What to Expect from Your Teacher
When you visit your local physician with an ailment, you expect to leave with a solution to your problem. If you visit your dentist with a tooth ache, you expect to leave his/her office with relief, but too often trumpet students leave a trumpet studio with the idea that they (the student) has been granted a great privilege to be in the company of this almighty guru. Too many students worship their instructor and in a few cases it is justified for helpful teachers are to be revered. When you study an instrument, you are spending your time and money on the expectation that your teacher will help you improve, so consider these points as you decide on a school and a teacher-
- Make a list of your current problems in your playing.
- Ask your possible instructor if he/she has dealt with these problems before.
- Inquire as to his/her solutions to these problems (limit to no more than three).
- When you return from your visit with the instructor, try his/her suggestions and if you see at least some improvement in your playing, continue to consider studing with that teacher.
- If, after practicing the suggestions or if you feel the suggestions were not helpful, look for another instructor. You need to have confidence that this person could help you if you decide to study with him/her.
- Do not prejudge the comments just because you don’t think they will work. Many times we want people to agree with what we are doing even though what we are doing is wrong. Give the teacher a fair chance.
- Every teacher will expect you to practice every day or at least six days a week. Your expected practice time will be between one to five hours each day depending on your degree plan and how much time you are willing to spend on your instrument.
- A good teacher should be accessible at some time every day to answer questions you may have. Most schools require their instructors to post one or two office hours for this purpose. If you have questions, meet with the teacher and get your questions answered.
Instructor/Graduate Assistant
Larger schools many times will have more students than one instructor can service and for that reason the teacher will assign the overload to one of his/her more advanced master degree or doctorate students. As an entering freshman, you may, depending on the school, be assigned to a graduate assistant and that can be good or bad depending on the assistant. We always want to study with the big dog but because of circumstances, you may be working with a smaller dog. If you are to study with a graduate assistant your first semester, be respectful and expect the same improvement in your playing as you had expected from the big dog. You are paying the same amount of money as the other students who are receiving lessons from the head man/woman. Graduate assistants are not new to teaching and in many respects, they are more approachable and in a few cases could be better teachers. Many graduate assistants have taught for many years and just because they are not tenured, don’t run them down until they have worked with you for at least a semester.
Location of School
You may wonder what the location of your school has to do with its selection. The reason is simple. If you are interested in playing professionally, you will have to be in an area which supports such an occupation. If you want to play in a symphony, don’t go to a school where the only serious orchestra is five hundred miles away. If you expect to be an accomplished jazz musician (and I don’t recommend it) you will have to be in an area that will support this venue as well. A school within one hundred mile of a large city would be able to give you the needed experience if you are interested in playing. If your focus is in teaching music, the proximity to a large city is far less important.
Financial Considerations
The cost of your education can range from nothing (yes, this is possible) to numbers I can not even pronounce. A quality education costs a great deal of money and unless you come from an extremely wealthy family, you have to realize that every dollar you borrow in student loans, you will be expected to pay back. When considering your college or university expenses, start with the cost of a full tuition and begin adding the following-
- Extra fees for applied lessons.
- Rentals for instruments lockers, uniforms, etc.
- Expenses for purchasing new music you will be expected to use.*
- Subtract from this amount any possible scholarships that may be available to you.
Every school you consider will have a bottom line and this may also be helpful when eliminating schools. If you can’t afford it, don’t go there. Many schools will offer you a great scholarship but after adding up and subtracting down they sometimes are more expensive than those with smaller scholarship and equally smaller tuitions.
I mentioned earlier that some schools do not charge students tuition and one such college is in Branson, Missouri. The College of the Ozarks is one such school and you can learn more about that college on line. This unique school has been helpful to those students who are on a limited budget and desire an education. I’m sure that there are others around the country to this one and it might be worth your time to search these schools out.
*It is difficult to pin down a teacher on how much money you will be spending for your music but in many cases the applied teacher will list helpful information on his/her studio web site. The following steps are only suggestions as to how to locate this information. I have contacted literally hundreds of trumpet instructors in the past year and the following order of steps may be of help.
- Open the schools home page.
- Click on the link Academics.
- Find the area marked Studies or Departments.
- Click on Music.
- Click on Faculty.
- Find the instrument you wish to study and click on it.
- In many cases the more “up to date” applied teachers will have a section called Syllabus or Studio and enter that area. Here you should be able to find what the instructor expects from his/her students. You can get a lot of information on these sites. Even if you don’t study with this person, you can download a ton of information that his students are currently required to study.
This completes my post “Selecting the Best Music School”. Although my information has been as complete as I can be in this short space, there may be other questions you will have as you narrow down your search. Please feel free to contact me with these questions and I wish you the very best as you decide on a school. Your ultimate decision is very important so do your investigation carefully and now, “Class is dismissed”.
