Choose your music BEFORE you start piano lessons

Choose the music that you want to learn before you sign up for piano lessons.

I've been teaching for over 20 years and I can say from my experience that the #1 factor that determines whether or not someone is going to be successful in learning is not necessarily the quality of the teaching or the material, but is the motivation of the learner.

And I can also say that motivation lasts longer when it comes from a place deep inside rather than some external motivator, like keeping your teacher happy.

So how do you tap into your internal motivation?

By playing what you love, from the very beginning.

Many students start piano lessons thinking that they have to play whatever their teacher puts in front of them. Sometimes they expect that their teacher knows the “correct order” of learning piano and trust the teacher to choose books and materials that are right for them.

But this isn't always the case.

Sometimes before a teacher really knows what a student is interested in, they will start you with a basic beginner lesson book. Beginner books provide short easy exercises that gradually increase in difficulty and teach a bit of theory along the way. This is totally fine if this is how you want to conduct your piano lessons.

But there are other options in learning piano as well.

You don't have to start with a beginner book if you'd rather play something else. For example, if you're interested in learning classical music, there are a lot of short, relatively easy pieces that you could start with and learn the basics of piano through. You might progress with them a little bit more slowly than you would a beginner lesson book, but if you're motivated to learn classical it might be a better choice for you!

So I encourage you to think really hard about what you would like your first couple of months in piano lessons to look like. It will likely set your trajectory for a lot longer than that!