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Private Music Lessons- the Good and the Bad

by Fat Chords
February 21st, 2011

Private Music Lessons- the Good and the Bad

One of the most important issues in the musical education for your child is the choice of the specific education method. In my experience I have often encountered parents that didn’t think about how they would want their talented child to learn music. As a rule, they would rely entirely on their own thoughts and ideas about education or follow the recommendations of other people.  This is where the idea of private music lessons comes in.

 

How do you know whether you should choose private music lessons or enroll your child in music school? In order to answer this question you have to consider your own plans for your child’s musical education. The subject of setting such goals has been covered in one of my previous articles. Let’s have a look at the advantages of private tutoring.

 

Regardless of your choice (private or public) the main task is choosing the teacher. In a music school your choice is limited. You will be forced to pick from a small number of teachers.  Moreover, you will not be choosing but having one of them recommended to you.   In many schools the children are assigned to a specific teacher that has a spot open for another student.

 

On the other hand, you can choose a private teacher and not be limited to the area you live in.  Private music lessons for your child can either be given in your home or the teacher’s home. If your child goes to a music school the lessons will take place only at school. With the private tutor you may choose the time and place that will be the most convenient to you. Many parents prefer that the teacher teach the child at their place of residence. It is more convenient and the child is more comfortable in the familiar environment.

 

This is true when the child plays a large musical instrument such as the piano, harp and even cello. The child is used to the instrument he has at home. He is familiar with its features, and can produce the correct sounds that are required of him. Private tutoring is good for children who are shy and those who do not adapt well to social changes.

 

Scheduling with a private teacher is much more flexible than in a music school. Because you are paying the music teacher you have the right to tell them how much you will pay and where the lessons will be given.

 

Every person who studies to play a musical instrument must learn theoretical subjects. At the least they should know elementary music theory. If you were to compare it to the subject in a public school, it would be math. It is impossible to become a musician without it.

 

Private music lessons may include elementary music theory lessons in their services. Thus, you can save on the theory lessons that are not cheap at the early stage of education. But in the future when the elementary music lessons change to harmony it is recommended that you hire a teacher that specializes in this area.

 

Finally, the biggest advantage of having a private tutor is a flexible approach to musical education. All children have a different level of musical abilities because they are raised in different musical environments. The music school has a set and definite program as well as deadlines for completing specific tasks and projects. The tutor will adapt their program to the capabilities and needs of your child and will help their progress at the child’s own speed.

 

In addition to this private music lessons always include the specific wishes of the parents and children. After all it is the teacher’s main job to please the clients and make the lessons interesting and creative. Just remember children with good musical abilities will help them progress faster and with ease regardless whether they go to music school or take private lessons. It is much simpler to find a teacher for a musically inclined student because any teacher will choose him over the less capable ones. Thus prominent musical skills will increase your child’s chances of having a high level professional that others can only dream about.

Nicholas Wood is an owner of Crystal Music Method Center. For information on correct private music lessons, visit http://www.crystalmusicmethod.com

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Article from articlesbase.com

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Guitar Lessons: Basic Tips For Left Handed Players

by Fat Chords
February 20th, 2011

Guitar Lessons: Basic Tips For Left Handed Players

Regardless of whether you are right handed or left handed, you can learn how to play the guitar. Some things are more difficult for lefties, such as playing the guitar, but there are ways to work around it. If you really want to play a musical instrument and are willing to put in the extra work, you can do it. Don’t give up on your musical dream. It’s all about practice, a willingness to try something new and of course the desire to learn how to play well.

There are a lot of left handed guitarists in the world who play even better than right handed musicians. There are lots of ways to help you learn how to play the guitar in spite of your left handedness. There’s no excuse not to learn how to play the guitar if you really want to do it.

First, you need to understand that there may be some basic issues that you will have to overcome when you start to learn. Here are some easy tips to help get you started on learning the guitar basics:

Tip One: Choosing the right guitar can be confusing for the left handed guitarist. However, there are lots of options available to help you make the right choice. You can buy a guitar that is made for right handed users and just have the position of the strings changed. Usually there’s someone at your local guitar store that can help you do this if you don’t know how. Some lefties don’t like this type of set-up, but if it works for you, this is one of the easiest options.

