Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Lessons : Your place or mine ?

Just a matter of curiosity, but I gather from what I read here that there are regional differences in where lessons are taking place. For instance in France, nearly all lesson offers on the internet are either on line or at the student's home. Very few teachers have studios, as private schools would have a hard time competing with publicly run schools and conservatories, usually free (i.e paid by the taxpayer).

The reverse seems true in the USA, with students expected to commute rather than teachers. This also begs the issue of where the best teaching instrument, acoustic or digital, will be located. As for myself and my few grown-up piano student friends, we summon teachers to our homes, and offer tea !

I guess it also depends on how packed the teacher's schedule is and how far apart students live. In a large city maybe it's feasible but in a more rural area it isn't really practical for a teacher to visit everyone.

It is my own personal bias, not based on evidence, that I assume any teacher who is willing to travel to my home for lessons doesn’t really value their expertise or time. Would a lawyer, or other professional come to your home? Not likely

When I moved to this area a few years ago, I did not contact any teachers who would be willing to come to my home. Again, I can’t defend my assumption.

Sorry I disagree w the person who put a decreased value on quality of teaching if teacher travels to house.. just charge appropriate fees to cover your expenses.
Plus the student is on his own instrument.
My piano teacher is a master and will come to my house if necessary—extra bucks but an option. I never once thought it diminished anything.
If you are a teacher for $$$ and depend on the income it has been my experience to expand income opportunities as much as possible.

Years ago, I noticed more teachers in my area offer to go to the student’s house for lessons. It has become a rarer occurrence nowadays. I suspect a teacher with a full schedule wound not have the time or willingness to travel.

I agree with you that a teacher could increase the fee to cover travel. That is not what I have seen in this area.

Rare here in Australia to have home visit lessons. Most private piano teachers (those not affiliated with a school / music shop / academy type of place) just teach out of a spare room in their house using their personal piano.

I guess some would do home visits if you asked but it’s not the norm from what I’ve seen.

My teacher offers lessons three ways- Zoom, go to his studio or he goes to your house. Zoom only started with Covid but he hit a couple of students out of the area who will continue with Zoom. He does charge more to go to your house. I am looking forward to the fall when I can finally get back to in person lessons. I go to him. He teaches at a camp in the summer and usually would come back
on his days off to teach. However this summer they had to be tested for Covid before and after getting to camp and then are not allowed to leave camp at all so it will be Zoom until September.

I meant got some students out of the area.

The downside of one of the so-called advantages of having the teacher come to the student's home, is that the student is always playing the same piano. Pianists need to get accustomed to playing different pianos as that is what we face when we have to perform, and even one different piano is better than playing the same piano all the time.

While a teacher may adjust his/her fee to account for travel time when going to a student's home, many better teachers and those in high demand simply would not have the time to spend much of the day commuting from one student's home to another. That would eventually result in good teachers having fewer students.

It also means that a teacher would not have his/her total resources available when travelling. My teacher will often bring out an edition different from my own to check something we are discussing or bring out a text or commentary in a reference volume because she has the library available to do that, and it enhances the teaching experience.

Some teachers may have the time and may enjoy commuting from one student's home to another; that is their choice.

Regards,

I used to travel out to people's homes. I had a base rate and then would add travel expenses on top of that to give them their price.

It was more convenient for me to travel to them, rather than out of a London flat where there wasn't much space - I definitely didn't want young children visiting me there!

The travel did become an issue after a while, especially if a student cancelled at last minute when you were out at another house. Eventually I decided to stop doing it as my college teaching increased.

I guess that in larger cities like New York, London or Paris, where most everyone lives in a flat and where public transportation is fast, private piano teachers will find it easier to go to their adult students' homes. The latter are often more pressed for time than younger teachers, and may have larger premises with more comfortable learning conditions.

My teacher is a gifted concertist and lives in a charming small flat in the Quartier Latin. He has a hard enough time with his neighbours over his own practice "noise" : they would certainly object over a continuous stream of pupils. And local zoning ordinances would probably work against him.

Not sure where you are Scirocco but it certainly isn’t rare around Sydney. In fact the majority of teachers that I looked at (not a scientific survey) were as they put it “travelling in the local area”.

Of course there are also home studios and music schools so I don’t know what percentage of students are taught at home. The fees did not seem to any higher for home tuition. Music schools are the most expensive with their overheads.

I won’t generalise about Australia as a whole — it’s a big country. Travelling teachers may be more common in the central area of big cities.

I think home teaching would be very convenient for parents with young children.

Cheers, good to know some do. I’m in Perth and have had two teachers and have had contact with a few more. I can’t really imagine my current teacher travelling. She packs in students solidly from about 3 to 7 with hardly any gaps. If she was teaching them at their homes she would be spending maybe half that time travelling with associated loss of teaching time and all the hassle that goes with driving in city traffic.

But I guess she has the luxury of a solid student list who are prepared to come to her, and her own house that is suitable to teach out of. Not all teachers will have that.

thank goodness my piano teacher doesn't come to the house. I would have to clean up and hide the dogs.

There are travelling teachers here in my part of NSW (Hunter Region), but they appear to be younger teachers still trying to establish themselves. I have had three teachers in my area and always went to their house for lessons. Just getting onto the books of a good teacher here is hard enough, as some of them can be picky (maybe just sick of adults), never mind expecting them to travel.

The bonus of going to my current teachers house is her wonderful piano, which is so much better than mine. I actually look forward to playing it.

My teacher hires a space to do his lessons, when I started that was a room in Adelaie High Schools music department, so lessons after school hours on a well used 😶 Yamaha upright. Then a move 18 months ago to an old church, where the teaching space is a platform where sermons used to take place in the actual church... this piano is a small Yamaha Grand... this is the first / only Grand I have played. He does not have a suitable place to teach at his home, and the amount of travel would preclude lessons at my home.

sounds like it might be a bit frosty at the church now we are in Winter.