<p>How far in advance should I contact a teacher if I want a lesson with them?
I'm going to be in Washington, D.C. at the end of this April and might be able to look at Peabody then also, and if I do, I'll be hoping to get a lesson with the bassoon teacher there.</p>
<p>I would suggest emailing the teacher now, and see if you can set up a lesson as soon as possible. When my son did this, he operated a couple of weeks in advance, and the arrangements went very smoothly. The only bad thing I think would be to give the teacher too little time to plan for your visit.</p>
<p>Absolutely be in contact now. The teacher knows his regular teaching/performance schedule at this point, and he can pencil you into a slot. Advise him that you will confirm again and do follow up a week or two ahead and let him know your plans are still in place. GOod luck!</p>
<p>Not every teacher is prompt about answering, so give yourself plenty of lead time. When S visited Juilliard over spring break junior year, he had a lot of trouble getting in contact with his teacher of preference. Juilliard wouldn't give out the email address, so we had to send it to Juilliard and hope for the best. We never did hear from the teacher; I don't know who dropped the ball. I wish we would have started earlier, but that was his first visit and we didn't know what we were doing. All's well that ends well - that is who he ended up studying with, even though he'd never met him. And it was a great match. The same teacher taught at Curtis, so that meant two of the four schools S applied to were for a teacher he'd never met. In hindsight, it didn't matter, but at the time it added a lot more stress to the process. He had no prior feedback, no sense of "fit", and a bit more uneasiness going into the audition for a "stranger."</p>
<p>I'm finding the whole 'scheduling trial lessons' process to be fairly awkward and....just such an inefficient way to figure out where you want to apply.</p>
<p>Our story so far: my daughter is currently a high school junior string player, considering applying to a fairly standard list of selective non-stand-alone conservatories within excellent universities. </p>
<p>We live in central Florida, so none of the places she's interested in are within driving distance. She's at Rice today (having flown there by herself!) where she is booked to have lessons with 2 of the 3 current teachers on her instrument. It turns out that the teacher she most wanted to meet will probably not be at Rice by the time she matriculates! His 'replacement' will soon be announced, but... oh you get the idea. </p>
<p>I started writing these teachers about 4 weeks ago, but it took until the <em>last</em> minute to get confirmed responses from them. So in the end she's going to have the lessons back-to-back, although she's actually going to stay in Houston until Tuesday evening. Perhaps she would have done the visit in one day (at a savings of about $158, and missing one less day of school) if I'd known that a bit sooner.</p>
<p>And that's only <em>one</em> school. Which accepts about 10% of undergrad mus. performance applicants. </p>
<p>I'm hoping to take a midwest trip with her in 3rd week of March (with the fairly predictable itinerary - Eastman, Oberlin, UMich, Northwestern, UC (no mus. perf. there, I know), UWisc) but I wonder at how many of these places the whole 'trial lesson' thing will work out. Some of them are on break during our trip (which is during her high-school break). It all feels like a mess.</p>
<p>I take heart from the notion that 'it will all work out for the best in the end', and in the meantime, she's getting some (expensive) perspective on schools and teachers.</p>
<p>The one change in the procedure that would thrill me beyond belief would be to involve the admissions office in setting up trial lessons. Not holding my breath for it, but a girl can dream!</p>
<p>Memake</p>
<p>Memake,</p>
<p>My son couldn't get lessons at a couple of places we visited (he did all the contact himself, and there were times I would have liked to hasten the process by getting involved...but I think it's important for the kids to do themselves) but I think it works out anyway. He had email correspondence with one he couldn't meet; another asked him to call on the phone, and they talked about 45 minutes. The ones he did meet were on time for the lessons they arranged, and extremely helpful.</p>
<p>I don't know that meeting or having practice lessons is the be-all-end all. I have heard of lots of kids like Binx's son, who never had a practice lesson and it all worked out. The only good thing is to see whether the teacher is a personality match; there was one school where my son did not have a connection with the teacher at all, and he dropped that one from the list. So in that respect, lessons can be a good thing. But if you can't work it out, you can still have a very worthwhile visit to a school.</p>
<p>I agree that the trial lessons are more useful for ruling out teachers, but I think it can go beyond personality match. There were a couple of teachers that my daughter met whose whole approach to the instrument did not suit her and it would have been difficult to know that on the basis of reputation alone. She may or may not have been able to pick that up on a phone call, but it became obvious pretty quickly with instrument in hand. Since she is smaller than most bass players, she needs to rely more on speed and agility than size and strength. Some teachers seemed to be able to deal with that better than others, particularly some of the tall ones with enormous hands.</p>
<p>The one thing we forget on this board, is that we all have a whole lot more experience than the average HS student who wants to major in music. Most of us only get to go through this one time and are flying by the seats of our pants at the time. The wisdom we share is primarily hindsight.</p>
<p>I can't even remember how we figured out the trial lesson thing -- whether it was just a teacher from a summer program suggesting that S2 come visit campus and take a lesson, or whether his private teacher suggested that it was common practice. Whatever, we never thought of it as a mandatory thing, just a good thing.</p>
<p>Point being, we learned the amazing benefits of trial lessons as we were going through the process, and I would highly encourage it. But do not stress if you don't make it to every single school or teacher. Some kids have never heard of trial lessons ... or CC! And still get in.</p>