The other way is to buy a special guitar made for left handed players. Believe it or not, they do sell specially designed guitars for lefties. However, before you spend money on a guitar, you should try both options out to see which feels the most comfortable and works best for you.

Tip Two: Guitar lessons and basic guides can be confusing to left handed players. As with everything else in this world, guitar lessons are written with right handed players in mind. You are probably already use to doing this in other areas, but you will need to reverse what they are teaching and it will make more sense.

Tip Three: Only buy a guitar from a professional store with a solid reputation. There are a lot of stores that prey on novice guitarists and will sell you a defective or cheaply made guitar. You can check out your local stores, ask other left handed players where they shop or even search for stores online. When you shop on the Internet there will be a lot of choices – unfortunately, you won’t be able to try before you buy.

Tip Four: Have confidence that you will be able to learn to play the guitar. You need to know the basics and not be worried about your abilities if you are going to play your guitar in front of other people. You shouldn’t let being left handed hold you back. There are lots of amazing guitarists that are left handed such as Jimmy Hendrix, Curt Cobain and even Paul McCartney.

Tip Five: Beginning guitarists should really not learn how to play the guitar using a right handed guitar held in a left handed way. This will cause you problems when you start to learn chords and other techniques. Advanced chords will be the worst – maybe even impossible to learn how to play.

Tip Six: Remember that learning how to play the guitar should be fun. If you find it easy and comfortable to play a left handed guitar, you shouldn’t even try to learn how to play a right handed version.

These tips should help make it easier to play the guitar if you are left handed. Guitar lessons can be much easier to learn if you have all the right tools and keep these tips in mind – pretty soon you’ll be playing just as well as any right handed guitarist could learn how to play.

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Which Is the Better Choice – Private Music Lessons or Music School?

by Fat Chords
February 20th, 2011

Which Is the Better Choice – Private Music Lessons or Music School?

When parents decide that they want their child to pursue music education, they face another tough decision – “Private music lessons or music school? Which is the better option?”

It’s really up to you and your child. Both options are good and each of the two has its advantages and disadvantages, as discussed below.

For private music lessons, teachers can come to your home to teach, thus providing you convenience and “comfort of home”. Private music teachers often combine the main subject with the elementary theory of music, which saves a lot of money in comparison with hiring a music theory teacher. Moreover, private music teachers are more comprehensive in their lessons on music theory which is one of the most important parts of music education. Lastly, private music teachers can hold duets with your kid without extra payment. Music schools charge extra for ensembles.

Talking about music schools, one of its advantages is that they offer services in various subjects, which is not the case with private music lessons. Before going further into the advantages of music schools, let’s know something about educational staff recruitment.

If you’ve set your mind on hiring a private music teacher, how do you select one? On what criteria will you choose a teacher for your child? Parents often go by their own assumptions or friends’ advices; can you rely on this information?

If you or someone in the family is a musician, you can very well go ahead and select a teacher for private music lessons; you and your child will be fine. But most often, parents know nothing about music education. They are easily influenced by advices and lured into hiring just any teacher. The teacher only has to use some sophisticated language in a cleverly disguised tone, and that’s it – you hire him/her for your child’s private music lessons. You may even find a really good and professional teacher, but that’s not all that is required from a teacher; the teacher also needs to understand your child’s psychology and various age-specific factors

In the former Soviet Union, music colleges and institutes taught education and psychology, but only for a year. The future music teachers didn’t look at those lessons again. In the US and Canada, these subjects are simply not there in the curriculum! Music teachers are left to learn from experience and years of practice. Do you want your child to be the study material for the teacher?

Finding a professional teacher for private music lessons is a matter of chance. Do you want to take the risk? Let me tell you, if you don’t find the right teacher for your young talent, you will be making a big mistake. If your child loses interest in music and quit, you have no one but yourself to blame. There’s no point in blaming the teacher, your child, or your child’s friend circle. Of course you never intended to do anything like that, but do you know the real mistake? The real mistake is that you didn’t acquire enough information on how to choose a music teacher. You trusted other people.

Tatiana Bandurina develops a new trend in education – Music Education for Parents. For more information on private music lessons, visit http://www.quintecco.com


Article from articlesbase.com

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Music Education for Parents: Benefits of Private Music Lessons

by Fat Chords
February 18th, 2011

Music Education for Parents: Benefits of Private Music Lessons

Choosing the method of musical education for your child is an important decision. You can’t just rely on your own ideas or those of your friends to make this decision. There are two methods of music education that you need to first study about and compare the pros and cons: music school and private music lessons.

