Wednesday 12 July 2017

Lessons Continue Through School Term Breaks


Don't get me started about the school term system, I could go on for hours!
I've seen the positive side: its great for teachers and their unions, 12 weeks or more of holidays with only a conference every now and then; and I've seen the negative side: children really wanting to play music who are having a hard time putting in the practicing at home get hammered by term breaks because any routine they have managed to establish has been destroyed when everything stops because it's holiday time, again.

If you really want to succeed, be really good at it, don't use the term system as a model. Evey day counts if you want to be good. Heaps of breaks, with some of them very long, will blow the candle out on your dreams. Even if you have been playing for a while, you will know that a break from lessons and the instrument means what once was easy is now hard again. Then when lessons do resume progress is slow because review is needed before any new stuff can be introduced. What should be used as a model are the top achievers, and how they got there, in any discipline.

So if you have a teacher who takes lessons all year round, (a small break at Christmas like everyone else), and you want to be awesome on your instrument. Take advantage of it. You are very lucky. That person really does want you to succeed.

One other thing: learning a specialist skill like guitar, bass and drums, takes a long time and is not easy. During the term breaks the student of music should get used to thinking that yes it's a break from school, but I want to be awesome so I am still going to play and practice and attend lessons. If you think like that, in time you will play like you have always wanted to.