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Originally Posted by Willravel
My mum's a piano teacher and started teaching me as a very young boy—not to make a Mozart of me but rather because I asked (I said "please"). Piano is a big part of my personal history. Also, I've taught piano on an off since I was 14. I'm sure it colors my opinions in this thread very much. I don't see it as elitism or exclusiveness, though. I happen to have experience with this. I'm a lot more experienced with this than I am with anything else, quite probably.
I know you're not asking Kelly to put a vase to a piano string, but consider what it means to answer a simple question with a complex and wide open answer. "I'd like to learn piano", could be responded to by saying, "there are a million and one ways to learn," but it seems more like a crusade against the status quo than advice. Not that I have anything against challenging the status quo.
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Assuming an instructor is necessary does seem exclusivist to me, though. It says that the only way to learn is by doing it your specific way and that any of the other ways to go about it are wrong. Not everyone wants a teacher. Frankly, I could afford instruction on piano and know an excellent teacher who I already see regularly anyway. I forego this despite it all because I don't feel that a teacher is necessary for my own growth. Telling someone who is disinclined to otherwise hire a tutor that "a piano teacher is a must" and that "Self teaching misses the subtle nuances necessary to develop proper technique" as if there's some obscure ritualistic sorcery involved, well that's essentially telling that person that your way is the only right way. When it comes to artistic endeavors there is no one right way. In fact, there isn't even a wrong way. It's up to each individual to find their correct path. If that path includes a guide, than so be it. If not, that's okay too. And that's really what I'm getting at.
I don't like the idea that there are people here who dismiss me as a musician because I chose not to take formal instruction.