One of my former piano students posted this on Facebook. I think this was around 1990. Here I am at one of my students’ yearly piano recitals, probably around 1990. I taught piano to many students from around 1989 to 2004. At one point I had over 40 students. I loved teaching.
It was never important to me that my students become professional musicians – but it WAS important to me that they COULD be if they wanted to.
My biggest one memory of teaching piano? I had a parent complain to me that I was teaching their child religious music. We were studying Bach and I explained to them that we were studying his Inventions which were not “religious”. They were convinced that anything by Bach was religious so they told me no Bach.
So I told them not to come Bach. (Man, am I funny). Don’t mess with Bach!
Being older now, I would probably handle the situation differently. Now I would probably just agree with the parent, and then scotch-tape “MOZART” onto the tops of all the music pieces. Old age and trickery will always win over youth and skill…
As many teachers will tell you – I actually learned more from my students than they ever did with me. And a good teacher will teach a student to teach themselves. So there was always the sad time when I had to let students go because they needed new influences. That was always painful – but always fun to know I was part of their path.
Did the lessons affect their lives in a positive way down the road? I hope so.