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Comment by volkk | Hacker News Reader

that's sad. a yearning musician should be able to learn and play whatever they want and whatever makes them feel a certain thing. moonlight sonata evokes something in me i can't explain (which is probably why it's a legendary piece). having strong opinions on what to play when learning feels so gatekeepy. i would have dropped that teacher quickly

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My kids just started piano lessons last night and definitely I was a little unsure to hear one of them starting out with I Like Coffee ("the knuckle song"), but I quickly went through this same thought process myself: it's great they're off to a good start doing something that is fun and exciting for them.

Yes, but a teacher I think has the right to decide that after teaching the same song 500 times they never want to hear it again.

I think people can be allowed one song they are tired of.

I’d guess the reason would be different, I think that a person that gets bothered by music repetition would not work as a music teacher.

You might avoid moonlight sonta, but then it’s 500 servings of fur elise.

Or they've learned through their experience they simply don't like the kind of person who insists on learning the one song they like, and can't teach them well, so it's a good filter.

But hey, not every teacher is for every student and vice-versa; and that's okay.

a major rule should instead be: "choose the song you love and let's learn it" -- tells me a lot more about the kind of teaching they do than off the bat shooting down songs. sounds obnoxious. teachers can do whatever they want ofc. doesn't make them good teachers

Naw, the priority is the student not the teacher

I wouldn't be surprised if the reason it's so famous is simply because it has that title.

B. wrote 32 sonatas, only a few have titles, and they're usually the most known ones. No one remembers "Opus 27 No. 2".

Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful movement, but there's much better ones among his sonatas.

Actually, teachers are human beings and they're allowed to have preferences, likes and dislikes. It's okay that not every teacher is for every student 100% of the time. Something can be a bad student/teacher fit without it being a negative value judgment ("sad", "gatekeeping", "drop").

teachers are held to a higher standard because their responsibility is a lot higher than the average citizen, so while theyre fully allowed to do whatever they want and have preferences -- i won't hold them to a standard that i do an average person. they need to above all have the highest patience and the least amount of gatekeeping, full stop.

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