What Makes a Successful Piano Student?

Our Monthly Team Meetings: Reflecting on Teaching Excellence

Our team meets up every month to brainstorm, explore, dig deep, and ensure that our teaching tools and resources remain at the highest possible standard. Recently, our conversation took a different turn. We started discussing the importance of being selective with our time and the students we coach. It became clear that, given our limited availability, we can’t coach piano to everyone and anyone!

If we tried to do that, we’d need to clone ourselves ten times over—and then we’d have no time left to practice piano ourselves!

Valuing Time and the Company We Keep

We believe that in our precious, limited time, we should surround ourselves with people we genuinely want to be around. Life is too short to spend it with those who don’t challenge you to grow or who don’t share your values. For us, the quality of time and thought has always been far more important than simply filling up our schedules or exchanging hours for a paycheck.

Finding Common Traits in Our Most Satisfying Students

During our conversation, we began to reflect on the students who have brought us the most joy and satisfaction—those who have made significant progress and truly stood out in their learning journey. As we shared our thoughts, we noticed that the students who made the biggest impact shared many common traits.

And guess what? None of these traits had anything to do with having “natural musical talent” or practicing five hours a day! We realized that these superficial factors are often the answer for a lazy teacher. We focus instead on building mutual collaboration, where both the student and teacher grow and learn together.

The Common Traits of Our Best Students

Here are the common traits we found in our most inspiring and successful students:

• Self-Driven – They have a natural desire to learn and improve, even when no one else is pushing them.
• Friendly, Humble, & Collaborative – They approach learning with an open mind and are willing to engage in the process with us as a team.
• Happy to Challenge Us & Themselves – They aren’t afraid to ask questions or challenge ideas to deepen their understanding.
• Knows What They Want to Do – They have clear goals and a vision for what they want to achieve, which keeps them focused and motivated.
• Independent and Curious – Their curiosity drives them to explore new ideas and concepts beyond what we teach in lessons.
• Emotionally Involved – They connect with the music on an emotional level, making their learning experience more profound and meaningful.
• Action Takers – Instead of just talking about their goals, they take concrete steps to achieve them, even when faced with challenges.

The Blueprint for a Successful Adult Piano Student

Without realizing it, we had outlined a blueprint for what makes a successful adult piano student. Interestingly, this blueprint also applies to many children who display these same qualities. None of our notes mentioned the need for someone to be a “highly talented person who practices five hours a day.”

Let’s be honest—such a person rarely exists. Even among our best students, we noticed a common theme: they are extremely busy with their professional and personal lives, which makes fitting in practice time a challenge. Despite this, it’s their dedication, curiosity, and drive that make all the difference in their progress and satisfaction.

More Than Just Practice: The Key to Success in Music and Beyond

These seven traits that we’ve identified in our most satisfying students are more significant than the amount of practice they can put in each day. It’s the inner qualities—like being driven, curious, and emotionally connected—that truly matter.

When you combine the decades of teaching and coaching experience that our team has built over the years, you can confidently say that these seven traits are the defining factors of success in piano playing. And perhaps, they can be universally applied to other areas of life as well.

Join Us on the Journey

If you’re ready to embark on a journey to become the best version of yourself through music, we’d love to have you with us at the London Contemporary School of Piano. We value collaboration, curiosity, and the joy of learning, and we’re here to support you every step of the way.

For more details about our courses and to see how we can help you unlock your full potential, explore our Complete Musician Essentials course.

Tom
Founder, London Contemporary School of Piano