I'm wondering how our teachers break down lesson time? How much is direct instruction/demonstration, how much is playing and how much is what I will call fluff (opinions, long dissertations on technique, stories about long past master classes, etc.).

I have taken two lessons and feel that there has been too much talking but there could be reasons for that. I am new to the instrument, and I have adopted some bad habits in teaching myself. I am going to take at least two more lessons before I decide that a new teacher is needed. I don't think it is my place to complain about a teachers methods, but at the same time I want to feel that each lesson is worth the time and effort to go (and yes,) to pay for.

Your thoughts are much appreciated.

I find myself doing quite a lot of talking in early lessons with beginners, particularly with older beginners to give them an overview of how this music thing works.
Is the talking instructional? Maybe your teacher is trying to make it clear how and why (s)he is doing things.

Although I agree that you should give it a few weeks - the teacher may be talking more than usual in an effort to get to know you - I'd have thought that you would have a good idea what to expect from an individual lesson. You say you're new to the instrument, but given your qualifications you can hardly be a stranger to instrumental tuition so I think you should trust your judgement.

Just out of curiosity, why do you refer to "Level" 5?

I'm a great believer in gut instincts and think that if you have niggles inside about the quality of your lessons, it's for a reason. It doesn't necessarily mean that your teacher is not a good one; it may simply be down to differences in your characters that don't make you feel comfortable in their company.

I started flute lessons with an inexperienced teacher and felt, after several lessons, that I wasn't really learning anything; my teacher spent more time playing than I did; lessons felt a bit disorganised and I just felt a bit uncomfortable and unsure if I was getting what I was paying for.

I have since found a brilliant teacher. I play from the moment I get there till the moment I leave. Of course, she talks to me and sometimes plays, but it's mostly to correct my bad habits, to help me understand what I'm doing a bit more and mostly importantly, to give encouragment. I have learnt so much already and I've only had 2 lessons with my new teacher!

If you have doubts, see who else is out there. There's no reason why you can't ask for a trial lesson with another teacher while you're still maintaining your current arrangement.

I suspect the OP is in the US or Canada. Most US tutor books etc come with Level 1, 2 etc up to 10 levels I think.

To the OP, I would give it a few more lessons but maybe you can talk to your teacher about it to see if he/she can tie in the 'talking points' with a practical exercise rather than trying to explain things verbally. Maybe there are one or two specific things which may have come up so far which you can ask to focus on in a practical way and apply with one or two repertoire pieces.

Most of my musical instruction has been vocal so I am not sure just how instrumental lessons are supposed to go.

Signature has been changed. I live in the state of Nevada, U.S.A..

I wondered this, but was put off the scent by the mention of ABRSM!

My advise to you is, don't meassure the value of a lesson how much you are able to play your instrument in it. Talking, music history, own experiences of a teacher teach, too. Making music is not alone the ability to play an instrument but as well what surrounds it. And that is not just how long a note value lasts, how a trill is made.

For example, when you play a piece of music, what do you know about the composer? Do you know how written music was interpreted in his/her time? Take Bach. Do you know why Friedrich the Great despised Bach's compositions? So if he despised his compositions, what had changed in the few years that Bach was older then Friedrich the Great? (there were political changes that found their way into musical compositions as well).

Do you know how it feels to stand on a stage in front of an audience? Have you found techniques to overcome stage freight? Maybe your teacher has and you can gain from her/his experience.

And then there is the aspect that you said yourself you are just beginning lessons and have maybe gained bad habits being self-thaught. Sometimes, it can help to not overfreight a lesson with too much musical input to help concentrate between lessons on the few things that were thaught. Sometimes, too much is too much to remember correctly after a lesson and adds to the bad habits instead of getting rid of them.

AND THE MOST IMPORTANT THING: If you have the feeling that you progress, then the method of teaching is probably not bad at all, even if there is less playing involved then you would like.

Apart from the usual variation in teaching styles I would say much the same.

It depends on so many things - the teacher, the student, what the teacher is trying to teach. There's a lot of musical learning that doesn't have to do with playing. I have had quite a few lessons in which we didn't do much playing of the instrument- we worked on amongst other things understanding the music, standing or sitting right. Sometimes playing very little different stuff but working only on one phrase.

I would not want most of my lessons to be playing through a lot of pieces unless it was before a performance - I would want my teacher to be correcting me a lot. Thus I wouldn't worry if I was not playing that much.

