What Is The Best Time Length For Music Lessons?

What Is The Best Time Length For Music Lessons?
Knowing how to choose a lesson length is an important aspect of learning music. Unfortunately, not everyone learning a musical instrument, particularly new students, knows how to choose a lesson length. This is why it is very common to hear people ask, “what is the best time length for my child’s music lessons?” This post is set to guide parents and music students on how to choose the right lesson length so as to enable them to make the most progress possible.
Here’s 7 basic factors will help music students to choose the best time length to get the most out of their music lessons.
Goals
An experience teacher knows the importance of helping their students to set goals. Goals are generally established to give each student a clear idea of what they want to achieve, not only long term, but for each week. Weekly lesson goals should be clearly expressed and set by the teacher and agreed upon by the student. Goal setting is an important aspect of learning that cannot be underestimated. Learning how to choose an appropriate goal can go a long way to help you obtain the best time length for music lessons which depends largely on your ambition and the amount of time you have to practice on a daily basis. If you don’t have much time to practice you need to take shorter lessons with less demanding goals, otherwise you are bound to get frustrated and quit.   2. Concentration
It is imperative for every music student to learn to play with focus and accuracy. This means that a student needs to learn HOW To PRACTICE efficiently. Interestingly, this cannot be achieved without a high level of concentration and help from the teacher on how to break down each musical problem and work on the pieces before putting it together into a whole piece of music. It is a bad habit for a musician to make mistakes while playing. The best teachers know how to teach good concentration skills so that you’re always focusing on the right things. Your concentration levels will determine the length of music lesson you take. Consider taking a shorter lesson especially if you find it difficult to concentrate for a longer period (about an hour).
3. Comfort
Generally, it is difficult to achieve progress in an uncomfortable state or situation. If you’re uncomfortable with your teacher or the environment is distracting you need to try a new teacher or environment. There is no value in getting stressed out while learning music. If you’re not comfortable, tell your teacher. It’s their job to make sure you are always feeling comfortable and in control. Progress is the best solution to achieve comfort. If you’re not progressing, your teacher is to blame. It’s the teacher’s job to give you the right level of difficulty and the right amount of homework. If it’s not working, get a new teacher.
4. Teacher
Music teachers play an important role in helping learners achieve their goals regardless of length of the lesson. When it comes to learning music, there is simply no need to dish out long tiring lessons. However, sometimes a good work out with the teacher can be very helpful if the teacher has lots of experience teaching and has a sensitivity to the limits of the student. A good teacher can nudge a student past their present limits just the way a good trainer can push a student in a workout in a gym. The most important thing for every music teacher is to provide the necessary information required to improve learning. This can go a long way to enable the learner to find the best lesson length set. Note that too much information can overwhelm the learner. Long winded explanations and stories can turn into information overload and just confuse the student. Be aware of this and let your teacher know when you experience overload. The best teachers talk very little and can explain how to break down a problem into small fragments. Repetition of the correct small fragments are the key to successful practicing. The best music teachers keep explanations simple and short.
5. Experience
Experience, they say, is the best teacher. It is important for learners seeking to know what the best time length is for music lessons to ensure that they build on their experience levels. Studies have shown that the more experienced a person is at a thing, the longer he or she is able to concentrate the more the student will be able to build confidence. So start off with shorter lessons and shorter assignments so that you can easily master each lesson every week. If you get too ambitious it can lead to burn out, so be careful to get the proper level of assignments and amount of homework each week.
6. Ability
Like experience, ability is built over time. Your ability to focus will ultimately allow you to take longer lessons and help you to master each weekly lesson plan.  As you learn HOW to practice correctly, your ability to focus and achieve more in each lesson will increase and your ability will go up more quickly. This can help you identify the best time length for music lessons at that particular point in the process. Develop your ability to learn and you will find ample time to achieve mastery of each lesson.
7. Practicing time
Finally, the amount of time you practice, will also play an important role in deciding your lesson length. So make sure your teacher is giving your clear set goals for your practice each week. And if you can only afford 30 minute lessons then start with that. Having the help of a master teacher for 30 minutes a week can help you or your child save years of frustration.
8. Your Personal Budget
Last but not least, your budget may have a real contributing factor in determining the length of time that you ultimately choose regardless of all of the above, especially if you have multiple children that you need to take music lessons. As above, if 30 minutes is all you can afford, then by all means do 30. It’s much better than the frustration and humiliation that a child can feel amongst other young musicians in the band if he is struggling while others with lessons are way ahead. But that said, the more time you can spend with your teacher the more you can learn, so if you can afford hour lessons, then by all means do it.

If you need further help deciding the best amount of time for your or your kid’s music lessons call one of our staff at Los Angeles Music Teachers or come to our Burbank location. We will be happy to discuss any of your concerns and help you to decide on the best length of music lesson for you or your child!
www.losangelesmusicteachers.com/music-lessons-los-angeles.html