One of the biggest challenges when organising principal instrument tuition in both groups and classes is that it is difficult to find a time when all the students are able to attend. The classes are the more difficult of the two: you have to wait until the academic year starts (when all other subjects have been timetabled) before you can start planning principal instrument activities (finding times and rooms, arranging for accompanists to attend etc.). The same is true for the group lessons, but perhaps less so due to their size.
During the group lessons one of the biggest challenges for me personally is how to make best use of the time. There are significant variations in group sizes, and two consecutive group lessons (one with 2 and one with 4 students) will have very different dynamics. I have learnt that I often have to be strict with timings even though it is tempting to get involved in some interesting discussions. Sometimes the students have complained in their diaries that the time was not evenly distributed (e.g. some got 30 minutes and others 15 minutes of performance time in the same lesson). The solution to this was that the students and I agreed that the duration of the group lessons would vary between 60 and 90 minutes depending on how many people were present.
It is not always easy to be clear about what is expected of the students in a group lesson or horn class. This was often left to the students themselves, but that is not always effective. One student admits in the interview:
«I would’ve got more out of the group lessons if I’d prepared differently. I know that they’re not one-to-one lessons, so I have a tendency to not put in as much work with the preparations, since it’s not as serious and because I know that Julius won’t say much in a group lesson because the time is usually spent listening to the students.»
Many of the students mention how tasks and communication could have been handled better. Again, they often shift focus away from the performer to the listeners, saying:
«It could perhaps have been interesting to know one week in advance what will be performed in the group lesson: ‘OK, I’ve never heard that piece before; I should listen to it or look at the music so that I’m prepared.’ We should prepare for the group lessons. After all, we prepare for the one-to- one lessons, and if we prepared better for the group lessons, we could’ve got much more out of them.»
Another touches upon the same subject:
Student: «We get so much better input when we play orchestral excerpts, because everyone knows them and practises them, but when it comes to solo pieces I feel that it’s worthless in a way, and that’s a shame.»
Ingrid: «So you think that the students prepare less for the group lessons?»
Student: «I don’t think they prepare at all. It’s the same with me; I just sit there and wait to see what happens.»