However as several other people have pointed out, it's important that *you* feel that you are progressing.

Maybe more lessons are required? I think with every new teacher there's a period of settling in.

If you feel the teacher is saying irrelevant stuff, that to me isn't a good sign- even if the percentage of lesson spent talking is low.

I'm not sure I like being refered to as an OP.

I think that the last poster hit it on the nail. If he was talking about sheep farming I would know we were off track, but what he talks about is guitar technique. Perhaps in more detail than I can handle right now but relevant.

It stands for "Original poster" (or something similar) and simply means the person who started the thread.

Under the right circumstances, it could stand for old person. Which is it to be JonathanM?

Talking- sometimes it is very necessary as part of pacing, to explain a technical point, a theoretical point and remember that listening is a way of learning.

However there is a difference between a teacher liking the sound of their own voice, and talking to make a point.

Good reasons for a teacher to talk:
reassurrance:
to revise what was covered the previous week:
to explain a technical point:
to praise a pupil:
to correct a technical issue:
to comment on something they have heard you do:
to tell you about something you need to practise:
to confirm you understand what they have said:
to check you are comfortable with what they have asked you to do:

I could go on.

When I list all the good reasons, a teacher could be speaking in your lesson, of course they will talk. It is part of their Job description. Any really pertinent points should always be written in a notebook. I find this difficult to do with my singers as I am also acting as their repetiteur, and therefore have my hands full all the time, but for my pianists, I write really detailed practice notes.

Even at Level 5, there is bound to be lots to comment on if your teacher is really listening. Stick with it. Listening to your teacher is part of the process.

Many years ago I took 10 Violin lessons from someone who had been through a well respected conservatoire. There was hardly any talking, virtually nil technique. Just ploughing through etude after etude. Every 1 hour lesson I probably played for 50 minutes if not more. This was old school approach.
By the end of it all my Neck hurt so much that I put the Violin down for 20 years! Sometimes it's good to talk and sometimes you can actually achieve more by not playing the instrument,

I've been having lessons with my current teacher for a couple of years now. I've known him for longer because he also teaches the jazz group I play in. My lessons are at a local music school and work on school terms. On my first lesson back after the summer break we'll easily spend half of it talking. We'll talk about what I've been working on over the summer, I'll often have been away on summer schools and we'll talk about what I've learnt. Most importantly we discuss where I want to go next, the areas I feel need improving, set some priorities and come up with some plans as to how to address them.

While Lemontree, jod and others have provided some wise thoughts on how talking can be useful for certain teaching contexts, I do agree with those who advocate, in the end, trusting your instincts. Not everyone learns in the same way. While we may think that teachers ideally should be able to adapt to all the differing needs of their different students, that's just not always reality and some kinds of teachers work best with certain kinds of student. It could be useful to hang on for longer than four lessons to see how things progress, unless by then you're really sure that this particular teacher is not for you.

In my case, I am the one who talks to much. I often turn up with a long list of questions, concerns and hypotheses about what I am doing right/wrong (usually wrong) and what I might need to do to correct it. On one occasion when I arrived a bit late for the lesson, my teacher actually called out "Don't talk... play!" Before I had actually got in and opened my mouth! Generally lessons are a pretty balanced mixture of a bit of warm up (long notes and/or scales), work on studies, pieces (less on pieces in recent months - we've been concentrating more on working through a really useful method book with technical studies), spoken explanation, demonstration by my teacher and occasionally more spontaneous exercises (playing stuff while walking round the room, standing with back against the wall) and complementary exercises such as breathing. Sometimes I'll be playing for most of the lesson and other times he will spend more time talking and demonstrating. While the lesson is supposed to be for a fixed amount of time, often we have quite a flexible timetable and the lesson will go on for as long (or short) as the teacher thinks it's useful, subject to other commitments. I find it particularly useful that my teacher seems pretty attentive when I seem to get stuck on solving a particular problem and will adapt his approach accordingly, giving me alternative ways of practising at home to deal with the problem.

No matter how the lesson has been conducted, for me it boils down to if I leave the lesson "buzzing" and with a renewed sense of purpose that I can't wait to get back to the instrument, then it's a successful lesson.
If that feeling isn't there most of the time - there's bound to be the occasional flop - then I would consider changing.

Yes I agree. There is bound to be quite a bit of talking if the teacher is going to pass on the information required for us to improve. Most of the playing is done (or should be done) between lessons.