Hi everyone,
I've been reading posts on group teaching and I'm keen to know if anyone has experience of group teaching with advanced students - eg at a university or college. My employers are suggesting we start thinking about making a move to this and I wonder if anyone could tell me how they've found it - does it work? Thanks!

There has been a thread about group teaching of less advanced students, and one of the conclusions appeared to be that it can be cheaper, but the jury was not necessarily so decided about how effective it was. With advanced students, I guess it might depend on what was being taught. I can't imagine instrumental lessons working simply because the numbers would be so variable, and levels of expertise/areas of need possibly also. Having said that, if you have enough of the same instrument available, some aspects could work well, as long as there was individual tuition as well. I've got a set of technique books for my instrument which include exercises which are meant for groups; these books are for relatively advanced players.
One thing I'm discovering very late in my efforts to learn music is that there is a slightly different set of skills needed for good ensemble playing compared with solo performance, and again, that can be taught as a group discipline even at advanced level.

Group teaching can be great for ensemble playing and learning from each other. Not sure how easy it would be to match up suitable students as they get more and more advanced. And if they want to work for exams it would be very difficult if they weren't all doing the same thing. In an ideal world I think you would need both individual and ensemble teaching.

I think it can work really well, but the teacher should be very sure how to go about it effectively.