for each hand (or the key signature for older students).
3. Place their hands to start the song without assistance.
4. Play the entire song figuring out each note on their own.

The advantage to this routine is that the students really do have to know their stuff and their brains are challenged with each new page.  The disadvantage is that students got bored with this procedure and for some students it was a very, very difficult and long process that took the entire lesson.  I’m sure those students were discouraged by my rigidity as a young teacher.

These days, I change it up.  

• Some songs, I have them figure everything out for themselves, either at the lesson with me, or at home on their own.  
• Other songs, we listen to the original version and talk about the song’s origins before even looking at the notes.  
• Some pages, I will play it for the students before they try it themselves.  
• And other times, I will give them the choice: “Play it first? Or hear it first?”

What I’ve discovered through this varied routine is that different students have different strengths.  For instance, some students tend to rely entirely on their ear whenever they can and avoid reading the notes at all costs!  And others love the challenge of sight-reading a new piece and are eager to give it a go during the lesson.  Still others really struggle with getting started and will feel very lost at home if I don’t write in a few “clues” at the beginning of a new song.

I guess it comes down to two philosophies:

Know your students.

Change it up from lesson to lesson.

Piano Teacher Mistake #3: Talking Too Much

Young me was very guilty of this piano teacher mistake as well.  I would commonly talk most of the lesson thinking I was getting the family their money’s worth.  “Surely if I bestow as much wisdom on their pliable mind in a 30-minute time block I will be making the musical world a better place, right??”  Basically if I had any reliable knowledge about whatever topic we were covering, I would spew every viable fact to enlighten my student.

But our students are human beings, not empty vessels waiting to become clones of us.  They have creativity that is uniquely their own.  Even young ones have life experiences that relate to the music or that don’t directly relate to the music but build trust.  

And here’s the other thing I didn’t fully grasp as a new teacher–we all learn more deeply when we discover on our own.  

The light bulb moment when a student discovers a pattern in the movement of a piece.

The unique way of looking at a new concept that you never would’ve thought of.

A phrase played incorrectly that actually reveals a composition or improv talent we might not have otherwise noticed.

These are the magical moments.  Our students have as much to teach us as we have to teach them.  And we don’t want to raise clones.  We want to inspire the next beautiful art movement.  What a high calling!

So listen as much as you talk.  Ask open-ended questions.  Let silence sometimes settle into the room.  Allow students to make mistakes and give them space to find their way.  Make room for them to sometimes steer the lesson.

Teacher and student will balance and grow together in a wonderful dance of musical moments!

Conclusion

I wouldn’t change a thing about my piano teacher journey.  Whatever you do, don’t be hard on yourself for where you’ve come from.  I feel that I give my current students a much better overall piano lesson experience than those first few students I taught.  But many of them are thriving in life and still using their musical talents years later.  

So be encouraged.  It gets easier.  You find your teacher voice.  And more importantly, you learn when to use it.  

Carry on, Dear Teacher!  Your students need “present you” and “future you.”

For more thoughts on things I would do differently if I were a new teacher, check out my blog post: If I Had To Start My Piano Teaching Business From Scratch.