In 1826 he entered the Royal Academy of Music , where he spent ten years studying . His piano teachers were W. H. Holmes , Dr William Crotch and later Cipriani Potter In 1826 he was accepted as a child prodigy into the Royal Academy of Music , and remained a pupil of that institution for the next ten years , studying pianoforte under W. H. Holmes , violin under Spagnoletti and composition under William Crotch and then Cipriani Potter .