I'm expecting one of my school piano pupils in a minute - he's coming to me at home for a lesson during half term to work on something for his GCSE performance. Although he's the only one coming today I have just washed my hair, put makeup on, changed into my new jumper and taken my walking boots off and put trainers on and I have clean jeans on.

If I teach during the school holidays I tend to dress more casually than during term time. I don't know why, but I suppose it might just be to emphasise that I'm working in the holidays.

I'm not a trousers or jogging bottoms kind of person, so I usually wear a top and skirt, with cardi or not as the weather dictates. For school and private teaching, I make sure the top is both clean and at the newer end of my wardrobe (having worn the old scruffy stuff for general cleaning etc duties) - sometimes the skirt doesn't get changed.

Although I wear slippers in the house, they're usually for non-teaching mode. I do have some black with a gold bit ones which I have very occasionally worn, but in the summer I wear sandals, and in the winter some indoor shoes for teaching simply because it feels right.

I don't very often wear dresses to teach (too much washing) so when we have our pupils' concert, it's fairly easy for me to look "dressed up".

I don't wear anything at all.

But on a serious note, I don't think it matters, I teach guitar and I guess that's more a casual instrument so I just wear what I'd usually wear on a normal day, jeans, t-shirts, hats, shirts, anything really. Obviously I change if I've been to the gym or whatever and am wearing trackies.

Personally, I prefer casual, I think it makes the student more at ease, I had a few guitar teachers over the years and I don't think I ever really connected with any of ones who dressed smartly.

I'd love to dress really casually but so many times people think I'm much younger than I actually am when I'm casually dressed so I try to put on some make up and look more formal in order to appear my age. At the schools I teach in I even get mistaken for one of the teens if I wear flat shoes and no make-up so I'm very conscious to give off a 'grown-up' air. I should have already cultivated this by now as I'm in my 30s!

How do I dress when teaching privately?

Stylishly!

I think your environment is a big influence too. I have to go more out of my way to look professional because I share a household with a small child and a disorganised husband. I need to overcome the fact that my front room is full of toys and has piles of my husband's paperwork and assorted junk sat on his office desk in the corner. I used to tidy up after him, but after 7 years of it I have realised it will never, ever help. I need to work harder to distance myself from all this. If I had a nice-looking room I feel it would already speak professionalism and I could dress my person down a bit more.

When I went to my teachers flat he simply wore smartish trousers and a shirt/polo shirt and usually slippers.

When he visits me its the same but of course some proper shoes, usually plimsoles in his case! He obviously wears a jumper if its cold.

He did twice wear a tie and jacket but that was becuase he taught me after teaching classroom music in a school in west byfeet.

We are having a Halloween party tomorrow night. I am tempted to wear the witch's hat from my outfit to teach tomorrow morning - I'm sure the kids would love it. I will also have a pumpkin burning.

I wear the clothes I would usually wear when I'm not at my office job - so jeans, top, cardigan, jumper etc. I always wear trainers. For my office job I usually wear black and smart shoes, trousers, blouses so would certainly feel very overdressed wearing that kind of thing for teaching. However when I go to the school I teach at I wear similar smart things. I have never taught from home yet but imagine I would stick to the same clothes. I think I would feel uncomfortable if I always wore smart clothes to teach my private students.

Lucid

I couldn't care less about what my teachers wear to lessons. Having said that, (this is completely true) the very first thing that crossed my mind the first time I met my recorder teacher was 'eek, she's got a ring through her nose, love the slippers though!'

Me too..... I have taught 3 pupils this holiday, all of whom have exams this session and I wore jeans for the lessons- I would never do that in term time! Weird eh?

I do, however, always teach at home with no shoes on, and even sometimes take my shoes off in school- I teach some very small pupils in one school and I tower over them if I'm wearing heels- so I usually sit down to teach them and if I stand up, I take off my shoes.

Fo teaching in school I would probably expect male teachers to wear a suit but there would no need for a tie or jacket.

If you teach at home then its your choice as what to wear but going to a pupils house you should wear smart casual, jeans would be fine.

Not sure for ladies, never had a female teacher before.

I've also had this problem. I'm in my 30s and sometimes get mistaken for someone much younger, too young to have qualifications or experience, probably because I'm very small. I used to think dressing more formally might help, but I never quite pulled it off - I always managed to look like a schoolgirl in uniform or on work experience!

