I am planning on beginning to teach, what would I do for the first few lessons?

I don't know anything about your instruments, but could you ask your teacher? It's useful to use them as a mentor, especially when you first start out. I still use my mentor now.

Yes - very important I think.

It's one reason why I nearly always begin with a kind of 'foundation course' of about 4 weeks. It enables me to get to know new students a bit and to see how best to work with them.

I would suggest you spend at least some part of the first lesson making some simple assessments of your students' abilities - can they keep a steady beat - clap a pulse? can they hum or sing a tune? match a pitch? etc. Do they already read music or play another instrument? Previous experiences of playing - do they prefer to work from written music or play by ear? etc etc. All these things will have an impact on how you choose to teach them.

It depends on what instrument you are planning to teach - will you devise your own scheme or use a tutor book? - in which case you need to have a good look at all the available ones and decide which one you like best, and which will suit your student best eg someone who has great difficulty maintaining a steady beat may do better with a tutor book that has a backing track. Adults seem to prefer these as well as it is a more musically satisfying experience than sitting at home playing three notes on your own.

There are lots of good books about with ideas for teaching - try Paul Harris "Improve Your Teaching" or "Teaching Beginners". The AB and TG also produce good teachers' handbooks/manuals.

What instrument are you going to teach? What I do is pretty much what has already been said in this thread, the first couple of lessons I find out what they know already (if anything) and go on from there filling in any gaps of knowledge along the way.

If it is a complete beginner then it is a blank canvas to work on, I get a tuition book for them to work on to begin with then I start to bring my own strategies in to teach rhythm, notation for example.

Yeh the instruments would be Percussion and Piano, also, I was thinking about doing a bit of guitar.

I agree with David here! This is why I don't teach singing. The effort involved in learning about teaching piano really well is such that I don't think I could stretch to two instruments yet. (And I've been teaching for eight years!)

True. I sometimes thought about practising my flute again, well enough to teach it, but every time I try and I feel I'm wasting time that could be spent on piano. That probably just shows I'm not excited enough about the flute and shouldn't bother. It would be silly of me to get better at an instrument for the sole purpose of teaching it rather than a genuine enthusiasm for it

with the previous posts, it is better to start off with just one instrument to begin with. I recommend teaching the instrument you are more confident with and that you will enjoy teaching the most.

I only teach piano and I couldn't imagine myself teaching more instruments on top of that, I'm busy as it is with teaching just one!

I also only teach piano as it's the only instrument I'm qualified to teach and which I feel I have a really thorough knowlege of. However, I do also teach theory and sometimes composition to my piano pupils.

I agree with the point about enthusiasm. I have been thinking about this all day as I teach things other than piano and love it. But the idea of having to get to grips with beginner, intermediate etc repertoire for a whole other instrument totally puts me off! Somehow though doing my choir, teaching tiny tots and theory are all fine...probably because they are so different (and because I am a choral obsessive!!)

I agree with sticking to one instrument, especially at the start; the jack of all trades approach can just look desperate - I teach piano and also run a choir so have been asked several times to give private singing lessons, hilarious really if you'd ever heard me - I can squeak in tune but that's about it.

Yes, stick to the instrument you love most/are best at/ feel you could teach best.

But, also, have a look around in your area. Are there lots of piano teachers but very few percussion teachers ? Is there any demand for percussion lessons ? When you say guitar, do you mean classical or 14 year-old boy electric rock stuff ? Is there a hole in the market where you are for that style of guitar ?

Passion is important but market conditions matter too if you want to earn a living from it (a bit of a pipe dream, frankly, but who knows . . .).

Mind you if someone is genuinely multi-talented and we do have such people among us, what's wrong with them teaching more than one instrument, especially if within the same family, e.g. violin and viola? We never give this advice to someone learning after all. Many sixth formers have (or are moving towards) Grade VIII in more than one instrument. In my day, yes, we were urged to specialise and concentrate on the one we were most gifted in. Nowadays however, variety seems to be the spice of life. Go for it!! Carpe diem!!

LR

Yip, fair enough. Sound like pretty sound advice!

LR

In a contrast to using my old teacher as i mentor, i went for the total opposite approach. My old clarinet teacher was very 'non' motivational and what i would call 'boring'! So i went for the fun & friendly approach and has found that works a treat.

Clarinet chick

Welcome to the forums, Clarinetchick!

Thanks! Nice to be welcomed!! It's all very friendly on here & i find there's loads of good advice too