If I had a penny for every piano parent who said this to me

If I needed any more reasons for teaching piano the way that I do, using Music Learning Theory principles, then the number of parents of prospective (and actual) young students that I teach who say to me things like ‘ If only I had had lessons like this when I was a child. I probably wouldn’t have given up’ is all the incentive I need.

Many of these parents are bravely dipping their toes into the water of piano lessons for their own children DESPITE the impact of piano lessons on them when they were children.

This gives me great confidence in being a piano teacher. Even though people have had sometimes miserable or just boring piano lessons as a child, they still highly value learning to play the piano and they hope that their children will derive great joy from the experience and they have come to me in the hope that I can facilitate that. And I can.

I strongly believe a creative, improvisatory, empowering start to playing the piano is the key to this. Since becoming a piano teacher, I have spent much time learning about various method books and philosophies about piano playing and I am convinced that an approach that develops the student’s active listening skills and than empowers them to explore the keyboard without being stuck in the middle C area and without using all five fingers from the beginning, whilst actively encouraging them to move, sing and think about what they are playing is the way ahead.

I am so grateful to have stumbled across Music Learning Theory. It is a total game changer and there is not a single music teacher that I know who has pursued learning about MLT who doesn’t feel the same. It is challenging and it is counterintuitive to much of the way we were taught as children. But it works because it is so well researched and proven. I am excited to be one of a small, but growing, number of music teachers in the UK who focus on a MLT approach.

I only have to look at the faces of the children (and adult) I teach at the end of their lessons. Often they are disappointed that we have to finish the lesson because they are having so much fun.