Problem with DD violin teacher

[MarkyMarky]

DD 7 started violin lessons in sept and I don’t feel she has made much progress. I encourage her to practise most days but the noise is atrocious. I contacted the violin teacher to ask why it’s so bad. The violin teacher basically said in not so many words that we must be patient and the violin takes time as it’s a very difficult instrument and implied that maybe she needs to practise more. This rubbed me up the wrong way as we are already practicing.

however DH is an accomplished cellist and said it must be the teacher as he’s musical and knows how to played stringed instruments. He said DD should be using her left hand fingers by now and making a ‘half decent’ sound.

I contacted the teacher again and said I’d appreciate more detail as what is covered in lessons as I wasn’t satisfied. She has ignored me so I contacted the local music service who basically said it’s down to the teacher to liaise directly with us, I explained that she was ignoring us.

I spoke with the school who said the same thing, the teacher needs to speak to us as there’s no-one else who will be able to help us.

AIBu to now make a complaint as we are not being listened to and we are paying a fortune for lessons?

So you posted, asked for advice, didn't listen to anyones advice and you're taking your daughter out of the group anyway. Your poor daughter, how dare she have fun and enjoy her lessons.

Twinkle twinkle in 3rd position? Or do you just mean using the 3rd finger? Genuinely interested (as someone who for a while had to listen to the twinkles multiple times a day on two instruments in this house! 😱)

1. You can ask to sit in on the lessons. I always used to do this with DD as that way I’d know how she needed to be helped with practice in the week.

2. Practice needs to be more than ‘encourage her to practice every day’. You need to be actively helping her with the practices if she is only 7, and practice needs to be at least 15-30 minutes every day of working on whatever the teacher has given to improve on.

3. In my experience, violin is an instrument that a child will only succeed on if they actually really want to play and are willing to put in the time to get better. It takes about 2 years to begin to actually play nicely (vs screeching out a tune), from personal experience.

4. If you really feel that the teacher is not very good, then change teachers! Not all
   teachers are good, and every teacher has different strengths and weaknesses. If, having sat in on the lessons yourself, you feel you are paying a fortune for nothing, then find a new teacher.

Poor kid having that much pressure piled on them to master an instrument so quickly!!!

She's 7 years old in a general group lesson at school. What the hell are you expecting???! It's very basic. Like geared towards kids who have never held an instrument before and don't understand the idea of music.

Perfectly reasonable for it to take time and be aimed at enjoyment and appreciation rather than advancing as rapidly as possible.

My son has been learning an instrument at school for over a year. He loves it. It's with a little group of his friends. He gets to miss a bit of maths. He comes home talking about these 'cool songs' they're listening too and learning. He's still terrible at it though. Not sure when we'll hear any recognisable tunes we could hum along to. But we don't tell him how bad it sounds to us, we'll continue to encourage him and stick with it as long as we can afford it comfortably. It's for fun.

There is no way this is real - no one could be that stupid.

£68 a term? ‘Expensive’ music lessons?
In a group? And you’re expecting proper ‘tunes’ after two months?

😂😂

FWIW my piano lessons were £14 an hour 36 years ago. You’re insane.

Violin sounds atrocious at the beginning for quite some time. Quite different to a cello because the pitch is much higher. You have to be very patient. Or switch her to viola it’s a little more bearable because it’s slightly
Lower.

Third finger, not third position :)

@MarkyMarky clearly you aren’t listening to the overwhelming number of people who are telling you that you are unreasonable. Your kid is 7! She isn’t Mozart! I feel for her and her teacher, you are awful.

The teacher sounds brilliant and as if they know exactly what they are doing. If you DH is so sure he knows where she should be up to why doesn’t he do it?! So frustrating.

@MarkyMarky youre paying less than £6 a lesson and genuinely think that’s a lot?

Oh, and one more thing - you sound really horrible and demanding and I really hope you haven’t told your daughter that she should be doing ‘so much more’.

Buy her an electronic one with headphones and give her time! Haven't read whole thread but seems a bit much to me all this

I can't believe this is a genuine post. I think it's a joke. No adult human would think this way...would they? 🤣

Violin teacher sounds wonderful! If you pull her hour for lessons expect to pay about £30 an hour if the teacher has similar qualifications to this one. Her current lessons sound very reasonable and it's normal to start out in groups the progress to private lessons. I would say your DH need to take a step back with suggesting the stage your daughter should be at, if your daughter catches wind it will be incredibly unhelpful. Some people just get music and others don't. For comparison my father is an extraordinary linguist, could speak 4 or 5 languages fluently, often after only a short period of lessons. Absolutely baffled him that after 3 years of French lessons I could just about order a coffee and book tickets to the cinema. Feeling that sense of not learning at the speed he was expecting was rubbish.

I honestly can’t believe what you’ve written in your posts! Teaching music (presumably as a peripatetic teacher,)is a different ball game from a classroom teacher!
And she has perfectly adequate qualifications. And part of learning an instrument is also how to read music and the music theory that goes with it. Even the beginners stuff! And you are getting all that, for £68 a term - divide that by the number of weeks in a term and you’ll see that’s good value for money!
I learned to play violin at Junior school as did my youngest son. It does sound rubbish to begin with… listen to any school performance until they’ve been doing it for a good couple of years, it will sound excruciating, even when they’ve practised. I think you are being wholly unreasonable. Have you heard what learning the flute sounds like to begin with? Or the Clarinet? They don’t just pick up and play. It takes time to get a reasonable sound out of those instruments too!
(My daughter gained Grade 8 on flute by the end of Secondary. She is now a Senior School teacher of Music, with a music degree… those early months/ years were not always pleasant to hear!)

😂😂😂

Oh gosh I posted before I saw that your DD is in group lessons and it’s only 68 pounds a term! You have super cheap lessons. In group lessons it will also take a lot longer for her to progress.

Around here it is 75/hour for private. DD started when she was 7, and after 2 years she can now proficiently play from the Grade 1 book and is working on grade 2. Lower your expectations and give it time!

I think this must be a fake post. Noone can really be this stupid, surely?!

I doubt the wanker musical expert DH or budding violinist DD exist to be honest.

I think you need to lower your expectations of your child before you suck all the fun out of it for her. I went through something similar with tennis lessons. A couple of parents pulled their children out but I kept at it as my two were enjoying it and about 6 months into it, it just clicked. I've had the same experience with a team sport they're taking part in. Incidentally, I am very musical in both flute and saxophone but neither of my children are interested at the moment. My eldest (DS9) is now taking viola lessons with school and I'll not holding out much hope, which reminds me, I must put headache tablets on my shop!

If this is real you sound like a nightmare and should quit the lessons for the teacher’s sake, not yours.

Your DH clearly has a very set idea of what he thinks your DD should be learning so why doesn't he teach her. He's oh so musical and knows it all clearly

From experience of a younger sibling taking up the violin, the screeching is horrific and goes on for months. It seems early days to get worried about progress.

I think this sounds like a great response from the music teacher, a detailed description of all that has been covered so far which sounds entirely appropriate for learning such a complex instrument.

I contacted the local music service

This alone has made me laugh more than anything over the past couple of months. Let alone this while post.

Thank you. And buy some ear plugs.