Free Guitar Lessons vs Private Guitar Lesson
Many children around the UK have the choice to take part in either free or subsidised music lessons at school.
There are also many private institutions that offer music lessons as well. But why pay for something that you can get for free or subsidised?
I thought an article about this topic would benefit parents who value their children's education, their own time and their children's time and their future. Musical education is so much more than just the guitar lessons themselves.
Based on our own experience and children who have experienced both types of education
Based on my own experience as children. And also from the parents and children who have experienced both free or subsidised guitar lessons and our private lessons. We've seen a lot of frustrations that the parents and kids have experienced.
Furthermore, it pains us to see children who have come from school lessons that have lost the love of guitar due to bad experiences. Before signing your children up for free lessons at school. If you can afford private guitar lessons, it may be worth investigating what is available near you and what the benefits are compared to the lessons provided in school.
Benefits of Music
Firstly, music highly benefits our children, from helping them to become more coordinated through increased brain connections. To improving cognition. [1] All of which are benefits that will last the child’s lifetime. These neurological benefits are only a small part of the advantages. There are many other benefits that learning guitar can bring to the child. Read our article on Benefits of Guitar Lessons for Kids to find out more.
To get and maintain these benefits, the child has to spend a sufficient amount of time playing and making progress. The easiest way for them to do this is to have fun in lessons and enjoy the learning experience.
Lessons provided at a child’s local school tend to be around 10-20 minutes long. 10-20 minutes is a very minimal amount of time to spend in lessons to get any benefit out of it.
Imagine you as a child
If you imagine a child, having rushed from one lesson to another, rushes to their guitar lesson. Spends the first few minutes setting up their guitar and the last few minute packing up their guitar. And also chatting in between the lesson. They are left with 5-15 minutes of the lesson!
Then on top of the that, the teacher has to explain the material. Then your child gets to play the guitar for a few moments to 10 minutes at the most.
If I asked you if you remember what you had for lunch a week ago and what conversation you had at that time...Imagine how hard it would be to remember!
Now imagine having to practice what a teacher has said in those few moments and do it correctly when at home to make progress. It's challenging for a child to do when they spend more time with many other subjects of learning. Unless they are pushed or extremely enthusiastic and takes a lot of their own initiative, they struggle to find headspace to keep that information in.
On top of this, learning a musical instrument requires precise tactile instructions. Which means that feedback is necessary to ensure they are playing correctly; this precision is vital to their progress.
I’m not suggesting that your child needs to have 100 hours of lessons and practise eight hours a day. However, I have seen schools that don’t even let their child take their instrument home. How do they expect them to learn an instrument playing 10 minutes a week?
What does Mozart have to do with your child?
Consider Mozart, who everyone said was a child genius. He had practised 3000 hours by the time he was five years old.
If your child did 15 minutes of playing a week (which doesn't count as practice.) It would take them 12,000 weeks to achieve 3000 hours. That’s 230 years of learning.
For parents wondering why their child isn’t “talented”. The lack of time practising is a huge contributing factor. On top of this, Mozart's father supervised his every hour of practice to make sure everything Mozart did was perfect.
Quality of the Lessons
On top of this. You don't know who the guitar teachers are. They are often outsourced, and there is no specific qualification that you have to have to teach guitar.
You can have great guitar players who are not good teachers. They forget what it's like to be a beginner and struggle to teach methodically to help children progress. There are also guitar teachers who are self-taught teaching bad habits to children.
There is no choice what teachers your child gets, and a child shouldn't be expected to know if their teacher is good or not.
The teachers can also disappear. Programs shut down unexpectedly. Or lessons have limited availability.
Children end up upset and confused because the whole teaching is inconsistent. They lose trust in their learning and fail to consistent learn what's needed to help them progress on guitar.
When children are learning in these free or subsidised lessons, they are often forced to be with other students who are not motivated. They become a distraction to their learning, which further reduces the value of the lessons.
As a result, your child can get demotivated, thinking that it’s their fault they are not doing well. Or get frustrated at learning or finding the whole experience annoying.
We meet a lot of students who come here after having had years of ineffective teaching and numerous bad experiences with different music teachers.
Fortunately, there is a silver lining.
I cannot speak for all private music education as the quality varies highly. However, specifically for our guitar programs for kids. We have proven methods that can take a complete beginner guitar player to performance level on the guitar in the easiest and most fun way.
The parents and the child can come and meet the guitar teacher to ensure they are the right fit for each other before starting lessons with us.
The longer lesson duration means your child gets more feedback and experience playing under supervision.
We also provide music education that benefits them beyond simply music. Children who come to our school benefit from improving their overall confidence. Learn new social skills and improved communication.
The students also get a lot of say in the type of music they get to enjoy and play. So they feel more enthusiastic about learning.
All children who come to the school are there because they have parents is supportive of their learning, and the child also wants to be there. They are enthusiastic and want to learn to play the guitar. As a result, your child benefits from the motivation of their surrounding peers to learn to play the guitar.
The guitar lessons teaching uses proven tested methods to get your child the maximum result in the shortest space of time with the most fun possible. If your child wants to play the guitar more seriously, we have the ability and resources to progress them.
They are in a safe and encouraging environment that is engaging. We pride ourselves on our students and their ability to be creative with their musical instrument, so they feel like real musicians rather than just copycat robots.
We are a guitar school that specialises in teaching guitar so you can trust that your child is getting the best education for that instrument here both in the short term and long term too.
I hope with this article has provided you with an insight into the benefits of private musical education rather than relying on the local school’s musical education as the only source of musical education for your child.
If you would like more free information because you value your child’s musical education on guitar and care about the quality of their guitar lessons and the long-term benefits they can get from them.
Then click on the button below to sign up for a free introductory lesson.
[1] http://scholar.uwindsor.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6878&context=etd