As we enter the "Age of Intelligence‟ (Buzon, 2011) the focus of Malaysia and other developing nations has turned to the value of human capital and its ability to produce creative, independent leaders as a primary investment for future growth. Creativity is nothing new to music educators: music has continually been a creative learning and teaching tool; employing methods and approaches that have been transferred from parent to child, sage to novice and teacher to student and which develops aural, visual, physical, kinaesthetic and written communication skills. Music education can provide teaching and learning examples to develop these previously underestimated soft skills which are now in high demand. Notwithstanding, both Australia and Malaysia have identified music education in schools (Classroom and instrumental) as an area in dire need of improvement and programs of curricula improvements have begun. Gwatkin (2008) identified the need for consistency of government policy, teacher.....

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Connecting piano teachers who work in isolated situations with recent research and training is difficult, especially when accreditation, registration with professional bodies, training or ongoing professional development is not mandatory. In previous Australian and international studies, many piano teachers have reported that they do not feel comfortable teaching adults who have reported difficulty finding suitable teachers. Historically, piano performance qualifications have excluded pedagogical training particularly for adults. Current trends defer pedagogical studies to the postgraduate level whilst piano teachers have requested it at earlier stages of their training. To solve these issues within the piano teaching industry, this study set out to examine the teaching skills and needs of both piano teachers and their adult students in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Qualitative data was collected using face-to-face meetings, email, questionnaires, student journals, teacher reflections,.....

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