<p>A good music teacher (if we are talking about guiding a student towards admission to a music program for college, LAC or conservatory) needs to have several things based on what I am seeing as our child progresses:</p>
<p>-Obviously, they need to have demonstrated the ability to teach at a high level, there are plenty of community music teachers, even those who have gone through relatively high level programs themselves, who may not really know or understand what the requirements are today or the level (and on piano, it is way, way up there). One way to determine this is if they have had experience with guiding other students into a high level music program recently; another might be if they themselves have graduated recently from such a program, or even taught in that kind of environment. </p>
<p>-A good teacher also can realistically measure a students progress against where they need to be for auditions. I agree with others, a student probably should be ready with their audition repertoire by the spring of 11th grade-not chosen, but already worked up to as full a level as possible (and admissions people from some high level schools say that, including on the website). I don’t think the teacher should be totally responsible for determining the repertoire, it should be up to the student to look up the requirements for each program, determine what you need to fulfill those requirements in toto, and then figure out what pieces to work on with the teacher, based on the students strengths/weaknesses to fulfill them. </p>
<p>-A good teacher also has a decent knowledge of summer programs and local performance opportunities and can help the student decide whether a competition or summer festival looks promising (though it is still the student’s responsibility to look into this as well, no teacher knows everything, they can’t). </p>
<p>-A good teacher IMO also knows their limitations, and instead of trying to be all knowledgeable, is willing to say “I don’t know” or more importantly, if they feel that they may not be able to take the student all the way, help find a new teacher or find one that can work with them to fill in the gaps. </p>
<p>This on top of the obvious one, a teacher that challenges the student and more importantly, doesn’t believe that quantity=quality but rather then pushing the student forward to higher and higher level repertoire, makes sure that the technical basis is there before moving on.Seems like a no brainer, but it isn’t, there are teachers who believe the goal is to get to the highest level protocol as quickly as possible, and IME that doesn’t work well. </p>
<p>I agree with others, that it is still up to the student and their family to make sure that stuff gets done on time and to do most of the legwork, whether it is audition and other requirements of a particular program, application deadlines are met, researching performance opportunities and summer programs, etc. And if you need a letter of recommendation from a teacher for a summer program or for an admissions package, and need it by X date, then it is up to the student/family to remind the teacher well before and make sure it gets out before that date, while it would be nice if the teacher remembered on their own to do it, they are human and can forget or get swamped.</p>