Why is group music lessons better for my young children? Doesn’t the teacher give more attention to the student in a private music class?

The debate between whether group or private music lessons are better for students has been always a big concern amongst parents. From the point of view as music educators, group lessons indeed are more beneficial especially to younger students because a classroom environment encourages and motivates students to participate in group activities that most private students do not have a privilege to experience.

Students also are able to learn from their fellow friends while attending to teacher’s commands. As great as solo piano music sounds, one of the biggest disadvantages of piano players is that hardly do they “make” music with others, which is an imperative part of music learning.

As the students grow and they begin to pay more attention to the instrument they like, private piano or other instrumental lessons will be a perfect complement to the group lessons because, firstly, group lessons have already laid a solid foundation for students’ continuing study on a solo instrument at a higher level. Secondly, since aural training has been such an important part in the group lesson training, the students’ hearing is now so sensitive and finely tuned to discern their own performances; hence, the music they make is much more musical and beautiful. However, this is often neglected in most traditional training methods where drilling is the only method and technical perfection is the only goal. Thirdly, students at an older age are more patient to sit down and focus on accomplishing tasks in a private lesson setting when the teacher can give 100% attention to what individual students need.