I first met Andrea Miller on Instagram when I started following her page, Music Studio Startup. She was announcing the launch of her new podcast so I direct messaged her. Later, she called me, we met face to face when she presented a workshop at the Texas Music Teachers Association Convention last June, and now I consider her a friend. I am grateful to have her on the podcast.
Tell us your piano story.
We had a piano in the living room when I was growing up and I was a very determined and curious kid, so I tried to figure out how to play it. My mom gave me one piano lesson, where she explained how the grand staff worked and I took it from there. I taught myself for a year or two and then my parents enrolled me in lessons when I was about 8.
I started teaching when I was 15, like a lot of other teachers — because someone asked me to! Before that I had no plans for a career in music. I had known for years that I was going to study business, but my teacher at the time just assumed I would be a piano major and kept pushing me along that path.
I eventually decided to double major in Entrepreneurship and Piano Performance. I continued to teach and ran a house-painting business to pay my way through college. After I graduated, I started a music school in St. Louis.
When my husband’s job brought us out to Maryland I decided I wanted a new entrepreneurial adventure, so I worked with some startups in a few different fields – tech, education, legal, but I started a small studio on the side. Now I continue to teach part-time and coach music teachers.
Were you a good student?
I don’t think I have any special “talent” for the piano, but I have always been a hard worker and someone who likes a challenge. My very first teacher was really good at finding challenges for me to work toward, so I think that’s what cemented my interest in the instrument.
What is one thing you often say to your piano students?
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
I had a great Economics professor who really influenced how I teach piano. He was adamant that we understood how the principles worked, not just the right answers, so we could think like economists and (fumble) through new problems we had never seen before. I teach my piano students with the same philosophy.
Is there a common struggle your piano parents deal with? How do you help them through it?
I teach in a suburb of D.C. that is highly-educated and highly Type A. A lot of my students excel in school and are used to things coming easily. This makes piano a humbling experience because the lessons always adjust to challenge them wherever they’re at.
Many of my students haven’t had an experience like this before. I remind parents that I am asking their kids to do hard things and that piano lessons are challenging them in a way school doesn’t. In lessons, if a student says or implies that something is hard or “too hard” we acknowledge that it is hard, and talk about how cool it is that we’re doing this hard thing because we’re learning so much from it in the process.
What keeps you motivated as a teacher?
My students.
I just love figuring out the strengths of each student and helping them see where that can take them. I especially love finding areas where they are naturally stronger than I was as a young student (improvising, playing by ear, catching tough rhythms, etc.).
Do you have a favorite piece that you enjoy teaching your students?
It’s not a piece, but I LOVE teaching the circle of fifths!
We start by building the circle, working our way through the sharp and flat key signatures, and we find the patterns along the way. When we reach the bottom of the circle, I explain that EVERY key signature can be expressed with sharps or flats and the total number of sharps or flats will always add up to 12. This makes sense to them for the key signatures with five or six sharps/flats, but then I ask how the pattern works with a key like C Major. That’s when we get into double sharps and flats and their minds are blown!
Tell us about an app or technology that you find useful in your teaching.
My Google Home! I have a lot of smart home technology set up at my house, but I use the Google Home all the time in lessons. If a student is learning, say, the New World Symphony, I used to try to pull up a YouTube video on my phone and it wasted time and was really distracting for the students. With the Google Home I just have to ask Google to play it.
If you could visit with any composer or musician who would you choose and why?
Horatio Spafford who wrote the words for the hymn “It Is Well with My Soul” after a tremendous personal tragedy. I think I could learn some important things by spending some time with him!
Learn more about Horatio Spafford at the Spafford Center website.
What parting words of wisdom or quote do you have for parents of new piano students?
Recognize the work your child is doing. Learning an instrument is hard. Pay attention to what their teacher compliments them on and reiterate those compliments at home.
Notice when they are really working on something their teacher assigned (not just playing through the song) and recognize that they’re doing really difficult work.
What is the best way for potential students to get in touch with you?
My teaching website is andreamillerpiano.com.
My good friend Stephanie Johnson, Andrea Miller, and I at the Texas Music Teachers Association Convention June, 2018.
What a small world we live in! I 'met' Andrea on Instagram but was able to really meet her when she came to Texas last June. What a treat!
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