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There are a lot of people and schools who give music lessons but very few with the skills and process necessary to create consistent results. It takes years of experience to learn how to teach effectively, and our system of Exact Instruction allows students and teachers to take advantage of our collective knowledge and wisdom. Below is a comparison of the the most common approach to music lessons and how we are different.

Problems with modern piano methods
1. Unbalanced and incomplete: Unbalanced emphasis on certain aspects of music while neglecting others.

2. Introduce error: Employs teaching tricks and shortcuts which, instead of speeding up learning, serve to introduce error and confusion that hinder development of necessary concepts and skills.

3. Need "transition": Uses ineffective methods for teaching note reading such as hand positions proving to be inadequate when the student gets to more complicated music creating the need for teachers to learn how to overcome difficult "transitions" to piano literature.

4. Delay progress: Artificially delays progress, repeating many songs at the same level of difficulty causing students to wait several years unnecessarily before playing piano literature.

5. Lack technical explanations: Gives inadequate direction concerning development of proper technique.

6. Draw on fun and entertainment: Use mostly familiar and popular songs designed to entertain students eventually causing them to lose interest in music.

7. Reactive teaching: Does not provide what the teacher needs in order to fully prepare students to play and understand correctly the first time.

The solutions in The Conservatory Course
1. Balanced and complete: Provides a comprehensive and balanced system for teaching all aspects of piano simultaneously.

2. Correct errors: Corrects the common errors prevalent in today's teaching methods, presenting concepts in context and in the easiest, most understandable order - the order in which they developed historically.

3. Progresses steadily without transition: Develop alphabetical reading, saving enormous amounts of lesson time that will be freed up for demonstrating and working out technical skills.

4. Accelerate progress: Accelerates progress, avoiding the extended delay in progress typical of today's methods (Level 2 of the Conservatory Piano Course is equivalent to level 4 of many others).

5. Step-by-step technical development: Provides practical step-by-step guidance for teaching technical skills, including ways to verbally explain and physically demonstrate them so students are able to reproduce the desired sound.

6. Draw on the joy of learning: Provides universally accepted piano literature, designed to develop students' musical understanding and broaden their musical exposure by acquainting them with the musical thoughts of the minds of great composers.

7. Proactive teaching: Saves valuable lesson time by teaching proactively, preventing the need for remedial work, and by providing the most straightforward and efficient path to learning. Thus, minimizing the differences in students by helping more students succeed.