Who was your first music teacher and what valuable lesson did they teach you?

My first teacher, Peter Karaguenov, taught me to love music deeply. He was a composer and arranger and arranged many things for me to play solo, duet with him and with the local orchestra. It was an exciting experience going into each and every lesson as I anticipated making music together and also hearing him perform and improvise for me. 

Dorothy Luft, Norwood, RI. She always had a solution for any technical problem. I was blessed to have her as my first teacher.

My first teacher was Martin Roider (Waterloo Illinois), and my first instrument was the accordion.

My parents had me start accordion lessons around the age of six, in part I'm sure, because of Lawrence Welk and Myron Floren, and our German heritage. Martin showed me that I could do this music thing, which became a lifelong love.  He was kind and patient, which was required for a six year old accordion student!

Fast forward a couple of years. I found that after learning the accordion keyboard, I could sit at a piano, and just play. Which I've been doing ever since.

My current teacher is ToneBase, and I cannot give enough kudos to my current teacher!
 

Norma B*** of Casper Wyoming... what a horrible piece of work she was. I learned complete obedience from her and the consequences of the slightest deviation of instruction or of original thought. 

Luckily after one particularly 'severe' lesson - shall we say - my parents saw the marks of her frustration on my body and took me out of piano with her.

I started with Sister Reparata at St Anthony's school and she was an absolute sweet, kind soul with a love of children and music - she brought Bach from black and white to color for me and I will forever be grateful to her. Another nun that was there always wanted me to play Swanee River for her - it made her so happy that I learned not only can music heal, but also provide healing and happiness to others. 

I think of her often when my progress is incremental or I want to give up and I remember why I play piano. 

I won't say who my first piano teacher was because the lesson they taught me is how important it is to have a good quality teacher for beginner students and unfortunately she wasn't.  My teacher was kind and she was the local neighborhood teacher.  I took lessons with her from age 3 to age 9.  When we moved it was recommended to my parents to study with Peter Turner at Mount Royal College.  He became my younger sisters first piano teacher (she was 4) and my next piano teacher.  I spent the next 2 years unlearning bad habits while my sister developed good habits from the start.  My wrists were stiff, sight reading skills terrible, staccato was hilarious and on and on.  It's easier to learn proper skills from the start.  As I type this I realize that she did impart a love of music.  I won a bust of Mozart for my grade 4 exam marks at her year end concert and she had a great stack of comic books to read while waiting for your lesson.      

My first teacher of substantial length was Ms. Logan. I remember 2 lessons a week with her. One partner lesson and one group lesson. We used the Robert Pace Method. We had fun especially at group lessons as we learned to be more creative. She taught me the value of 2 lessons a week. I studied with her for only about 3 years. She gave me Elves and Fairies by Alec Rowley to learn and I couldn't get enough of those pieces. 

My first teacher was killed in a accident with a semi; I was 4 at the time. My second teacher I had from ages 5 to 19. Her name was Nancy Lance. She taught piano, organ, guitar and voice. She taught not just the instrument but also an appreciation of structure (yes, I had written homework lessons) with a focus on Melody. That is why I like a lot of Bach's 2 and 3 part inventions, and why it became easy for me to compose songs and orchestrations. No wonder why Chopin played Bach before his concerts and studied his works when Bach was essentially unknown. Unfortunately many playing Chopin focus on speed and forget that those studies are songs with beautiful melodies. 

My first teacher was a young woman who used to come to our house to teach my older sisters.  She had gone to Peabody (in Baltimore), and in my memory she was a pretty good pianist and was very organized as a teacher, but also very assembly-line and not at all good on technique. By the time I started with her, around 1967, she had moved to giving lessons in her parents' basement on a Baldwin Hamilton upright (I heard she had a Steinway grand upstairs but never saw it!). I could already read music, and we moved quickly through some beginner lit and easy theory books, but then we got to the hard stuff and I had no idea how to practice, plus, the fact that she never had student recitals didn't supply much motivation. I never memorized anything, and I never performed anywhere. My parents were not that much into music and I never went to concerts. My lessons were fun, and I guess I learned something, but it wasn't until much later in life that I started getting any idea how all of this worked. I quit actively playing piano in my teens (switched to cello), but I've been back at it for the past 15 years or so. 

In retrospect, the most valuable lesson was first teachers are very important! Parents, don't skimp and don't let things slide if it appears the teacher isn't doing their job!

Thelma P outside of Philadelphia...fortunate to have had such a great teacher.

Valuable lesson: Practicing anything slowly in different rhythms yields magical results.

It was Tian Tee Lee who was our high school band conductor in Singapore. He taught us musicality very early on. About phrasing and expressivity. Also exposed us to orchestral/musicals/soundtracks through band arrangements. I'd say we were profoundly impacted by his teaching!

Growing up in Sri Lanka, my first piano teacher was Mrs. Vanessa Redlich. Unfortunately, my experience with her was not good. From the very beginning, I could sense the personality conflict - which was an unusual situation for me, because I was an academic high achiever, and got on well with my primary school teachers. I think it's because she taught in a very  "feelings based" (this is how you do such- and- such) way, without grounding the material within a logical, theoretical framework.

Because my mom was also dissatisfied with  her teaching, I ended up changing teachers. My second teacher really stressed theory, and I went through three grades' worth of material in my first year with her. In my second year under her tutelage, I won the Grade Four theory prize for obtaining the highest score nationally, in the Trinity College exam. ( The two national music exams were conducted by the Trinity, and Royal Schools of Music in London.)

I studied with her for nearly ten years before leaving Sri Lanka to attend college in the USA.

I guess, the lesson to be learned here is that any subject needs to be grounded with a theoretical framework for it to make sense.

I've been fortunate enough to have several wonderful music teachers, but my first was Jennifer Nicol, in 5th grade band, who taught me several important things. My first year learning an instrument was her first year teaching, and by the time I graduated high school, I had learned that good teachers grow with their students. She also taught me that it's okay to ask a thousand questions, because good teachers value curiosity and enthusiasm and will generally never say "no," although sometimes they might say "yes, but please not right now; it's time to go home." She also taught me to experiment and problem solve at my instrument. When I was trying to play a 3-mallet vibraphone solo and asked how to hold two mallets in one hand, she didn't know because she was a flautist, so she encouraged me to try different things until I discovered "whatever worked for me to be able to play the music." I got marked down for not using a "proper" grip but managed to get a I at State Solo & Ensemble, and I still remember how accomplished I felt knowing that I had done so without the "usual" technical skills and knowledge that my peers might have had. I loved music already, but she kept putting fuel on the fire and made sure that I kept loving it, so that after 6 years of not playing post-high school, I was able to find my way back and make it to where I'm at now, studying with and learning from more incredible teachers.

My very first piano teacher was a nun at the school I attended, when I was in first grade. She taught me to develop a regular practice and to enjoy it. 
I also had a fear of swallowing vitamin pills. To this day, I can still remember her demonstrating throwing her head back to take her daily aspirin. It was a good tip!