<p>[And, as All Music pointed out, my kid did most of it. I probably helped him more than what All Music did for her kid -- but he sent the emails and made the phone calls himself. I just tend to use the editorial "we" when writing. Guess that's my nurse's training coming through!]</p>
<p>I think my daughter would be all right with making contact herself with the teachers, but the schools she wants to visit are all a plane ride away; she doesn't drive yet (can't get license 'til next August) and there's all the ancillary expenses of these visits: airfares, priceline hotel bids, rental cars, etc. It has seemed easier so far for me to control all the other logistics, and the timing of lessons/meetings depends on those logistics, so.... but I agree that more ownership by the student is a good thing. </p>
<p>Well, we'll see how she feels about a week of college visiting after she returns from this trip.</p>
<p>Good luck to all the auditioners out there! I can't wait to hear how they did -- I imagine the waiting is a bit harder for those actually involved!</p>
<p>I am one who would have never considered trial lessons had I not found this board. Then I found another board made up of opera singers who scared the behoohoo out of me by starting threads about how their undergrad teacher ruined their voices and all of their friends' and friends of friends' voices. Two of the teachers my daughter emailed have never responded to her - both were at large state universities, so maybe they are not as accustomed to being asked - or maybe they just never got the email(s). She would not go to either without doing sample lessons and having a pretty good idea of who her teacher would be. She had a lesson at each of what will likely be her top choices and they made all the difference in the world. One made arrangements to be on her jury at her audition - making the whole process so much more relaxed. The other was automatically on her jury, and again, it was so nice to see a familiar face. The other teacher is part time and she doesn't expect to see her at the audition on Friday, but she has been a great contact. The encouragement she received from the lessons was priceless and was a huge boost to her confidence.</p>
<p>When teachers were not available for lessons, my D was invited to observe
a current students lesson. In fact her current teacher is too busy for trial
lessons, so at least once a month my D has a high school or potential grad
student sitting in on her lessons.</p>
<p>Yes, you can learn a lot from observing lessons. My D ruled out one school by observing 2 lessons there. She wasn't that impressed with either one so it made it easier to trim a too-long list. At another school, the teacher was a no-show for the lesson - some sort of administrative misunderstanding. So she went to a choral rehearsal. The rehearsal was close to performance night and the group was not very focused or prepared. I stood outside the door for a while listening and was unimpressed. That experience, and the schools almost complete devotion to musical theater, made another cut from the list easy. So if you can't observe a lesson, go to a choral rehearsal - you can at least get an idea about the quality of the voices.</p>
<p>Previous 2 posters beat me to the suggestion of observing lessons if time/logistics don't work out to take a trial lesson. D. did this at 2 schools (in 1 case, teacher squeezed her in for 15-20 minutes of vocalizing/singing later in the day). She also has attended a good number of choral rehearsals, as well as both freshman and upper division classes, a studio class and a couple of recitals. And a teacher at one school actually arranged for her to meet a teacher at the school we were visiting the next day! They did not know each other, but had had the same DMA advisor. It is a small world!</p>
<p>For a variety of reasons, it was critical for my son to have trial lessons with anyone he was considering. It was a pain in the butt to do so, but we did it anyway. He was able to cover some of this through summer experiences. We also found out the hard way that it is best to schedule the lesson first, then make travel arrangements. The schedules for many of these teachers is very tight and you sometimes need to go when it is convenient for THEM and not necessarily for you. Also, one teacher who he was very interested in performed in a nearby city. We were able to go hear the man perform and meet with him for a brief time the next morning. The teacher's are not always available but it is worth asking.</p>
<p>When trying to schedule a lesson via e-mail, is it helpful to note what your s has accomplished musically? I don't want it to seem like an audition, but I know teachers are very busy, and I don't know if they "select" students to give lessons to based on achievement. I can only imagine how many students request lessons with the best teachers.</p>
<p>I never mentioned anything more than, "My D is interested in attending your school and by looking your resume, she's interested in meeting with you for a lesson." </p>
<p>That was enough and things got set up right away. We never had a "Can you play X?" exchange or a run through of the resume.</p>
<p>There's more information on the topic of practice/preview lessons:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/334339-taking-practice-preview-lessons-before-applying-conservatories.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/334339-taking-practice-preview-lessons-before-applying-conservatories.html</a></p>
<p>We never mentioned anything either in email. The only other thing you might want to mention is if the current teacher or a teacher your child has worked with has a connection with the teacher you are requesting, such as "you come highly recommended by Mr. John Smith, my daughter's current teacher." Again, I would only do this is John Smith recommends you do this.</p>
<p>For what it's worth, I think it's nice to encourage your child to send the email, even if it comes from your email account (or even, for that matter, if you end up writing it yourself!)...College professors are much more accustomed to dealing directly with students and it shows more serious interest on the part of the musician....My D's emails usually began by saying "I am currently as XX in high school considering pursuing a degree in XX performance at XX, and would like very much to have an opportunity to meet with you..." If there are additional teacher contacts, that's also great. Good luck!</p>
<p>I also don't think it could hurt to briefly add a couple things (as DD did) like " I have been selected for All-State mixed chorus and auditioned for and was accepted at such and such summer program". Not necessary to brag or include a long resum</p>