I've always thought that private music lessons are for the well to do, and so it's the privilege of the elite. They are just so costly. But that's not the teacher's fault - they need to recover their own training cost and make a decent living.

I know many who would like to learn if they could afford it. So I have this idea that if I do seriously go into the field, I would start a studio where people can share their time with me - maybe 4 to a group so it makes sense for me financially and make it affordable for them too, and still have sufficient individual attention. Besides, listening to one another is instructive, and they will always have a ready made audience to play for weekly.

I just think it should be available people of all economic classes. I was also thinking of making it available to both adults and children, basically any age, but group them by age and ability, so they feel comfortable with one another, and it also creates a social group.

I would include learning of theory and some music history as well in it, so give them an overall music education.

I know community colleges do use this model. I just want to do it privately. Anyone has an opinion about this?

I teach general musicianship in small groups to supplement the individual lesson but I'm not sure how effective a group instrumental lesson is. Do you have a studio with 4 pianos? If not they will have to take turns which means the time would be divided thus canceling out the savings. I would be interested to know how people do this. Do all the students play the same piece or do they work on individual assignments? I agree with some of your ideas in principal but just feel that you may end up cutting down on quality in order to keep the cost for the student down. In the end they will still get what they pay for. What I never understand is this view that private lessons are only for the wealthy. Compared to other things in life piano lessons are relatively inexpensive. A 30 minute lesson every week may cost £500 a year. Many people spend more than that on their car insurance! When you consider that you get weekly professional tuition on a one to one basis it is extremely cheap. I already do teach people from all economic classes. Often the ones who have less money appreciate their lessons more and devote more time to it. The only students who seem to complain about the cost are the ones who can easily afford it and spend thousands on cars, holidays etc. I'm not knocking your plan altogether but if the lessons are too cheap you could just end up with lots of students who don't value it or take it seriously. The ones who make good progress will almost certainly want an individual lesson. If people can't or won't pay for lessons then how likely are they to buy a decent instrument on which to practice or books and materials to use?

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your response, and feedback. It's good to discuss the pros and cons. The model that I've seen use touch sensitive electronic keyboards with ear phones plus an upright piano in the classroom. I assume there is some common time set aside for teaching of general principles of piano playing, then time devoted to teaching how to play a piece all learn, then some time rotating between the students, then performance and feedback.

I have not attended one of these classes myself since I have always been trained 1:1, at very high cost. One of my teachers also teaches at a community college, where students pay about $36 per semester. Congtrast that with 1-hr. lessons for about $60 - $85 per lesson. But with the colleges, you can only sign up X number of times, so private teachers can continue to provide this model to make it affordable.

I think that for families struggling to make ends meet, $240 - $320 per month for private piano lessons is a huge chunk of their budget they cannot afford. So I disagree with you that the cost of lessons is affordable.

But I won't argue with you about the value since you have the experience and I don't, and merely thinking about it. But I think that if a teacher is very creative, much can be accomplished in this model.


Regards,

Kwok