How to Teach Piano

Here is an outline of one widely-recommended system of teaching piano, taken from the Oxford Method:

1. Building a musical background; listening, unconscious imitation, rote singing.
   
2. Learning to play little pieces of music through imitation.
3. Observing by hearing or seeing new effects as they are tried out and played. Music is essentially about hearing, so all teaching should be directed first to the ear. The student should be encouraged to listen to every detail of his own and his teacher's playing: pitch, rhythm, tone quality, nuance, effect, and interpretation. Observing through seeing involves technique such as proper position, use of arms, hands, and fingering; and all the details of notation.
4. Naming the effect and expressing it by its symbol, e.g., mf mezzo forte (playing somewhat loud). Names and explanations should follow the experience in playing. It's suggested not to precede imitative playing by a conversation of the notation involved.
5. Drilling. Teaching theory through practice; theory and practice should proceed side by side.
   
6. Applying the drill results to new material. The course of study should be cumulative, each new selection including some of the elements of the previous study.
   
7. Ear training is vital during lessons and during practice.
8. Making sure the student performs the correct action when he reads notation. Explanations and definitions can come later, after the right habitual action is learned. Sight reading should be developed by constantly repeating the experiences that notation, tones, eye, ear, and hand are related in performing the playing again and again. It takes a long time to develop the ability to sight read, so making demands on a student that he isn't prepared for by a thoroughly developed background can frustrate him.
9. Don't dwell on the mistakes, faults and failings of students, because this just makes mistakes more vivid and pronounced in the student's mind. A mistake should simply be explained constructively.
10. Get the student to focus on the meaning, mood and spirit of the music he is playing rather than self-consciously upon himself.
11. Carefully watch the interest of the student. Don't persist in any phase of the lesson to the point where mental fatigue makes attention impossible. There should be concentration and persistence. But above all there must be interest, and interest can't be pushed beyond natural limits of the student.

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