Baby Boomer 're-starter' pianists: A study of statistics, science, and application to create a guide for teaching this increasing type of piano student

With each passing year, an increasing number of Baby Boomers retire and wish to fill their free time with leisurely activities, such as piano lessons. This increase in older piano students includes a significant number of piano "re-starters" wishing to continue lessons that ended over forty years before. Several authors have written books for beginner adults but less materials for the "re-starters," which produces a problem for teachers wishing to have guidelines for this newer group of students. This creates a new need for research in the field of generational learning habits, pedagogical techniques for teaching a skill learned decades prior, and appropriate adult method books for these students. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the learning habits of the Baby Boomer generation, provide an overview of the adult literature geared toward these students, and apply these findings to piano lessons presently taught. From there, general teaching techniques will be summarized into a set of general guidelines for instructing this new group of students.;The common myth that older adults have a lower brain function is still debatable with brain researchers. Their physical capacities in some aspects decline, but the brain is still quite capable of learning and recalling new activities. Technological advances and life experiences affect generational learning styles in a large way, so it is important to incorporate them into the teaching of adults. The research into adult learning habits has been incorporated into several method books, which serve as a general introduction for beginning pianists. When presented to the adult "re-starter," these books are quickly dismissed as too easy. There is little help from piano pedagogy textbooks on where to proceed from here with this type of student. While testing the above concepts, it is concluded that the Baby Boomer "re-starter" is very independent, and the teacher's job is to figure out the goals and repertoire that best suit the student. The goal of this thesis is to provide a reference for teaching leisurely yet productive lessons for this growing type of student.