Guitar lesson! How short is too short.

JAYJO

Im not referring to practice as i know 5 or 10 mins a day can be useful but
My Nephew is starting Guitar Lessons this week £8 for 15 mins.?

mike_l

When I started Piano lessons as a kid, they started at 15 mins. Until the pupil got to a certain level (grade 3 IIRC) then the lesson went to 30 mins.

Depending on the age 15-30 minutes would be about right for a starter.

JAYJO

mike_l said:

When I started Piano lessons as a kid, they started at 15 mins. Until the pupil got to a certain level (grade 3 IIRC) then the lesson went to 30 mins.

Depending on the age 15-30 minutes would be about right for a starter.

Thanks mate. Hes 11 by the way.

mike_l

I'd say 15-30 mins would be about right then. I'm assuming weekly? A single lesson of that length weekly would be enough to get him going, once he's got some playing under his belt, then maybe look at slightly longer lessons, maybe after 6 months or after he's done say grade 2 (if he's doing grades).

Phil_aka_Pip

IMO you can't do much in 15 min. I used to do 30 min for junior school children, and 1 hour for everyone else. Doesn't mean you talk solid for all that time. By the time you've got a young child settled and tuned, and you've answered his mum's questions, you've got about 20 min left, which leaves you a maximum of 15 min teaching time before you start saying what you want the child to practice. The 20 min is about their attention span.

@mike_l you don't have to tune the piano, so maybe 15 mins was right for a very young child, but even if you're doing an early grade there's enough stuff in it to easily eat up more then 15 min.

frankus

It's a really easy thing:

How long can a kid concentrate?
Next: how much information can a kid retain?
How much information can be given for a kid to digest in homework?

If the amount of any of these is too high, you get demotivation and lose students (or customers depending on why you're teaching)

either way it's a short sighted thing to be ignorant and prescriptive.

mike_l

^^ that's why 15-30 mins is enough.

Once the student can absorb and concentrate for more than that, then a longer lesson is worthwhile