The characteristics of a successful musician and performer according to Mehrad Kohanbaba, a successful Iranian musician, and entrepreneur

Practice purposefully: Short-term and aimless practice have no benefits for you. Daily practicing in certain periods is so beneficial. For instance, assign 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. for practicing and try to practice at that time every day.

Practice with an appropriate teacher: not every good performer is a good teacher. Teaching piano is a complicated and time-consuming process. The teacher must communicate with their art student, prepare suitable topics and packages for each student, be qualified to analyze the selected music pieces, and use the teaching time at the top level of efficiency.

Teachers must have obtained a teaching degree. You can visit a music association or guidance office in your town to find a teacher who has qualifications and a formal degree. On the music association and guidance office websites, you can access the list of valid institutes that are obliged to hire teachers with official degrees only.

The teaching license is given by the House of Music or the University of Music and the Conservatory that includes performance exams, Solfège, principles, and methods of teaching music. This license must be renewed every five years. Do not hesitate to ask your teacher to show their license.

In addition, teachers should present a complete plan of the relevant references and teaching methods, and the student has the right to inquire about the references or alter them. The teaching plan of the first year should be explained to the art student in form of a written manuscript and at the end of each semester, an exam based on principles and piano teaching methods is taken, and the certificate related to that course is given then.  

The educational detail and progress rate of the art student should be included in the report forms so that if the student tends to change their teacher, the next tutor would know the point that they should start from. Note that art students have the right to change their tutor for any reason.

Practice with modern techniques: there are plenty of methods for teaching piano: Beer, Cherney, Suzuki, James Bastin, Michael Arron, Alfred, and so on. Each of them has its special method in teaching, however, all of them follow a gradual procedure, but could not be classified at one level.