Let’s talk today about how to choose the right violin teacher, wheteher it’s for yourself, for your kid or maybe for your friend. This is very important question, since depending on what kind of teacher you choose depends not just your improvement in playing, but whether you would wish to continue your violin practice at all. At the same time I think, it’s even more important to choose the right teacher for your kid, since I know from my personal experience how badly can the teacher influence the child’s decision to continue playing the violin.
1. Online or live lessons?
If you read my preious post Is it difficult to learn playing violin?
then you know that I highly recommend to have a lessons live instead of online, especially if you are just starting. For kids it’s especially important, since it’s difficult for the teacher to set the right posture, hear the right sound and show properly how to play, it’s almost impossible. Also many other things at home might distract you or your kid.
It’s very important to keep the maximum concentration during your violin lesson, therefore I would highly recommend to have it outside of your house, at the teacher’s premises, most advicebly at the practice room.
Online lessons are good as an extra practicing hours, but not instead of your original live lessons.
2. Where to start your searching?
First of all I would check your local websites for the tutors, since they are very much depending on the country where you live. As alternative, you can ask of course in your local conservatory, music school, music academy etc.
In most big enough cities you would find plenty of teachers for your choice.
3. What to look for?
As a minimum requirement you should read their bio, and the bio should be pretty explanatory. As an example you might would like my own Bio
I also believe that the good teacher must have to be able play the violin good him/herself, even it’s not compulsory, since my school teacher wasn’t great violin player herself, but has and had many great violinists who studied with her. You might want to check as much of the teacher’s recordings as possible. But be aware, that it’s not just one professionaly made recording at the studio, but that you can find many of them, since if it just one promo recording, it could be easily staged or faked.
Alternatively you can also listen to the recordings of his or her students, which will give you pretty decent picture of the level of teacher’s students. That’s how I chose my teacher in the academy. First I heard his student before he started his studies with this teacher and after, and I saw a big improvement in the student’s playing which for me was a big “Yes”.
If it’s quite famous teacher and you can find many articles and recordings in the internet, you should expect that his or her price for the lesson also might be quite higher than usual. But you should decide for yourself what is the most important for you on the range price/quality. But I wouldn’t recommend trying to save on the teacher, since it might have a big impact on your future as the violin player, as I already mentioned above.
If you are looking for the teacher for your kid, I think it’s important as the first step to go to your local music school and ask an advice from there. But also remember that the quality of the school and teacher is should be the first choice for you as a parent, not the distance, as it would have a great impact on the future of your child as a violinist, especially if you would like him to study it professionally. Try to look for reviews on the internet or ask someone who studied before or whom children have studied or are studying professionally.
You might want to contact me if you would hear more advice from me. You can find my contact on my Home website page.
What else?
If you still decide to try online lessons I would again highly recommend not to try cheap violin lessons, as they easily can hurt your violin technic and your or your kid future as the violin player. Also try to use the best available equipment for your online violin lessons. As an example, during COVID lockdown times I was using my computer with an Zoom H4n Pro recorder connected as an audio interface to it, connected through the USB cable.
The good and stable internet connection is also “must have”. You should check all the settings in the programm using (Zoom, Skype or Microsoft Teams) find one that provides the best sound and also check the setting of the recorder’s microphone.
I want to wish all of you good luck in your violin lessons and if you would like to find more information, you can listen to my Podcast on my website.
As a good example of the needed level of playing of your violin teacher you might want to check my recordings on Spotify