How to Choose The Best Piano Teacher for Your Kid

Unlike the guitar, the piano is not that easy to learn by yourself. In most circumstances, people hire piano teachers when they want to start learning the instrument. This is where knowledge of how to choose the best piano teacher for your kid comes into play. 

There are many factors that you have to consider when choosing the right mentor for your child. And often, the sheer amount of information may become overbearing for some parents. 

Luckily for you, we have compiled a list consisting of all the information you might need when researching the best piano teacher for your kid. 

Choosing The Best Piano Teacher for Your Kid

1. Keep Asking

Before you hire just about anyone for your child, you must ask others around you for their suggestions. This could be your child’s friends’ parents, or your friends, or even the owner of the music store near your house. 

You should ask them if they’ve ever hired a piano teacher for their child, and if so, how they were. Based on their answers, you should take the contact information of the tutor and get in touch with him/her. 

You need to keep in mind that your child may have different learning capabilities than someone else, and if they tell you that they can’t adapt to the new teacher, you should look for someone else. 

This brings us to our next point: 

2. Never Stop Looking

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Since everyone is unique with their ways of learning new things, you cannot trust a tutor to bring out the best in your child just because they did the same for someone else.

Like we’ve mentioned, if your child isn’t showing any progress even after months of studying with the same piano tutor, take it as a sign and hire someone new. Most of the time, even piano tutors know how this works, and so you won’t have to worry about offending anyone. 

A great way to ensure the tutor you choose is compatible with your child is by taking them to their piano school if possible. That way you can monitor the potential tutor and see if they will be good enough for your kid. 

Of course, this option might not always be open to all - especially if it’s a private tutor who does not work with any music schools. If this is the case, you have to make do by consulting the tutor’s students and their parents. 

3. Pinpoint Your Limitations

This is perhaps the most important aspect of choosing a piano tutor for your child. We would suggest you sit down with a notepad and list out all the questions you might have for yourself. 

Some of them might be regarding how qualified you want the tutor to be, and others might be about why you want your child to learn the piano. You should also be aware of what your budget might be to make sure you do not exceed it. 

Lastly, you should also note down your schedule, and if you have a potential tutor in mind, try to find out theirs as well. At the same time, decide how long you want the piano lessons to be, and how frequently you want the teacher to come to your house and help your child. 

If your kid is still young, it won’t be much of an issue since they might be free most of the time. But if they’re already in middle school or higher, you need to be extra detailed with your plan. You do not want your child to get overwhelmed with studies and extracurricular activities. 

If you’re not sure where to start and what questions to ask yourself, let us help. The Best Piano Teacher will find the right teacher for you based on your location and preference.

Side by side, we also provide information on the teacher such as their qualifications, their hourly rate, their gender, and so on. 

4. Get in Touch With The Tutor

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The final step in this process is to contact the tutor. By now you should have the answer to your questions in place, which is basically how you were able to find the right tutor for your child. 

However, the questions don’t end there. When you meet with your child’s possible future instructor, you should ask them the following few questions: 

What Instruments They Specialize In

Since we’re talking about piano teachers here, it is obvious that you won’t look for someone who teaches the guitar or the cello. However, there are many instructors out there who can play more than one instrument. 

Getting someone like this to mentor your child is a plus point. Since they have knowledge about other instruments too, they will be able to kinder the love for music in your kid by sharing extra information with them. 

Of course, it’s not a must-have for your instructor to be multi-talented. As long as you hire someone who’s great at playing the piano and has a couple of certificates to reinforce this fact, you’re good to go. 

If They Host Group Lessons or Individual Ones

This is important for your child’s future with this tutor. If your kid is a complete beginner, we would suggest you hire an instructor who is willing to give one-on-one lessons.

This is because, in group lessons, it can get quite difficult for the teacher to focus on a particular student, and their problems oftentimes go unnoticed. On the other hand, group lessons also have their good sides: your kid can learn from the mistakes of another student, and they also get to socialize with others from the same age group. 

The Best Piano Teacher offers potential students the option to choose from a wide array of piano tutors. You can take online lessons with these tutors, or you could decide on a schedule and meet up with them for your lessons. 

While you’re at it, you should also ask the instructor how they assess a student, and what materials they use to teach. 

What Their Usual Fee Is

This goes hand in hand with the idea that you should have a clear concept of your budget. It is good practice to ask the regular fee the piano instructor charges per hour before you get to the other task details. 

Doing so will save you the hassle of having to repeat some questions over and over again. This is useful if the teacher you previously talked to had a rate that didn’t fall within your estimated budget. 

Some instructors might be willing to bargain from their original rate, but most of the time, their hourly pay rates are fixed. 

Where They Usually Teach

Once all the other questions are out of the way, you need to decide on a location and time for the piano lessons. If your child is still pretty young, and if the teacher offers one-on-one lessons, you should propose hosting the lessons at your house. 

However, before you do so, make sure you have a spare room in your house big enough to accommodate a piano. Side by side, see if there are any guidelines on playing a musical instrument in your neighborhood that you have to follow.

Conversely, if you are comfortable with letting your child go out by themselves for long periods, the lessons may be held where the tutor decides - usually in their music school. 

Frequently Asked Questions

• Is it a bad idea to hire more than one piano instructor? 

This depends on the student. If your child is capable of taking in different sets of information, then why not? They will get to learn different techniques of playing the instrument, and they can even choose which instructor they want to stick by in the future. 

• How do I know whether my child’s piano teacher is good or not? 

In most cases, your child will confide in you if they do not like the methods their piano teacher adopts. However, there are some telltale signs that you can look out for if your child isn’t telling you anything. 

If your kid is comfortable around their teacher, and if they are eager to go to their piano lessons, then you should take it that the teacher is doing a good job. 

On the other hand, if your child doesn’t seem enthusiastic at all about the piano, and can’t seem to open up to the tutor, you should probably hire someone new. 

With all that being said, you are ready to look for a suitable piano teacher for your kid. So, what should the best piano teacher be like in your opinion?