A piano teacher’s success (defined in terms of reputation, financial security, personal enjoyment or however else you define it) is highly dependent on the combined effort and success of all of her students. The students’ success is built upon the piano that they practice on 5 days a week. But no matter how much they study, how long they practice, how far they push themselves or how advanced they become, the condition and capacity of their piano, as well as the climate surrounding it will either enhance their music-making competence or tragically undermine it (the “4 C’s” of beautiful music).
I have worked with piano teachers from Julliard, Eastman, Paris, Moscow and other places and have found that the piano pedagogy and performance curriculums teach very little about the piano itself. Is is my experience that most piano teachers and professors, thru no fault of their own, are unaware of how much prettier the tone can be, more expression they can achieve, greater control they can have and more enjoyable their piano can be.
Educating the Educator
In order to remedy this blind spot in the pedagogy curriculum, I established the
t³ Piano Institute. This is the only resource I am aware of that a piano instructor can gain an appropriate, yet comprehensive understanding of how the piano affects the pianist. By simply attending the 3 seminars in the
Octave Worth of Piano Knowledge series you will . . .
- Fill in the gaps that the pedagogy curriculum left in your education
- Be better equipped to recognize if your technician is doing a good job
- Acquire the knowledge your customers expect you already have about the piano
- Gain an academic understanding of how a piano helps or hinders a pianist
- Possess an experiential comprehension of a piano’s true potential
Or, if you want to attend a brief, 1hour introduction to the concepts that will be covered in the seminar series, check out Discovering Pedagogy’s Blindspot.
My goal is that piano teachers and professors, equipped with this knowledge, can work together with high-quality technicians for the benefit of their mutual customers. These students will be able to enjoy a better sounding piano, may advance quicker, stick with lessons longer and most likely perform better at recitals. This, in the long run, is a win-win scenario for everyone involved: the parents paying for lessons, the children learning the piano and receiving the many benefits of this discipline, the piano teacher’s effectiveness, personal enjoyment and reputation, and their piano technician.
