Since some of your current students may be transferring into our piano teaching method from other methods, you will need to AUDITION them in order to determine their REAL level of piano playing knowledge! (This can be a very eye-opening experience at times!)

The REAL level of piano knowledge is the sight-reading (sometimes better referred to as the “sight-playing”) ability of the student. This true level of piano knowledge is almost always completely different from the level that the student has been playing in her previous piano lessons. Many students do not actually “read” the music that they are playing. Instead, they peer intently at the music on the music stand, but they actually use short-cuts and rote memory through repetition to play the piece. Please do not ever use the current material that the student is playing as an indication of the level of book to order from us for a transfer student!

Instead, purchase a Level of our music and have the auditioning student sight-read the music and count the rhythms out loud for you starting at the back of the book and moving forward in the book until you reach the point where the student can actually read, count, and play easily the music at a steady beat with no coaching of any kind from you. That means truly no coaching such as, “Where do I put my hands?”; “What finger do I start with?”; “Play it once for me, please.”; “Let me play just the right hand.”; or, “This is too easy! Let me play something else.” When you back up enough to reach the true no coaching point in our book, you have determined the REAL SKILL LEVEL of your students. They must be willing to start in our material at this level…....or, not start our method at all!

Also, one of the parents of the child must be present for the audition; the parent cannot coach the child, either. Most of the time, the child will later try to make excuses for their poor performance at the audition. The presence of the parent/parents prevents this, and it prevents you from needing to explain the student’s placement to the parents later.