By Penny Wayne, Guest Blogger, Director – Wayland School of Music
Parents often ask on community boards for recommendations for music teachers, sometimes adding “…..preferably one who’ll teach my child at home.”
We totally understand! Life is ridiculously busy, children have to be carpooled to many activities, family and work obligations are competing for your time – and a teacher who will come to your home, leaving you to answer your emails or get dinner started while s/he works with your child, sounds very convenient.
But – that convenience is offset by a number of other factors that you’ll want to consider, as you make this important decision about an activity you’d like to become a rewarding and enjoyable part of your child’s life.
First – kids really benefit from seeing that they’re part of the community of a music school. They meet other kids coming in and out with instruments, and overhear them playing a piece they want to play themselves (or experiencing the same challenges). They perform with them when we take our music out into the community. They learn that playing an instrument is not just something we do in isolation, and begin to understand that they are part of something much larger – a fellowship of young musicians.
Second – the more professionally-established, experienced, and musically successful the teacher, the less likely s/he is to feel that home visits make sense. Without any disrespect meant to younger or less experienced teachers – most of us find, as we become more established in our musical careers, that having all our students come to one studio location is a much better model both educationally and economically. There are many distractions at home for your child, and driving from lesson to lesson takes time and gas for the teacher. So teaching in a well-set-up professional studio with all our music and other tools, and where we can accompany students as they play, makes much more sense for the professionally-established teacher and her students.
These are the teachers we hire at Wayland School of Music. We believe that all students, from complete beginner to developing young artist, deserve to have this kind of successful, inspiring, established musician – one with deep professional experience as both teacher and performer – as their guide to their instrument and the beautiful world of music. (For more on why we feel this is so important, see here.)
Third – students themselves seem instinctively to take their lessons much more seriously, and learn better, when they go out to a dedicated studio or music school rather than taking lessons in their living room. What clinched it for us here at WSM was hearing one of our teachers comment that when he became established enough professionally to stop doing home visits, and transferred his remaining home students to his professional studio – those same students began to progress twice as fast and play much better!
For all these reasons, we think you’ll find it worthwhile to give your child the best possible musical start, by taking the plunge and signing up for lessons at an established professional music school – one where all the lessons take place under one roof.