[krumpet]

Nobody should work with a pompous instructor who decides what is / isn't acceptable on an instrument. As a former guitar teacher, I would help my students learn whatever they wanted - Van Halen, Brittany Spears, Garth Brooks, whatever.

All music has something of merit if you're willing to look for it.

[vidarh]

I think it's more it's probably not a very effective piece to learn with. You can learn a few techniques from your teacher and then it's just practicing the variations and transitions, because it repeats roughly the same changes over and over. Learning the piece during your lessons is likely a waste.

[sdenton4]

I have bad news concerning pop music.

[vidarh]

Very little pop music is as repetitive as the moonlight sonata. In that respect it is more closely related to trance than pop. Most pop music is also shorter, and an easier mix of even shorter movements.

In other words, most of it will be over a lot sooner for the poor, suffering teacher.

[broscillator]

Do you play piano?

[ilyt]

I mean I agree with you but I also understand not wanting to do the same fucking song done badly for millionth time.

[organsnyder]

> I also understand not wanting to do the same fucking song done badly for millionth time

My wife is a piano teacher. This describes a large part of her job, especially since she focuses on beginners. She'd be so happy if she could teach "Moonlight Sonata" all day. "Old Macdonald" is much more common.

My wife does feel looked-down-upon by some in her profession who see teaching advanced students as more prestigious. But the process of taking a student from beginner to Beethoven (not that she stops there with her students) is every bit as challenging as taking a student from Beethoven to Rachmaninoff.

[bborud]

I can't understand why someone would look down on people teaching beginners. If you teach beginners you play perhaps the most critical role in someone's development. For one, it is the stage where someone is going to decide if this is something they enjoy, and want to carry on doing, or not. Second, you are taking someone from nothing to something. That's a huge step.

[krumpet]

You're spot on.

My wife is a middle school mathematics teacher (and a damn good one). Sooooo many former students (now high schoolers) have approached her and said, "Because of you, I excelled in math in high school...and I love it!"

She had a student last year who actually told her in a very long letter, "You taught me that math matters. You taught me that I MATTER."

The earliest teachers / coaches / mentors set the foundation which is absolutely critical for all future learning.

Want to experience the highest of highs? Become a teacher. Alas, being do close to kids who are changing so rapidly (and often struggling with things outside of school) it also comes with some pretty deep lows.

[acjohnson55]

I was a teacher and the enormity of the highs and lows is spot on. It's not a job for the faint hearted.

[Moru]

We as a society need to step down our high horses. All jobs have a purpose without which our society would not be what it is today, good or bad.

[matsemann]

I remember someone many years arguing in the media that we shouldn't have the best coaches for the national soccer team. We should have the best coaches for our kids, and in a few years that would pay off tremendously. While I don't know how to do that in practice, that upside-down thinking kinda struck a cord with me. We should do that with more things.