The piano teaching situation from a student perspective: A South African qualitative study

Abstract

This article discusses a qualitative survey conducted among piano students in order to determine their needs regarding piano teaching. The empirical research underlying this article indicates that, from the perspective of the piano student, certain needs in the piano teaching situation are not satisfied, while piano lecturers feel that they cannot reach their music students, resulting in both parties experiencing the teaching situation as unsatisfactory and frustrating. The solution can be found in the lecturer’s willingness to pay attention to the personal needs and cognitive preferences of students, value their opinions and play a guiding role in forming well-trained pianists who can live to their full potential2. This approach relies upon the idea of brain dominance as set out in the work of Ned Herrmann, who posed that dominance of specific parts of the brain has an influence on processes of skill acquisition, resulting in the identification of preferences for certain learning processes in individuals.