Self-Taught vs. Formal Lessons | Advanced Piano Lessons in Tulsa
Hi, guys, this is Andrea with Curtis Music Academy, and I’m here with another awesome podcast about what we do at Curtis Music Academy, whether it relates to advanced piano lessons, guitar lessons or vocal lessons. So today’s podcast, I would like to talk to you about the difference between taking advanced piano lessons in Tulsa vs. learning an instrument on your own. So I have some thoughts about this. And it is possible to learn an instrument on your own, especially if you have previous musical experience. And the example I give will be me. I grew up taking advanced piano lessons in Tulsa, and so that’s always just been something for that particular instrument. I’ve always taken advanced piano lessons from somebody.
Later on I have looked at YouTube videos and different things to expand on that, but I had a really strong foundation with the advanced piano lessons in Tulsa themselves. Now I have gone on and learned some different instruments by myself on my own. The second instrument I learned was the guitar. So I taught myself how to play major and minor chords in most keys. And so it is enough to play in a decent band, but it’s not anything too glorious. And then I’ve gone on that kind of led itself to playing the bass, which my older brother played. And so if my older brother did anything musically, I wanted to also do that as well. And so I learned how to play the bass, which is really just in some ways very similar to playing the guitar.
And I didn’t go very far with that either. Again, I knew enough to really play very confidently in a rock band setting, but nothing like slapping the bass or, you know, all those cool things that people can do. During that time. I also started learning how to play the cello, and I have been really mastering that for a number of years. And just recently, within the past few months, I’ve taken a couple cello lessons and I have realized that foundationally I was doing things incorrectly, big time. And so that is one of the things that even though I had a lot of musical experience because I took advanced piano lessons in Tulsa. I had a head start in that way, I didn’t learn the proper technique from the beginning.
And so it was really a challenge to correct yourself after playing the cello for several years. And then I am also teaching myself the drums, which it’s also going well in the sense that I can play decently with a group of people, but it’s not anything like out of this world. So basically, I say all those stories to say that I would consider myself an intermediate pianist and I can play and accompany choirs. I’ve done that kind of thing. And I can teach music, which I do, and I can teach the piano and I can be excellent at those things. And I’ve taught myself other instruments, but they’re really just at the beginning level of their goal toward advanced piano lessons in Tulsa.
Different Teaching Styles Used in Advanced Piano Lessons in Tulsa
So I can be in another band playing these instruments while I was taking advanced piano lessons in Tulsa, but I haven’t really gone to an intermediate or advanced level with those instruments. So I wanted to share that example. And to just kind of say that that is coming from somebody who has a lot of musical experience. Now, if you’re an individual, like an adult who would like to learn the piano and maybe you’re thinking I’ll just buy a good book and learn that way, that is totally awesome. And I encourage you, if you want to go that route, that’s fine. But I have found that in teaching adults who are beginners, usually there are so many questions that I answer in the middle of the book, which is supposed to be kind of like self-help anyway. But even still, there’s so many questions to answer that it’s really hard to just fully engage with playing the piano during advanced piano lessons in Tulsa, and really getting to a good level of that.
And I also want to speak to the fact that you can learn online. It is 2020 and there’s multiple opportunities to learn via videos or programs that people offer. I have not ever really sat down and looked at one of those, and I’m sure that they do work and that it is possible to learn that way. And that is great. But for me, it might lack that one on one care that each student would need. And so there’s not the collaboration. There’s not the student playing the song for the teacher. And the teacher offers the guide the guidance. And different things like that, so that is one of the things that’s most crucial, I think, in a piano lesson is the feedback.
So usually when I give advanced piano lessons in Tulsa, the student comes in and they play the song that they’ve worked on from last week. And we go through it. And usually it is a great job. At Curtis Music Academy, we always congratulate our students on their efforts during advanced piano lessons in Tulsa. We always find something really positive to say about what they’ve performed, because you don’t want to ever be the music teacher. That’s always like, well, you did this wrong. Well, you did this wrong. Well, you did this wrong. So we always are emphasizing the positive. But on the other hand, the honest feedback is what is so crucial to growing as a musician. So like let’s say, for instance, if I have a student who’s learning how to play in the key of G and reading a key signature and all of these, the musicians out there will know where I’m going with this.
They might play the whole song and not play any of the F Sharps in the whole song. And so if you were learning at home by yourself, you would just not know how to correct that. And you would just think the song sounds weird for some reason. But with the feedback of a piano teacher, the piano teacher would point out the key signature at the beginning of the song.
In the beginning of every line, you have to play the F sharp, even if it’s not right in front of the note. That’s just a small example of the many things that we offer feedback at. So I am a fan of in-person advanced piano lessons in Tulsa, definitely, although I’m sure that individuals have great success with the other ways of learning piano as well. So thanks for tuning in and just kind of hearing some insights about learning an instrument on your own versus learning taking formal advanced piano lessons in Tulsa. All right, guys, we will see you at the next podcast, where we will dive more into the topic of piano lessons.