[Alan Tang]

Depends on the student for me. I once had a student who was very young (5 years) who I taught for an hour. It was for logistical reasons as the drive to them was 45 mins. In hindsight, 30 mins would have been better!!! However, this student is now able to concentrate for longer periods of time but in my opinion it is a combination of age and those 60 mins lessons when he was younger.

I think by default I teach 30 mins or 60 mins for ease but have noticed when I increase to 45 mins I can get more covered. I have also noticed that I have done this with those preparing for exams and I tend to do this about 6 weeks before. 45 mins or 60 mins virtually can be quite tough though.

[Alan Tang]

approximately 55% female, 45% male

I have different methods when it comes to practicing based on what other activities they do, e.g. after school clubs or work, etc.

If it is a beginner I encourage a student (especially a child) to practice 2 times a week for approximately 10 minutes. In my opinion, and especially for a beginner, this does not appear too long and students may not pick up ‘bad’ habits if practising longer.

However, I have one student who currently practices 21 times a week and prefers the quantity of practice times. I have built my lessons around him encouraging him to work on small sections at a time so when he practices he looks at specific sections. In reality, when he practices he probably practices about 1 minute each time he moves to the piano.
I have had one student where dad insisted that he practices 60 minutes everyday (at Grade 1). I told him to half the practice time and to practice every other day. He’ll still end up practicing and I said to dad that it was important that he did not resent going to the piano.
I believe all my students practice apart from 2 or 3 students as I want them to believe that when they practice (2 times a week for 10 minutes) that this is achievable. If this was not achievable then they would lose motivation to practice.

[Alan Tang]

What a great discussion.

Over the last 3 years I have had 39 students to date.

I think I have been relatively fortunate as I have retained almost 49% of my students. Out of these 49, 84% of them have been with me at least 1 year.

The ones that I have lost have been for different reasons:
The general pattern is the majority of the students that I have lost have been adults. Their work flexibility has meant that they have found it difficult to practice.
I have lost 9 adults due to this. (45%)
I have had 4 students that were always going to be short term i.e. less than a year.(20%)
The remaining 7 students have been children and they left due to a loss of interest (35%)

I am always open to who I teach but due to time constraints I am hoping to teach more adults than children. There are only so many hours you can teach after school!
And teaching during the day fills up the time!

There is always that slight risk with adults as it might be seen that you have to help them develop new disciplines and with children you are able to do that far more easily.

[Alan Tang]

I believe there are lots of reasons:

1) Depending on where a catchment area is in the UK, some schools offer ‘free’ lessons. There are pros and cons for this. The opportunity for ‘free’ lessons is amazing but on the flip side, students will view the lessons as free and therefore will not value lessons as much.
2) Though 1-2-1 is effectively the most successful way of teaching, it is also the most expensive. Some parents may not see the value of this as 30 minutes can go very quickly. Parents will also look for value for money.
3) More schools are viewing music (and the arts) as less important due to the EBacc and so GCSE Music may not be chosen as an option. Therefore, students who have lessons will probably give up at Year 9.
4) Students themselves sometimes only see learning an instrument as leading to a musician or music teacher. They may not value the holistic qualities that music lessons may have.
5) Music lessons can be expensive from some parents point of view: a musical instrument, lessons, exams, etc. In my opinion, the first 2 years are the key time in terms of the student. If they persevere in these two years, then there will some long term benefits to us as teachers…

[Alan Tang]

I had a similar email a few years ago about a tip and excessive pay.
I initially was quite surprised by the email and before I considered replying, the email was flagged up and identified as spam.

More recently similar emails have been sent asking for lessons to start as early as possible.

For me what is most noticeable about these is the terrible use of grammar and spelling mistakes that you see in the email. Mine is not brilliant but there is clear difference my errors and the emails written!