Group versus Private Lessons

Here at Music For Young Children we start the students in group classes.  The children attend classes with a parent in which they learn to play a keyboard instrument. We sing, play games, play rhythm ensembles, do sight reading and ear training activities.  It’s a total music lesson and the children learn from each other.  Each week they can see how others are progressing in their studies and can measure their own progress.  When a child is one on one with the teacher, they don’t have that same advantage of seeing how the group is progressing.  They can’t hear how a piece should sound, how quickly it needs to be played.  When preparing for examinations, all students are placed in private lessons so the teacher can fine tune what the examiner is looking for.  I find that the students who have come from group lessons are far superior to the students who take private lessons only.  It isn’t too hard to fine tune students who already know their pieces and just have to correct a few notes and work on tempos and dynamics.  Many private students just don’t have that model to follow as they are relying on themselves for everything.  It becomes very discouraging, they feel they are the only ones experiencing the difficulties and they aren’t very successful.  As a result, they drop out of lessons much earlier.  There is something to be said for a student finding that a particular piece is challenging only to find out that a classmate is having the same struggles.  They can learn together.  “Two heads are better than one”.

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Sincerely,

Mrs. F
Gwen Fedorowich
B.Ed., ARCT, ECE, MYCC 
https://www.myc.com/members/gfedorowich/