Honest opinions on Homeschooling?
Thanks to all of you for your opinion, except smarty pants Elmer :) LOL I feel they are in the real world every day and the class room is the synthetic personally ... the whole world changes after high school, doesn't anyone remember that? I feel they will be more prepared as the deal with the real world and real people and real life everyday more so not less so... and I am certain they will be MORE educated not less... my main concern is their well being, and we are VERY open minded people who run a thriving business and online biz also, the see us interact with people daily ... all sorts of problems, delimas ... We chose to homeschool because we didn't approve of the policy's of the school and her 1st grade teacher was a rude natzi who had no business teaching kids, so we pulled her after 3 days and set up homeschool... Kids her age are already worrying about the clothes they wear and fitting in and approval, and they are unable to be themselves... my daughter is 7!
What are the financial realities of a typical concert pianist?
Thanks for the interesting responses so far. The picture gets a bit clearer to me now; for many classical pianists including successful ones, teaching and other activities are still where the money is; it is difficult for most graduates to survive from performances income alone; winning a big competition may give a chance to break an artist, but there is no guarantee; and luck plays significant role in this career. Chinese Cowboy - thank you for your input. Would it be fair to say that fees for a moderately in demand pianist range between, say, $1000 - $10000 per concert? Then, after agent fees and taxes, the pianist will net about half of that, from which he/she must also deduct transport, food and lodging costs related to this date?
Can a doctor also be a concert pianist?
Hello there, I know you are not wanting to hear this answer... but to be completely honest with you..... No... you could not be a medical Dr. and a concert pianist.... Now that is a tricky answer... because... Yes, you can be a Dr.. or more specific, you can hold a Doctorate Degree in Piano Performance... and then you would be considered a Dr but to be a medical doctor and a pianist, at least getting the education at the same time, would be impossible. To be a concert pianist, you would have to study at a conservatory or music university full time.... a 4 to 8 year course of study. To be a medical doctor, you would have to go to med school full time. Not possible. This would probably kill you... but you could first study music and get the performance degree behind you... and then go to medical school. I don't think you could do it the other way around, because once you were to get your medical license, you could not have a medical practice and study music full time, both simultaneously. But it could be done that way, though you can decide to cut out about 16 years of your life to devote to your goal of being both. Now, I will tell you that many Drs. are talented musicians... as it just runs along their interests and intelligence. And to be sure, many medical course classes have classical music piped in.. so you can see the correlation. So, that is my opinion... but to make up your mind, you should just sit down and think realistically what will be required to be a Dr. and what is required to be a performing concert pianist. Thanks for reading :))
Am I good enough to become a piano teacher?
Yes, It's me - and the crusade continues. As a kid, you might be able to *show* a couple of basic things to younger or less experienced kids - but actually TEACH??? No way. I have been a teacher since 1971 - that's AFTER my first degrees - and judge numerous competitions here in NY. It is *painfully* obvious in only a few seconds who has had legitimate instruction, and who has slobbered through things on their own. are there degrees/certified teachers who are just no so hot at it? sure - and there are poor doctors, attorneys, roofers, plumbers, etc. But the likelihood of you having GOOD instructions form someone who is highly educated not only in their discipline, but also HOW to teach, is much more likely than your being *taught* by the kid 2 seats higher than you in band. Teachers expect to periodically see students who have all kinds of problems that needs addressing - some have to do with physical or mental considerations, and some are just inherent in the study of the instrument. If you - and Suhwak - think that any old person can just dive in and teach any old kid - then I guess I will continue to see and hear people with all kinds of frustrations and problems - and then there are those who QUIT, because they just were not making any legitimate progress . . .
When should I stop taking piano lessons?
When to stop piano lessons depends upon what your goals are with the piano. If you have attained a level you are happy with and have no wish to explore new aspects of piano playing except those that you are already familiar, then you can stop lessons anytime. However, if you wish to expand your horizons musically and technically on the piano, continuing studies may be important to you.Everybody learns best in different ways but personally I was getting nowhere until I tried this course: Pianoforall | Learn Piano & Keyboard | 200 Video Lessons I like having everything laid out so I can see myself progress through it and I know what I need to be working on.Whether you ultimately decide to continue formal lessons with this or another teacher, or suspend formal one-on-one lessons entirely, I think you should continue playing and practicing the piano throughout the rest of your life, as long as you still enjoy it. You won’t regret it.Suspending formal lessons relatively early in life has worked out very well for me. My paternal grandmother was a skilled violinist, pianist, music teacher, and director. She sat me down at the piano when I was about 4 years old, and patiently got me started on learning the basics of music and piano using introductory piano books. Once our family moved out of state, however, I was able to continue with piano lessons only sporadically. I never experienced a problem like yours in my relationships with any of my piano teachers, but I kept “losing” my piano teachers for one reason or another. We moved away from one; one moved away from us; and one died unexpectedly. All in all, I have had a total of only about four years of formal piano lessons, spread thinly across my later childhood and teenage years.
How much time do pianists practice per day?
There is the (in)famous and ridiculously over-analyzed Ericsson study looking at musicians training at the Music Academy in Berlin. [1]Unfortunately, a google search for the figures is shockingly difficult but here is the the critical figure 2: Proportion of time practicing with the violin.If you triage the students into the ones who were really good (award winners), the ones who were good (professionals), and the ones who didn't get anywhere (music teachers), best and good students practiced a lot more than the teachers.How much? It depends on the age. The best and good students would practice 10ish hours as 10 year olds and 20-30 hours in their teens. The poor students were in the 6-10 hour range. Per day, that's roughly 3-5 hours daily vs. 1-2 hours. Knowing professional musicians that sounds like roughly the right order of magnitude. Going back to figure 2, the notable thing is that the best musicians had very structured practice times and took clear breaks. This gets into the famous line from Ericsson's study: "deliberate practice".There is also a bunch of data about pianists that I'm not willing to extract but the brief summary is that the distribution looks around the same. 10 years average 5 hours a week and a 16 year old would average 20 hours.Probably the really famous figure from this paper is this one:The best accumulate around 10,000 hours. This is the data that Malcolm Gladwell uses to justify his 10,000 hour argument in Outliers.But as mentioned, this data is highly scrutinized so take it as you will. However, anecdotally when I was practicing the piano, I played ~1 hour a day and I sucked and my significantly more gifted brother was playing ~2 hours a day. His teachers wanted him to be practicing as much as 3 hours.[1] The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance.