Questions on piano teacher

I am 24 years old and have started to learned piano for 2 months now. I am not so sure whether my teacher is good or not. We go through the lesson quite fast. I don't know if that because I play well or my teacher doesn't care and progress me anyway. I saw some lesson brochure from other institutes, some look quite good but cost more than what I pay now. Is more expensive teacher better in teaching? Or should I stick with the old one so I learn faster?

When I was an undergraduate in the early 60's, my wonderful teacher, Gregory Tucker, at the Longy School, in Cambridge, Mass., charged $50 for lessons. If one simply corrects this figure for inflation, it is $260 per lesson. As of 1998, that is. According to NYTimes, inflation 1961-1998 was a factor of 5.2. It would actually be a bit more, because it's no longer 1998 and inflation has continued. People charging $125 per lesson now are charging, in real terms, less than half of what Mr. Tucker charged back then.

By the way, my home-town teacher previous to Mr. Tucker charged $25 per lesson; so Mr. Tucker, as an outstanding teacher in a metropolitan area (unlike the small Midwestern city I came from), was by no means out of line.

James Boyk

After read your reply in the thread James, I have a question to ask you.As you mentioned that in the late 60's the teachers charge $25 and $50, I just wondering if you could tell me how much do the piano teachers in the U.S. charge now for a one hour lesson (in general). Because I live in Hong Kong and just curious about the difference.

Unfortunately there's no answer 'in general' because the teaching situation in the USA is chaotic. We have no licensing or certification of teachers. Anyone can call himself or herself a piano teacher, and will *be* a piano teacher as soon as one student signs up. Perhaps it's partly as a result of this that the range of fees is enormous. Some people who charge $125 or more per lesson, though fees this high are rare. But there are also teachers who charge $15 or even less. Paying more does not guarantee a better teacher.

(By the way, I don't mean to imply that I think we *should* have certification or licensing of music teachers.)

James Boyk

Why not ? After all, most of the kids can't tell if the teacher is a fraud. It's O.K. for someone to declare :'My friend, I'm not a certified piano teacher, but if you are willing I can teach you what I know. Because the teaching involves time and effort I will charge you a few xxx$ if you are willing to go along with the deal'.

I am quite certain that if such a system were put in place in the u.s.a., it would guarantee nothing about the quality of the teacher. (I'm not saying it guarantees nothing in other countries.) If standards were high enough, and complete enough, to be meaningful, there would be such an outcry against them from existing teachers who would not qualify, that the standards would never be passed into law. Or they would be passed with existing teachers 'grandfathered in,' that is, taken as qualified simply because they're already teaching. That would degrade the for a generation, at least; and all those 'unqualified' people would have their effect on how the standards themselves were altered and applied to newcomers.

A system for certifying teachers makes sense only if there's also a system for *training* teachers; and as a nation, the U.S. has none. Moreover, it would be very difficult