The Anxious Musician

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A cutie playing flute

First What Are Private Lessons?

Private lessons are one-on-one instruction from an expert. Usually lessons range from 30 minutes to an hour You’ll recieve undivided attention from this individual who has spent their time, money and energy on refining their craft. The primary focus is predominantly, but not limited to learning everything about that particular instrument— however it really comes down to your individual goals and the institution. If you are attending a university as a music major, you’re signing up to learn whatever that program’s and/or teacher’s goals for their students are. If you look for a private instructor outside a university, you have more of a say in how and what you want to learn.

So… are they really that important?

ABSOLUTELY!

For a beginner musician, you might just want to learn to play to jam or stress relief, while a professional musicians might want lessons to get a second opinion. Private lessons are your safest bet in expediting the music learning. Regardless of what you want out of your musical journey, you want to make sure you’re learning safely (instrument injuries are no joke). Knowing proper technique will aid you on your health and your learning process. As educators, our goals are ultimately for the enjoyment of music. There are plenty of reasons why you private lessons are important

In my opinion, this is the most important thing that you get out of lessons; not just because your playing ability will improve immensely but also because of your health. I ended up overwork overworking a particular muscle in my back. That led to numbing part of my face and my arms for several months and it ended up really making me think about what bad habits I was engaging in. So it's really nice to have somebody to help you correct a budding bad habit or just prevent that all together. Surprising huh? That’s why you need lessons.

You Learn Faster Because of Personalized Lesson Plans and Structure

The internet is not going to know how to troubleshoot your student’s particular issues. As a teacher, my goal is for your student to advance in a comfortable and effective pace. We always talk about like how good and beneficial music school and music lessons are especially to a musicians playing ability. If you do not know what they are, they are what they sound like it is a teacher who teaches you privately on a specific topic, or in this case, instrument.

Realistic Goal Setting and Grounding

Teachers help you achieve your goals by setting realistic goals and keeping you grounded. Learning an instrument is tough! And it can get really discouraging really quick so having that point person to help guide you and advise you comes in handy. Regardless of the type of music that you want to play, it might be several months of learning or even longer.

private lessons let you have that sort of flexibility with scheduling. But also to just if there is a particular goal, or teacher will sort of speak make the best plan for you. The other thing is, it's like getting feedback right away.

Accountability and Motivation

I make sure students work on everything, even the things they don’t like. Of course, I will try to make it as palatable as possible but sometimes we have to get through the tough (and boring stuff)

Even the best of us lose motivation and we need that pick me up from someone. That’s were I come in!

Refining Fine Motor Skills

As In lessons, I assist in developing and refining fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and just musicality.

The other thing is you expand your mind. Um, I think classrooms can do this as well. But because this is more personalized, you can have conversations with teachers back and forth about particular music topics or and you can ask me questions and on top of that your teacher might introduce you to things that you wouldn't have ever been introduced to before. The obvious advantage to taking private lessons is that you just get better at your instrument.

Connections

Your kids have a chance to interact with other students and other teachers on a personal and professional level. While it may seem this can happen anywhere, there is a unique experience to music lessons and classes. In most cases, the student meets up with the teacher, at least for several years— that holds a ton of weight for something as simple as a strong recommendation letter for scholarships and colleges or even a referral for a job. Whatever it may be, these connections are crucial

Final Thoughts

That is not to say that we are not capable of teaching other genres but this is where I caution you to really really investigate who you are learning from.  I have heard of horror stories well they're not really horror but horror stories people attempting to teach a certain type of music that is not of their culture to students and that practice can be much more harm to the students and the community that music belongs to rather than just saying no I cannot do teach that type of music so that is a very big consideration for those who are looking to take private lessons are you looking to learn a certain type of music are you looking to just learn the instrument is this a long-term thing that you wanted her to participate in or is it just something for mental health I want you to consider

 I will be the first to say that private lessons are not for everybody for me very really are private lessons like a stress relief and that is because of my training and I'm trying to undo that sort of thing and just take it as you will there is a lot of constructive criticism in in taking lessons and if you're not in the right mindset for that it might be best to put it off for now other things are that usually you are making a commitment of at least a month and lessons can be very pricey so there is a financial investment that goes into learning music or learning this type of music and in terms of accessibility there are a lot of obstacles in learning from an educator especially a private ID 

there are a ton of  benefits that you gain from having a private instructor but you have to consider the actual Financial cost the time commitment the the initial costs of getting what you need and you have to consider the instructors or the school that you are attending.  I always say this to people who are wanting to sign up for lessons I encourage you to do it because there is a beautiful Journey that comes with it however do your research. Information and knowledge are valuable however you do not want the process to be harmful in attaining that and I wish I could go back and tell myself that when I was younger to treat this as as lessons that are here to help me not just technically and proficiency of my instrument but also I'm looking for a mentor that is within the field that is there to uplift me and not break me down, 

 this isn't to scare you or any of that stuff I have gotten lessons from over 15 instructors in my lifetime and I've learned what works and what doesn't work for me usually every single lesson that I have received I at least have left with some new knowledge that I  cherish and has taken me further in my career no matter how short my time was with that teacher

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