Starting Lessons with an Experienced Student
Found in: Students, Students with Prior Experience
Kym N., California
I am pretty brand new – only taught 2 lessons so far.
I have just got off from a phone conversation with a Dad. He has pretty much decided to have his son (7th grader with 5 years of traditional lesson) taking lessons from me. Still, I invited his family to come to my FIS this Saturday. I have known this family for a long time because their twin daughters and my daughter very good friends and they also play the piano quite well (both CM level 10 with branch honors).
The reason the parents are seeking another method is that the son doesn’t play very well according to them and he is not able to notice he misses a beat in a measure when playing. There’re also a couple other things too. After some thought, I can see a few ways in Simply Music that can really address the issues.
I don’t have any students who have that many years of piano lessons before. I have a feeling that he will be able to picking up the materials quicker than other students. It looks like there’re some areas about this new student I need to address that private lessons may work more effectively for him.
Now, my problem is: I actually told the Dad that I could start his son on private lessons ( for the above reasons) and now I think I have mentioned that to the dad too early.
Maybe group lessons can benefit him better! If I started him 1-on-1 now, it will be unlikely to merge him into group because I don’t have any advanced groups being a brand new teacher.
Oh, the other reason that supports my thought of giving him private lessons is that I may be able to move on to different levels and streams quicker. This could benefit me in preparation for my other groups.
Rebecca G., Colorado
Welcome to teaching! I’ve only been teaching myself for about a year so I’m probably not the most experienced person who will respond here, but I’ll share my thoughts in hopes that they’re helpful. I think you’re wise to not try and put this student in a private lesson but rather to get him into a shared lesson. Part of the whole experience of Simply Music is the group interaction, and it’s particularly helpful when you have students who move at different speeds in a class. The students who pick up the material more quickly can begin to mentor the ones who move more slowly. It’s also a good way to emphasize depth over breadth; the more advanced student can be encouraged to develop comp and improv with the extra time not required for practicing foundation level pieces. And I think it can be very helpful in untangling some of the perfectionistic standards that our culture (and particularly traditional piano lessons) tends to expect of musicians.
The main thing I want to offer is this: I have let my own anxiety and insecurity about my lack of teaching and playing experience convince me in the past that more advanced students needed to move more quickly through the curriculum or they would get bored and drop lessons with me. I now know that that was a big mistake, and I will work hard to not make it again. The students to whom I gave a lot of material very quickly in the first few months are now struggling to keep up with their playlists while simultaneously wondering why I don’t teach them an entire song plus other material each class like I did at first. It can be hard to understand this at first as a new teacher, but Simply Music is so, so, SO much about learning a way of learning and letting go of our agendas about how much material has to be delivered by a certain time or what people will think if I operate at a pace that is slow and steady.
I would encourage you to make sure you’re having lots of conversations with the family prior to them signing on (and make the FIS attendance a requirement for sure), helping them to understand that SM will be VERY different from the traditional lessons their son has taken in the past and that this is not about correcting technical mistakes the child may be making so much as developing the child’s relationship with and love for music. In my opinion, expectations of perfection and correcting technical errors straight out of the gate will only hinder that process. If the family can trust you to give their child a rich and meaningful music education, it will be worth any amount of time it takes to get there.
Laurie Richards, Nebraska
Great insights from Rebecca. This will definitely be a relationship you will have to manage. The parents likely have certain expectations based on all their past experience with traditional lessons, whether they even realize it or not. A red flag for me is the parents’ opinion that he “doesn’t play very well”. That tells me they have some specific expectations that aren’t being met, and possibly hindering him with their mindset.
It’s okay to say “I’ve thought about it some more, and I really believe it will benefit ______ to be in a class with other students.” Talk about how it puts music in a more social environment, how he can benefit from hearing and observing others playing the same pieces, and all the other benefits of shared lessons. It may turn out that the gap in learning pace is too great to be a good fit, but it would be a good place to start. You can move him into a private lesson later on if you believe it would be best for him.
I would recommend having them attend an FIS, then ask them directly about their expectations and their definition of success where their son is concerned. Then give them a clear picture of what lessons will ‘look like’ with Simply Music and ask if they can support the process. Share the overriding goal of Simply Music, which is for our students to retain music as a lifelong companion. If he enjoys playing and is making progress, but it’s not to some standard they have set, will they consider that a success? Are they willing to let go of other expectations, which might be based on what their daughters have achieved but aren’t as relevant to their son? It would be worth exploring where they’re coming from – might open their minds to other possibilities and open the door to a more positive experience for the son.