Instruction

[Abe Sloan]

Although I have played before, this week I will be having my first private lesson. Feeling a little strange about it probably because it will be a new experience and also be I will be about three times as old as my teacher. At the same time I am feeling so fortunate to be able take lessons now and to live in a college town where good teachers can be found. Anyone out there with thoughts, suggestions, or advice, please share.

[Anonymous]

this is an edited reply that i used in the past

the thing with music teachers, no matter how well you get to know them, once your lesson is over, they usually have someone else’s lesson next so they don’t always have time for idle chat, time is money to them – get your moneys worth out of them and don’t waste your lesson money time with non-related music lesson stuff.

The only thing i can recommend if someone decides to employ a teacher,
is to sit down first and do some soul searching 1st and work out exactly
what you want from them! Then meet up with them and make clear to
them what you want from them – that way both of you are clear as to what
you want & they are clear on what they should be teaching you.

My teacher has lots of people with different lesson requirement-
most youngsters want to do grades – so he gears them up for grades.
some experienced players just go for an hours jam session (they often have no social playing friends at that level)
some people just go along to learn to play specific songs properly.
some just want to be taught theory.
Some have identified problem areas – like bad intonation, problems with setup, out of time etc – and want to improve in these areas.

Over the 18 months of lessons i have had, i have continually taken stock & reassessed what i have wanted from my teacher, its a case of priorities,

one month i wanted to work on dynamics, another month i wanted to recap
some of the work i had learnt previously.
As the months go by, my objects changed.

One thing i do is – i include Johnny Ferreira’s music courses to improve my tone! – don’t waste valuable lesson money when his course will suffice! Also don’t waste money on different setups (mouthpiece, ligatures etc..) to get a better tone when you start out – it’ll just make matters worse.

The 1st 6 months of lesson for me was all about embouchure, finger technique & simple music theory! Then i opted to do alto sax grades – for me some sort of bench mark progress, also useful to get in jazz bands/orchestras. Also i felt with doing a grade, to me the sax teacher took the lessons a bit more seriously.

[Abe Sloan]

Thanks JB. This is helpful. I will think these things through and make a written priority list before my first meeting. Johnny’s beginning course has been my starting point and I plan to stick with that one and progress to others. I think my first months will be like you describe. Thanks again.

[Author]

Posts