I’m a MM student majoring in piano in a prestigious conservatory. I applied several schools for DMA including my current school. My current teacher is a great performer but he doesn’t seem to care about his students too much. He often cuts lesson time and his studio only has several students left. I really want to switch to the other professor’s studio. That professor’s studio is very hard to get in and he is friendly with my current teacher. Our school’s DMA program is very competitive and I’m thinking about meeting the professor I want to study with before auditioning (however, if he thinks i’m not good enough he will still reject taking me in his studio)
I’m friendly with my current teacher and since he has so few students, I’m afraid it will hurt him if I tell him I want to study with the other professor. Anybody has experience with dealing this kind of situation? should I talk to the professor I want to study with before talking to my current teacher?
Without knowing the players and politics in your environment, it is difficult for an outsider to comment. Of course, the easy answer is that everyone should be an adult…and open to discussion…but sadly a lot of people are not so straight-forward and can easily have bruised egos. How you explain your teacher gives me pause in going down that road.
So my recommendation would be to try to get some guidance from another trusted faculty member. It would be great if you felt you could go to the head of the dept for guidance. You probably wouldn’t be the first person seeking out this type of advice. But any faculty member that you feel is mature, has good judgment and is respected by other faculty members may be able to give you some insight on how best to approach this situation. My D has run into issues on occasion with other faculty members. In a few of those cases, her teacher has said to let her deal with it. You may find someone who will advocate for you behind the scenes if they know that there are issues.
In the end, however, you do deserve an engaged teacher. AND you will not HURT your teacher by leaving him. Do not take on his problems as your own. While your compassion for him is fine, the bottom line is that his lack of students is NOT your problem. You need to think of your future and not his. His lack of students is solely his problem. Focus on you.
As bridgenail said, it can be a minefield when switching teachers. Some are professional, like my S’s current teacher, a student of his transferred to another conservatory because a teacher he worked with in the past and he felt could give him more of what he needed, and the teacher not only didn’t get mad, he also saw the student on a part time basis at his new school since he taught there as well…other teachers treat students as their property and can be first class, autocratic pin heads when kids want to transfer to another teacher. It seems counterintuitive, because if you look at the bio of most teachers and performers, they themselves have usually had many teachers, so you figure they would understand, but some sadly don’t…
Okay, so how to handle this? Carefully. First of all, it is great you feel empathy for the teacher you have, but whether he has 5 students or 50 is irrelevant, because this has to be about you. If you feel this teacher isn’t cutting it, that you aren’t progressing right, then you need to look at other options. If your program only has the two teachers (or they are the only two you consider to be appropriate for you), the fact that they are friends could complicate it. I agree with what someone else said, you may want to find another faculty member who knows both teachers and ask them how they think teacher A and teacher B would handle if you wanted to change from A to B. They might tell you that B won’t poach from A, they may tell you they both are good and that you should bring it up, having that perspective is invaluable, and it is likely unless someone on hear pm’s you who knows the program, which is unlikely, that may be the way to go.
You could try broaching it with your teacher and see how he reacts, but that can be dangerous, I wouldn’t do that until you have some idea how receptive he may be. The other thing to think about is if professor B has a full studio, even if A thinks it is okay, you may not get in, even if you are really good, he/she may simply not have slots. Have you thought about possibly applying to another music program for the DMA? Finish you MM there, and then go another place…there are benefits to that, the other school may be located someplace where it will help you post graduation, they may have a teacher you click with, etc, and it is an alternative. To be honest, if the department only has those two teachers, my gut tells me that you likely would have a very hard time switching, and would you want to commit to a DMA program with a teacher you don’t feel is handling you right? And if you do apply to B’s studio, as you said, he may not even want to take you, either out of friendship to A or because he doesn’t think you/he are a fit together, so you may want to have an alternate path as well.