<p>I believe I have read here on the forum to "be sure" that music ed students will get the same length of private lessons as the performance majors do. This week we had an applied professor explain to us that the reason for giving mus ed students shorter lessons is because the mus ed students have a very high course load, and are expected to take the ed classes and also learn all of the other instruments (and practice those secondary instruments and perform in ensembles with them too) so therefore they don't expect a mus ed student to need a longer lesson because they can't practice double the number of hours per day and prepare for a full hour lesson. Sounds reasonable to me but I wondered what the experienced ones on the board think about this philosophy?</p>
<p>Depends on the school policy, as some will have the standard hour of private instruction on their primary as do the performance majors.</p>
<p>Son was a performance/ed double, the course load is heavy (18-19 credits average a semester over the course of the 5 years in his program), involved in off site observation courses, and in his case multiple performance obligations and was a lead teacher in the affiliated String Project. Never complained about lack of time to practice, and managed to graduate summa </p>
<p>I would think it would depend on the particular student as well, whether they would be happy with “less” on their primary, and honestly how easily they can acquire the required levels of proficiency across the other instruments as well as balancing academic and rehearsal/performance organization commitments. Son (as a violist) had a harder time adjusting to brass than to woodwinds, and piano was never an issue. </p>
<p>The other thing to watch for is final recital requirement, which could be a half program as opposed to the full recital required for performance majors. Again, some may see this as a plus, some as a minus.</p>
<p>I think it depends on the school. I know that at some places, the performance majors have lessons that are longer than for non-performance majors. DD is NOT a music major (or minor or ed or anything related to music). Her lessons are supposed to be 45 minutes long a week (but since she’s the only musician on her instrument taking lessons, she gets an hour each week). The performance majors at her school all have one hour lessons per week.</p>
<p>Anywhere I have taught, the performance and music ed students had the same length of lessons. Repertory requirements and performance standards were different, however. And, music ed students were not required to take lessons as many semesters as performance majors. At some schools they are not allowed additional semesters of study, for financial reasons. Some schools require a smaller scale recital of music ed students, but others do not. It varies.</p>
<p>Responding to the original poster’s question: What do we think of the rationale provided for the half hour lesson for music majors?</p>
<p>Most students who spend 7 semesters (assuming 1 semester is spent interning) with 30 minute weekly lessons on their primary instruments should be able to develop sufficient skills to be an effective teacher of that instrument provided that they entered with a high level of skill. Many band and orchestra teachers could benefit from stronger skills on their non-primary instruments, so if the time saved by not practicing one’s primary instrument is spent on learning other instruments, then the 30-minute lesson is probably a good idea.</p>
<p>In theory, the 30-minute lesson could work. In practice, what I have observed is that many, many 30-minute lesson students do not do 1/2 the practice of the hour students; they typically do much less; I have observed too many who dash into their practice rooms half an hour before their weekly lesson to do the only practice of the whole week. It seems that teachers’ standards for 30-minute students are often very low. They do not have to be and for many teachers, they are not. </p>
<p>I suspect that at least part of the rationale for the 30-minute lesson is financial: the student ratio of 1:1 is very costly for colleges, so they try to minimize student time spent in the 1:1 situation.</p>
<p>Another proviso to my response: When initially studying an instrument, most of a student’s effort is expended on mastering the instrument rather than on mastering music (very little time is spent on interpretive and musical development). Once a student has considerable mastery of the instrument (can naturally and unconsciously and easily produce beautiful well-tuned sounds and read music fluently), then the student can focus on producing music, rather than merely on producing sounds. Considerable mastery is unlikely to be achieved with 30-minute lessons if it does not already exist. </p>
<p>A further factor that would bear on the effectiveness of the applied study of an instrument would be the quality of the student’s musical ensembles. If the ensembles play at a high level and a student is spending 10 to 15 hours per week in them, then this can compensate for the reduced time in private lessons. However, many college ensembles (particularly those involving students playing their minor instruments) practice only 2 or 3 hours a week and do relatively little to build a student’s interpretive and musical abilities. The difference between 2 hours and 15 is huge!</p>
<p>I would hope that any secondary music teacher has a high level of musicianship. Otherwise they are just helping students produce noises, or at best nice sounds. How much lesson time is required to produce a level of musicianship that would allow a teacher to model artistic expression and mold students into artists is largely dependent on the individual student.</p>
<p>D is auditioning as a performance major, but at Ithaca, the viola teacher told the Viola Info Session (comprised largely of hopeful music ed majors and a few double perf/ed majors) that she gives both performance and education majors a one-hour lesson, even those the ed people are supposed to get (and are paying for) only a half-hour. Her rationale was that education majors need to be as strong a performer as they could be since they would be influencing the next generation, and she was willing to take her personal time in order to help them make that happen.</p>
<p>Very much depends on school. Some like Rutgers and Penn State treat them the same. At IU and Montclair State I think the lessons are the same length but the number of credits for the Applied Music Class is half for Music Ed vs Performance so the amount of practising expected a day is significantly less. Also, the solo recitals expected of a Music Ed major can be very different from the performance majors. Have to look at the semester outlines and major requirements online and ask lots of questions on what the differences are.</p>