Teacher traits to consider as you take lessons and prepare to choose your college/music school.
A degree in music is unique in many aspects, but this one-to-one relationship between student and private lesson teacher is particularly important. In other fields, a student might have to seek out a mentor, counselor, or even a tutor, but music students find this role to be part of their built-in degree requirements. It will shape the music student’s future career, thoughts about playing, thoughts about teaching, and even thoughts about life. The private teacher can thus be a tremendous asset OR somewhat of a personal hurdle.
Learning a musical instrument at a high level is extremely challenging, and becoming a professional in the field is in some ways more competitive than making it onto a team in the NFL or NBA. The one-on-one time spent each week with a private teacher is an integral part of music study. For all of these reasons, it is important to closely consider the following things as part of your overall school decision. (As an aside, the teacher relationship is SO important, that it can often override the marketing and notoriety of the school itself.)
1. Can the teacher meet the student where they are?
This looks like paying attention to and correctly evaluating the student’s current abilities. The teacher then KNOWS how to work with what is in front of them and can go from where the student is. If they are skilled in assessing your child’s abilities in this way, they likely have a lot of flexibility in how they can explain the same concept, being able to attack it from different angles to find what “clicks” with the student.
The opposite of this would look like inflexibility in teaching, giving the student something too easy (causing boredom) or too hard (causing frustration), or even creating problems to solve that the student does not even have. One goes to a teacher for help solving current problems, not to learn about issues that they do not have. Often this is the symptom of a teacher who is very knowledgeable about certain subjects, but projects them onto every student, whether it is an issue or not. In some ways, this can be seen as egotistical, as the teacher cares more about showing off his or her knowledge than about meeting the student in their own needs and going from there.
It is important for the teacher to not only assess the student musically, but mentally and emotionally as well. As you will see throughout this article, many traits of a good teacher boil down to them caring about their students as BOTH musicians and people.
2. Can they understand and communicate foundational basics?
This is a very important teaching trait and can often stem purely from experience. A good teacher can explain the problems they see and what is causing them. They can get to the actual root of the issue and provide guidance on how to fix it. In contrast, a teacher who explain that you just need to “do it this way” or “play it like this”, is merely demonstrating because they are not able to explain in easy-to-understand basic terms.
It is possible that a very competent performer/player might never have struggled with the basics or even thought about how to break them down into small, digestible steps, so this is not present in their teaching.
3. Can they explain things in simple terms?
Going off of the last point, does the teacher have the capability to explain a complicated concept in simple terms? It is easy to explain a complicated concept in complicated ways, but it is much more difficult to make a complex situation easily understood by a beginner (or a parent observer!). Are they willing and able to explain it in different ways to help facilitate this understanding? Do they take note of whether the student is thoroughly comprehending the point?
4. Knowing when and how to push a student.
A good teacher should know when to use their professional influence to make a situation easier for a student. Music is hard enough as it is, so it is good to have someone in your corner to advocate for you when necessary. On the other hand, he or she should also know not to make everything smooth sailing for their students. Much like in parenting, if everything is done for the child/student, one day they may find they cannot handle certain scenarios without their parent/teacher around to “fix” things or hold their hand.
In the same vein, a good mentor/teacher knows when it is right to make something intentionally harder so that the student can learn from the situation through adversity in a “safe” environment and under guidance.
5. You must teach the whole person and cannot separate the player from the person. Does your teacher care?
These two concepts go hand in hand. A teacher has to care about his or her students, and not just as musicians. No one can completely compartmentalize different aspects of their lives, so teachers should not expect that in lessons. Some issues that come up on the instrument might be coming from a source in the student’s everyday life. At some point, every student’s lesson will turn into a therapy session. Careful consideration should be given to whom you want offering guidance in these moments.
Please Consider: Is your teacher grounded in this reality? Do they care about their students’ overall well being or only about success on the instrument? Pushing past the breaking point just to “succeed” comes at the detriment of the mental health and long-term quality of life of a player. Someone you work closely with should not be oblivious to this concept.
6. Do they see themselves as a constant example or role model?
A good teacher, much like a good parent, will realize that they are being watched and scrutinized at all times, not just during their teaching block. Is your teacher cognizant of this responsibility? Do they see themselves as an example for their students in the way that they model behavior, life skills, etc?
Caveats about choosing a teacher/mentor:
If you find someone with all of these desirable traits, but they have not accomplished exactly what you are setting out to do, that does not disqualify them! Just because they are a sub vs. a full-time player, or an adjunct faculty vs. salaried professor, or young vs old, it does not automatically make them any less of an appropriate role model or teacher. Look for the overarching picture, not just whether their accomplishments match your desires. There are many paths to achieving the same goal and not every musician can explain things well, invest in their students, care about the whole person, etc (although many do).
Teaching Experience
Experience counts for a lot (and run away from anyone who disagrees!). No one has ever become a worse teacher through experience.
Terms you might come across when looking into collegiate teachers:
–adjunct: this is a temporary employee who is offered no benefits and usually a paltry hourly payment. They can often be wonderful teachers and care very deeply about their students. They often have less availability to students because they are having to balance other jobs. They are hired on a part-time basis and are sometimes less committed in the long term because of the life instability their job position creates. In reality, this is a position that does not benefit the students or teachers, but only the college’s bottom line.
–professor: you may hear “associate” or “assistant” tacked in front of this; that merely denotes something having to do with tenure or salary. Professors are usually more invested within the school time-wise, and usually consider their professorship to be their main job (or one of two). They have many other duties within the school including masterclasses, juries, committees, and sometimes teaching other courses alongside private lessons.
–teaching assistant: this is often a masters or doctoral student who teaches additional lessons or fills in while the main professor is gone (sometimes as many as half the lessons of the year).