The Top 4 Reasons Students Drop Out of Piano Lessons (and How to Avoid Them)

Not surprisingly, the top few reasons why students drop out of piano lessons are quite common across the board. Here they are:

1. Motivation for Practice.

This is the case when students don’t have a reason to practice regularly. They haven’t been ignited into action to actually have a reason to practice.

Sometimes this is caused by not playing the music that the student likes. Which is usually because the teacher doesn’t assign those specific pieces of music.

To avoid: I believe everything ties back to love and your heart. So in this case, your motivation ties back to what you truly desire. What do you want with music and why do you want it? Get honest and really deep.

Find your fuel for the fire.

Only after you are ignited and ready for action will you have the fuel to begin (and actually sustain) a daily practice habit.

2. Regular, Daily Practice.

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Without daily practice, it is near impossible to see improvement. Without growth, you may wonder why you’re going through the rigmarole of weekly piano lessons with time and financial commitments that seem to be showing incongruent results. This can be very discouraging and becomes easy to quit.

To avoid: The simplest suggestion is to start small with only one or two minutes of practice a day and choose a time right before or after a current daily habit like brushing your teeth. For more detail, check out last week’s blog about how to begin a piano practice habit HERE.

3. Teacher Incompatibility.

If the teacher is not a good fit, students may not be having much fun, which is probably the whole reason why they started lessons in the first place. The teacher may not tailor the lessons to what the student specifically wants to learn. If the teacher is not the right fit , the student will see that they’re not getting where they want and start to think that piano is not right for them. Unfortunately, realizing a teacher may not be the best fit may actually take a lot longer to notice than one might think.

To avoid: Talk about your specific goals before or during the first lesson. I would say about two lessons is enough to tell whether your teacher is a good fit and is taking you in the right direction of your goals.

4. Slow Progress. (Likely as a result of the first three points)

If there is no routine of daily practice, progress will be slow to non-existent which both feeds into not being motivated and continuing to not practicing daily.

Students may have a fantasized idea of what they should be able to play in a short amount of time but may not realize how long it may take to actually get there. Students set their hopes on being able to play at a certain level, and especially if the student is young, they might not understand how much time and discipline it takes to get there.

To avoid: This ties into what we’ve already discussed since it is related to no practice and no motivation. The bottom line is to find your fuel and let that be your guide to ignite your piano-playing journey.