Playing a musical instrument in secondary school

[nutcracker]

Dd1 will be going into year 5 in Sept and has been told that she will be given the oppurtunity to play either the flute or clarinet. Now the cost is £75 a term which includes the hire of the instrument.

What I am wondering is, when she moves up into secondary school, do you still pay for the tuition ??

I really want her to have this oppurtunity, but am worried about the long term cost.

Ours are £100-120 a term at secondary school, pretty much the same as private lessons. Some schools offer free lessons to GCSE music students.

Our town also has a brass group where they lend instruments and weekly subs are a couple of pounds. See if yours has similar.

If you could afford it in primary school, you could always ask for shared or fortnightly lessons later - not ideal but better than nothing.

Or depending where you live, there are government-backed schemes to spot musical potential, and you get help with some or all of fees depending on income. Where are you based, I might know of some?

This really annoys me that generally only better off families can afford music lessons. My children are proving to be exceptionally musical and it's costing a fortune. We're in that middle bracket where we don't qualify for much help but haven't got much spare income.

Two of mine applied for the Fame Academy awards this year - just waiting to see now!

Speak to your school music teacher or ring the county music service and ask what help is around. Good luck!

Fingers crossed for your DKs for the Fame Academy.

Thanks Sue. Bit of a long shot, but you never know. We're applying for help left right and centre at the moment, hoping at least one will come up trumps!

It bothers me that there isn't some excellent brokerage service/central point where all these things are registered. Perhaps we should start a wikispace for them.

We're upgrading DD's violin this year. The one she has - a 3/4 - isn't brilliant but it would suit a young starter and it has served her well and allowed her to reach Grade 2 (but she has a good ear and it goes out of tune apparently). I can't be bothered to sell it but it's difficult to find a good home for it - I'd like it to go to a child who otherwise wouldn't have a chance to learn and who will appreciate it and 'pass it on' in a similar fashion.

Thanks for the advice. I will ask in the office if there are any subsidies for low income families. I am a lone parent and not working at the moment and so if she really wants to do it, I am going to really struggle to find the money.

I can't ask her grandparents to contribute, as they already help out with school trips etc.

She really is only interested in playing the flute of clarinet tbh, and i think if i told her it had to be something else, she'd say no.

I am gonna ask her dad if he will pay half, but the problem is, that even if he agrees, which is doubtful, I just know I wil have trouble actually getting the money off him.

Dd2 has informed that in when she goes into yr4 (in sept 08), she wants to play an instrument too ARGH.

Oh, meant to add that I am in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham. Actually, my area is a bit of a problem, as it is considered to be a well off one and so even though there are two large social housing estates, the area doesn't seem to have many grants and things availble to low income families.

Have just spoken to xp and he has agreed to pay half, although i'm not 100% sure he can be trusted to cough up, but we'll see.

That's great news nutcracker. Hope he lives up to it.

I pay £13.50 for each lesson, half an hour a time on the drums, which works out at about £525 a year.

The thing about the lesson time changing every week was a challenge for my ds at first, in fact he managed to miss 5 lessons (grr) but has got used to looking on the board every week now.

We pay £53.00 per term for half an hour's lesson - not a shared lesson - and I think that is quite good. The orchestras/wind bands/ensembles are compulsory.

When they reach year 10 they can choose to do GCSE music and then the lessons are free and they choose a 2nd instrument.

Hope this helps.

I have to be honest here, generally speaking if your child is going to learn an instrument it pays to make sure you have a decent teacher whether it's just for fun or as a serious student. I am a professional Violinist and also teach at a specialist institution for music. I have seen how children are taught in many schools throughout the UK as a visiting specialist and examiner and I am horrified at the way children are taught in schools. Most of the time the peripatetic teachers are not professional musicians, they are amateur players themselves. They often don't know how to teach well and parents have no idea that they are being taught to play with very bad technique. There are many teachers who say they have played professionally or play with a local amateur orchestra and parents assume they must be wonderful and great teachers. The fact is, children learn to develop bad habbits that should NEVER develop in the first place. Music lessons are expensive and you get what you pay for. Learning an instrument is a very specialised skill. You only have to observe how violin pupils perform in a concert and if they are playing with the classic 'frying pan' (left hand) violin hold and hold the bow like it is a nail file, you know they are being taught badly!! I have often taken on pupils who have been learning at school only to find I then have to spend the next 6 months undoing all the dreadful technique they have been taught and it is extremely frustrating for the pupil especially if they are beyond the age of 10. If paying for tuition is an issue and you are only prepared to allow your child lessons if they are free...don't bother, you will only end up with a child that is being taught by someone who is barely a musician let alone a teacher!

My gooodness, I am really surprised at some of the attitudes and comments I read... why pay anything at all or even bother with instrumental lessons? Yes it's cheaper to have a shared lesson even if it means the progress is much slower. Truth is, pupils are not learning to 'play' an instrument, they are being taught how to play badly with terrible technique, I have seen it at first hand...but then again....why should that matter?! Honestly....i don't think I can read on, some opinions are quite shocking but then what do I know? I'm just a professional Violinist!

