Finding a new violin teacher Options

[alexlake]

We need to find our daughter a new violin teacher to take her from grade 6. The lessons she's getting from the peripatetic teacher at school are OK, but not great, and they interfere too much with her academic subjects.
Other than recommendations from her friends in the school orchestra/ensembles, how should I go about finding one?
Someone in the Barnet area would be great.

[Misterioso]

We need to find our daughter a new violin teacher to take her from grade 6. The lessons she's getting from the peripatetic teacher at school are OK, but not great, and they interfere too much with her academic subjects.
Other than recommendations from her friends in the school orchestra/ensembles, how should I go about finding one?
Someone in the Barnet area would be great.

If you don't have any reason to distrust her friends, they might be a good starting-point, especially if they are at a similar level to your daughter. Gathering a few phone numbers and finding out about what teachers are available - and what they can offer - can't do any harm. If there is a music shop in the area, have a look to see if any violin teachers are advertising. If not, you could try placing a "wanted" ad in the shop, or in the local paper. Or try asking the musical director of the school orchestra.

[Flossie]

If possible, it's worth having trial lessons with more than one teacher. Whilst a lot of teachers seem to like pre-payment in blocks, I suspect that most would be happy to do a trial lesson with a student working on the higher grades to see if they are the right fit for each other. Whilst it is important right the way through to have good teacher-pupil working relationships, I think the chemistry becomes more important as the student becomes more advanced. I suspect that if you try some teachers out your daughter may well have a sense of which teacher she wants - although you may of course hit lucky and find the right teacher straight away without trying any others (which I've done a couple of times). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It is worth thinking about your daughter's longer-term aspirations and whether the teacher will fit with these, e.g. a folk specialist might not be the best teacher for a student who is most interested in Romantic music (although there may of course be exceptions to this).

[Seer_Green]

As for locating a teacher, apart from asking around, there's the usual places - music shop, library, internet etc. etc. Virtually all my enquiries come through my website now.

I think that lottie's idea of some trial lessons is a good one. You may find lots of teachers in your search, but probably be not much the wiser about whether any of them are suitable. Putting my teacher's hat on, when people enquire about lessons, I'm more than happy to demonstrate my 'skills' to them, whether that's simply through a friendly chat on the phone or a trial lesson. It's so important, particularly at the higher grades, that pupil and teacher 'gel' well. I think you can only really find this out by going to meet likely teachers and trying them out (or at least hearing about them from others) - most should be more than happy to accomodate this. Learning an instrument is a big committment both in time and money, and it's important that pupils/parents are well-informed about and comfortable with the teacher chosen.