The most important criterion for making a choice is the reputation of the music teacher. In a music school, you cannot choose the teacher. You will have to abide by the recommendation of the school management which manages the time slots of each teacher.

Now let us examine the benefits of private music lessons. The first benefit, obviously, is that you get to choose the music teacher for your child.

The second benefit is you can choose the place of study. Most parents prefer the comfort of home so that the child can learn and play music without inhibitions. Private teachers are glad to come to your house for teaching the child.

This is especially useful when children are used to playing their own instruments like piano and harp and find it difficult to adjust to those at music school. Private music lessons are also helpful for those who are shy, reserved or cannot adjust to new surroundings.

The third benefit of having a private music tutor is you can schedule the lessons as per your convenience.

The fourth benefit is that you can learn music theory thoroughly. Anyone who plays a musical instrument knows how important it is to learn theoretical subjects, else you just cannot become any sort of musician.

With a private music teacher, you can learn the theoretical subjects at your own pace. Theory is a costly affair in music schools, but private tutors charge much less for their services and sometimes even include the basics in their regular fees. Private tutors can teach elementary music theory well, but later when the child needs to learn harmony, you will need to hire a teacher who specializes in it.

Lastly, the fifth benefit of private music lessons is flexibility in the music education. Every child is different and has different musical capabilities. But music schools have a set program that doesn’t cater to individual needs. Private tutors are happy to be flexible in their approach and teach the child as per his unique requirements.

But at the end of the day, if your child has a talent for music he will progress quickly regardless of the place of study. Musically inclined children have a higher chance of becoming excellent performers and teachers are always excited of having such children under their tutelage.

Tatiana Bandurina is an owner of Quintecco Educational Products Inc. She develops a new trend in education – Music Education for Parents. For more information on private music lessons, visit http://www.quintecco.com


Article from articlesbase.com

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Beginner Acoustic Guitar Lessons – Useful Tips for Left-handed

by Fat Chords
February 17th, 2011

Beginner Acoustic Guitar Lessons – Useful Tips for Left-handed

If you were born to be a left handed person, you might notice that there some activity that most left-handed cannot easily do such as playing a guitar. But what if you terribly want to learn to play such musical instrument? Are there any left handed guitar lessons in the market?

Even left-handed people should not worry if they too can play a guitar well just like the right handed individuals. Below are some useful tips that you can use for an easy learning process. Now, you have a chance to play guitar together with the right handed pros.

Well of course, you should prepare yourself for some problems that might arise while you’re learning to play the guitar. Here are the helpful tips that will guide you while you’re learning to play guitar.

1. Most of the left handed guitarist always has difficulties when choosing an appropriate guitar. We have two options for this. The first option is to get a guitar used by right handed individuals and then have the strings’ position changed. If you don’t know how to do this, you can ask help from expert guitarists. Another option is to get a left handed guitar. Yes, there are now guitar especially designed for left handed people. Just get one but, before you make any purchase you need to determine which of these two options that suits you best.

2. Guitar lessons are sometimes hard to understand especially for lefties. As you can see, the majority of the guitarists are right-handed so it quite hard for the lefties to understand, and you may get confused with the lessons. The trick is to reverse the lessons and this should help.

3. When you want to buy a guitar it is important that you look for a reputable store. You see, there are some stores that deliver defective guitars especially if they notice that you’re an inexperienced left handed guitarist. You might want to browse the web and get some information before you decide to buy any guitar. Surely, you will find a lot of choices.

5. For beginners, it would be helpful to not play a guitar for right handed people in a left handed way. You will surely encounter problems with the complicated guitar chords if you do this. And the most important is to have fun when playing a guitar. Do not immediately change to right handed guitar once you feel comfortable to play with left handed one.

You should know these helpful tips if you are lefty. If you’re prepared with the right knowledge in playing guitars, all the guitar lessons will be very easy to learn and in no time at all, you will be playing with fellow lefties as well as with right handed guitarists.

Learning how to play guitar chords will be very helpful for beginners. Once you master the basic chords, it will a much easier for you to manipulate the other chords. You can get more free tips at electric guitar lessons site.


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