Does your daughter have a burning passion to play an instrument?
If so is it actually the clarinet or flute?(I was a 'cellist in a previous life to music college standard)

I would say that I agree with yamaha totally. Check out the qualifications/experience of the teacher as £75 with instrument hire is extremly cheap. I was taught by an excellent 'cellist with amazing credentials and she charged £25-30 per hour in '95 ish. + the cost of the hire of the instrument, though my father did buy quickly.
If she shows aptitude see if there are any music scholarships availble through your lea. I won a scholarship that enabled me to have private lessons at home 1hr a week at no cost to my parents.

I was also taught by an amazing player (a countess no less -get me!) but she couldn't teach for toffee....

Remember it's not just the cost of the teaching/instrument but also music + reeds for the clarinet + any exams.

I disagree amicissima

If you are teaching a child to write you teach them properly, 1st time round. It us very hard (I know from music teaching and classroom teaching) to 'unteach' what a child has learned. You are saying to them really that what they have learned isn't very good. Good technique in writing makes writing easier and ebnables us to write for periods of time with others being able to read and understand what we are saying.
You would never say 'oh, they're quite good at writing, let's teach them properly now.'

Instrumental learning is exactly the same.

I think Yamaha is being unnecessarily alarmist. I don't think you need to have been a 'professional' musician to teach it any more than you need to have been a 'professional' historian to teach history, or a mathematician to teach maths etc, etc. OK, bad technique is not a great way to start off and I understand your point about unlearning bad technique, but let's face it, how many children go on to study music at a higher level anyway? How many children would you be teaching at your specialist music institution if all the teachers had to be professional musicians? My dd is 7 and in her third year of learning the violin. I didn't have any choice about who taught her, but the important thing is that she loves her music teacher, loves the lessons and is progressing well, which at that age is probably the most important thing, rather than being overly picky about technique.

Yes but muppetgirl there has to be a balance between technique and allowing the child to experience the joy of making music, whether or not how they are doing it is text book perfect.

I'm sorry I disagree.
It was partly my technique that enabled me to progress as quickly as I did.

I think I take the approach with learning anything that I want to know that whoever teaches my son is qualified to do so. Especially if I am paying 'extra' for it.

The thing is muppetgirl that some very qualified teachers are sloppy about correcting technique and other less qualified ones are actually rather good at it. When ds changed piano teachers his new one, who is a well qualified concert pianist, told me he had good technique and had been well taught. His previous teacher had only gone up to grade 6 herself.

But as snorkle says, 'qualifications', whatever you mean by that, do not necessarily make a good music teacher. Also, one teacher's style of teaching might be inspiring for some, too joyless for others. I am not sure how you can check this out beforehand.

I would ask the secondary school(s) she might attend what their policy is. DS1's school charges full rate, but I'm aware of other schools near us that will give free lessons to those who have had lessons in primary school (or have some other criteria to determine who gets free lessons).

You might want to look into whether there is a local authority music service in your area that might be a source of cheaper lessons (try googling on local authority name and "music service" and see what you get ).

The thing is Yamaha, cost is a real issue and it is why music is now such an elitist subject. If your child is good at say maths, they can go right through school and to a great uni with only the 'normal' costs to parents. If music is your child's passion and they are great at it, unless you live in one of very few areas where music is heavily subsidised, parents have to pay thousands of pounds for instruments, lessons and associated costs.

I have 3 children, 2 already taking music lessons and one starting next week. The first two have already been classed as exceptionally gifted musically and from being a nice, fun thing to do, their music has suddenly become much more serious in terms of expense. We are really struggling to afford it all, and I know families who couldn't afford even one lot of music lessons (£120 a term). This just shouldn't be the case, and it is sad that there is no consistent policy - I know LEAs that really subsidise music, while even in the next town to me the secondary school pays for instrument/voice tuition for anyone taking the GCSE music course, whereas our school doesn't.

Music shouldn't be elitist, it should be for everyone, whether that's on a fun, basic level or more advanced. But the only way to do that is to make it affordable. That in turn probably means things like shared lessons and so on. But what's actually so wrong with that, if it starts the child off on their musical journey and gives them a passion for music, or even just a liking for music! All the peripatetic teachers I know are actually well qualified and very professional. I accept there are bad ones, but I bet your life there are bad private teachers too. My son has moved onto secondary school and has a new music teacher, one who has a great reputation locally and in the wider region, and he has great respect for the peri who taught him at primary school.

Certainly one of the peris I know reckons that some of the interviews/auditions for peri jobs can be amongst the toughest for any job in music. Not only does she have to prove her practical abilities with the whole of the woodwind family, but the audition panel also watches her give sample lessons to small groups of pupils of all sorts of ability. So no resting on your laurels as a well-qualified or 'professional' musician, you really have to prove you can do the job!