Dear future adult student

Dear future adult student

I have found that adult students can occasionally be the worst kind. Why? Well, when parents send their children for private lessons they are reliable. They get their children to lessons on time, the children usually practise, are enthusiastic and want to be at the lessons. The parents pay on  time (at the beginning of each month) and mostly let you know in advance if their kid is going to miss a lesson. In short, the parents are organised. Perhaps it's because they believe in the system (one-on-one private lesson's, where your child get's undivided attention by a music specialist) or they really value their child's education or they respect that you are running a professional business and act accordingly or all of the above. Either way I, personally, have only had good experiences with children as private students.

Unfortunately, (and this is not all my adult students) but the general feel is that adult students have a very different outlook. Please note that I am not venting here, just trying to put things straight. Somehow, I have discovered, adults feel that the same 'rules' don't apply to them. When I was a student I used to teach privately too, but I was very relaxed about how I conducted my business. Now that I reply on this business as my livelihood (and I have my degree and work experience), I have to protect myself in the business sense. So I ask all my students to sign a contract. In this contract it clearly states that you need to commit to a term of lessons and that you need to pay for lessons on or before your first lesson of every month. I am upfront about how much I charge (it's even on my website) and I give my students the choice of how long they want each lesson (I offer three different options). I don't charge for the first 'lesson/meeting' so that we can discuss everything that the lessons will entail, they can ask any questions and they have the option of taking home the contract to brew on it. There is no pressure. But once a person has signed the form, I assume that they have at least skim-read it and gauged and idea of how things work.

So, if you are an adult, have never played an instrument, or it has been too long and you really want to start again, here are some things to think about before you call up a teacher.

• Learning an instrument takes time. You can’t ‘fast-track’ learning an instrument unless you can already play another one and you can read music already. But even then, you still need to put in the time and effort (this means regular lessons and practice/play).
• Your goal is usually far more advanced than you are (hopefully, at least) but this means you need to be patient in getting there.
• The above comment also means that you need to listen to the guidance of your teacher/tutor. Sure, do more than what is asked of you. No teacher will be upset about that! But don't skip out the important things, like long notes and tonguing exercises for wind players.
• Music lessons are a bit like having a personal trainer, you get individual attention, but if you don't keep it up, you won't get fitter.
• Music lessons are a bit like buying a dvd contract in that you have to pay up front before taking home a dvd. 
• Music lessons cannot be on a 'pay-as-you-go' basis. This is because teacher's rely on teaching as an income. If you have not paid in advance and then don't pitch up at the lesson, the teacher looses out on your lesson as well as any other potential student that they could have taught during that time. Most teacher's want the student to succeed and are quite understanding if the occasional 'something' comes up. If you let them know in advance they usually allow you to move it to another day.
• Although music requires a lot of discipline, the pay-off is worth it, there is nothing more rewarding that achieving your goals, and it can be a lot of fun. Alternately that is the idea isn't?