Teaching Piano for Senior Citizen

Teaching senior citizens is quite different thanteaching children or younger adults. While seniorscan be highly motivated students, they must oftenovercome physical and emotional challenges nottypically faced by younger students. For example,many seniors suffer from physical problems such asfailing eyesight and/or hearing, arthritis,backaches, body aches, and other problems.Emotionally, many seniors face problems such asdepression, frustration, lack of challenge or purposein their lives and so on. Compounding the problem ofthese differences is the fact that most piano methodbooks and teaching approaches have been designed forchildren. Even method books that have been designedfor adults are often unsuitable for seniors due tovery small print, inappropriate choice of repertoire,etc. Therefore teachers who teach senior citizensmust not only understand the unique characteristicsof these students, but then must also adapt theirmethods, materials, and teaching strategies to suitthe needs of these students.