The Benefits of Private lessons

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 will receive 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 the basics and technique of that particular instrument— often sprinkled with music history, music theory and other musical topics. However, it really comes down to your individual goals and the institution. If you are attending a university as a music major, you are signing up to learn whatever that program’s and/or teacher’s goals are 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 private lessons really that important?

ABSOLUTELY!

For a beginner musician, you might just want to learn to play to jam or stress relief. While, 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 are 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 private lessons are important:

You Avoid Bad Habits

As a musician, bad habits can prevent you from enjoying the music learning process potentially leading to you to poor growth and progression. Bad habits as a musician looks different for everyone but more often than not could lead to physical ailments or even improper instrument care. Physical ailments can come from holding the instrument incorrectly, repetitive motion, overuse, unusual movements, strained tension, or improper posture. Poor instrument care looks like improper cleaning, storage, eating before playing, or a combination of one or more of potentially leading to damage.

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

Refining Fine Motor Skills

It is not just about blowing air through a horn and wiggling your fingers. It is about the fine motor skills. Fine motor skills are defined as the utilization of small muscles of your body to complete a functional task with the appropriate amount of force, precision, and dexterity. This can be something like essential to facilitating everyday tasks. In the context of music and music lessons, we want to work on this particular aspect so you can perform difficult works and have more flexibility in your musical ability without hurting yourself.

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, we are often tasked with understanding how your mind and body work. If something is mentally blocking you, we come up with ways to overcome that blockage. If you are physically unaware, we help you develop that awareness. My goal is for your student to advance in a comfortable and effective pace.

Scheduling is a Little Bit More Flexible

A nice perk to this is that scheduling is just a little bit more flexible so usually you get to pick a time that is right for you, if it is a bigger music school. Even in university, you have to decide and pick a time in each semester that best works with your schedule. Customizing the lesson plan with a teacher allows you to keep your student continue to be motivated to keep learning with the right teacher. It is beneficial to have different pedagogy techniques or different topics at hand. If a subject is too frustrating and produces little progress, a teacher can always take a step back and try a new strategy. While if somebody is way ahead, you can always push more and have the student strive for more challenging concepts and material. And on top of that, what's nice about having a private lesson teacher and seeing them all the time, is that sometimes a teacher can help direct your frustrations in life and to music which is pretty a pretty neat thing.

Realistic Goal Setting, Accountability, Motivation, and Grounding

Private lesson instructors help you achieve your goals by setting realistic expectations while keeping you grounded, motivated and accountable. Learning an instrument is tough! It can get really discouraging really quick so having person of reference 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 and that is only in reference to learning about the instrument— we have not even talked about learning music theory or history!

The best of us sometimes lose motivation and we need that pick me up from someone. That is where a music teacher comes in! A private lesson teacher is going to see the best in you, encourage you and walk through the obstacles with you in your musical journey. We will be your personal cheerleaders through the hard parts and we will also keep you on task.

Soft Skills Development

Otherwise known as “people skills,” these characteristics often are of the upmost importance outside of being a musician. They are traits that will apply to everyday life and will follow them throughout the entirety of their adulthood. Soft Skills young musicians develop include: patience, perseverance, creativity, communication, discipline, problem-solving, time management, attention to detail, team collaboration, openness to feedback, stress management, and confidence, to name a few.

Connections

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

The benefits to having an applied instructor are endless. I am a huge advocate for getting that support for your musical journey. Take it from someone who has gone through 15+ teachers. I have personally observed how the right person can take you miles ahead of your journey.