teaching piano

hi all.

we have a jazz band at our school, which I am apart of. last year, I got to be very good friends with this vocalist who loves music, but doesn't know a lot about it. she has taken 2 years of our school's vocal program (gorgeous voice) and next year, she is joining our jazz band, and we are all very excited to have her.

however, she is nervous, but that's not really a problem. what she wants to do is learn a lot more theory, so she can understand what we are doing better, and, she wants to learn to play the piano, so that she can accompany her own singing, and she just wants to learn it out of interest. me, being a good friend with a passion to teach and a good knowledge base offered to teach her both of those things.

however, I realize that I have never taught piano before. now, I know what I would do with someone who had no music experience whatsoever, because I have read various instructional books, and they all say to start with knowledge of scales, and to learn the "C position" and blah, blah, blah. however, this is different. she already knows this stuff.

she knows : basic theory, (such as scale degrees, circle of fifths, some basic intervals) she knows how to read music, and she is familiar with the piano keyboard. she has just never set her hands upon one before.

so, my question to all you teachers out there : how do I go about doing this? how do I start her off? I'm thinking of 2 different ways : start her off doing scales and arpeggios, while concurrently teaching more advanced theory, then going into chords, and eventually improvisation based on those chords (this in mind because she wants to accompany herself) or, go into reading basic, basic music and teach her more about sight reading and actually playing real pieces. what do you all think?

You said that she’d like to learn to play well enough to accompany herself singing, why not just stick with that original goal and purpose? Why take her down some traditional road toward becoming a concert pianist if that’s not where she wants to go?

Traditional music teachers are a dime a dozen. She’d probably rather just learn some simple stuff and skip the whole traditional learning path. It’s not necessary for her goals.

See Chang’s book on Piano Practice Techniques. He’s got some really great advice that will help you get her where she wants to be without taking the long way around.

Piano Practice Techniques

Keep in mind that her goal is not to become a professional pianist. That wasn’t what she had asked with help with. I wouldn’t even bother with sight-reading unless she specifically wants to go that path. That may actually be an unnecessary distraction for all the more she’d like to learn at this point in time.

Moreover, the myths about teaching bad habits, or starting people off wrong are just that – myths! That only applies to very young child prodigies who are still at the age when things can become permanently ingrained. Once a person reaches their late teens or early 20’s that danger has long since past. Adults can easily correct for bad habits that they might pick up because those habits don’t become intuitively ingrained. The “bad-habit” scare is way overblown. Besides, if you play the piano yourself chance are that you aren’t going to be teaching her anything bad anyway.

Just focus on what she wants to do using pieces she’d like to play. There’s no need to treat her like someone who is trying to learn to become a professional concert pianist. That's just going to get you way off track and lose her interest. That’s NOT what she asked you to help her do.

She just wants to play some jazz pieces, so stick with that and everything should be just fine. :D