Now I just try not to worry about it, just be myself, and let my teaching skills speak for themselves.

I wear whatever I threw on that morning. And don't notice what my pupil wears - as far as I'm concerned, clothes just need to be warm/cool enough, not smelly, and comfortable. The job in hand is the music, not clothing. Having said that, I'll dress up if performing, as there are audience expectations to take into account too. And for my day job, the same criteria apply as for teaching - I don't wear jeans to work because the fabric is stiff and gets uncomfortable when parked in a chair at a desk for a few hours, and isn't ideal for crouching down to talk to littlies or people lying on mattresses on the floor. "Smart" clothing would be a bad idea in inner city general practice...and when on call at weekends or overnight, I'd be in tracksuit trousers or similar just to make the point that this was out of hours...

So - does the instrument we teach make a difference then?

Good question, and I think this might be the case. Speaking from a singer's point of view, most of us who are (or have been) actively performing are usually very body-conscious (both in a positive and negative sense), or conscious about their looks/style in general. It comes with the job - in auditions for any type of stagework e.g., it is not just your voice that is judged, it's also your looks. I don't say that this is always fair, but I don't want to open that can of worms.

I am very used to dressing up, using make-up and 'presenting' myself. However, there's also a stage persona and a 'real life' persona, and they are not the same (thank God!). I do think though that being used to having a stage persona carries over into your private life or teaching career to a certain extent. So it might well be that e.g. singers who are or have been active performers are a bit more used to 'grooming' themselves

You also get singing teachers though who have never set foot on a stage apart from singing in mass on a sunday morning or doing concerts on a very small scale. They might be different again (and I don't mean this in a bad way, not everybody wants to do stagework, and it has nothing to do with being a better or worse singer or teacher).

I tend to be fairly casual, jeans with a smartish top. But I am very fussy about having something on my feet, usually flat shoes.

I did once have a guitar lesson where the chap taught barefoot and I actually found it quite off putting, I'm not a huge fan of feet, they are pretty ugly things for anyone over the age of 4, and not something I feel should be shared in a professional capacity unless you're a swimming teacher. (However, very different situation for the lady who is asked to remove her shoes by her clients when visiting their house.)

You may have hit the nail on the head here, Mezzo. My present teacher is always imaculately dressed and made up, even on a Sunday, when I go for my lessons, and she cooks us Sunday lunch (including her partner and my husband, as we're all now friends). She's been an international opera soloist and head of department at a London conservatoire.
All the good singing teachers in my area are all well groomed, too.
My piano teachers have been more casual. How do piano teachers feel about this?

Are 'well-groomed' and 'casual' mutually exclusive?

Nope, not in my case. I teach piano, organ, singing and theory and dress the same for teaching all of those. Smartly casual, normally, and jeans sometimes

Hopefully not


If I taught violin or piano (the former I possibly could, the latter I wouldn't dare ), I wouldn't change my dress-style either, but I don't think that's what Ann had in mind (correct me if I'm wrong). I think most multi-instrumentalists will still have one main-instrument, and I can only say from own experience that my singing-, violin- and piano-teachers were all very different, but there were also definite similarities in style and dress-sense, which I, looking back, find quite remarkable.

The singers were usually the most image-conscious ones, the violinists were all a bit wacky and slightly bohemian (sorry all you violin-people out there, I mean this in the best possible sense ), and the pianists were pretty straightforward and not very flamboyant. However, no rule without exemption I reckon.

This might explain why, having started on the violin, then turning to singing and learning the piano only because I had to, my dress-sense qualifies as slightly wacky, but still image-conscious enough to not end up as the world's worst dressed woman

I'm not sure - I'm in serious need of a hair cut, so it looks a permenant mess.

"Well groomed" puts a value judgement on appearance, which is a bit harsh- it implies that those who hate makeup (as I do) are neglectful: sure, if on a stage, I can see that a more extreme level of self-adornment might be useful, but why in a teaching environment? You can have, and can teach, good posture (and it is taught by non-singers too) and those aspects of performance without it.
Actually, I feel quite lucky to be a recorder player - it means that lipstick is out in any case .
Digby - the remark about feet puzzles me. I can't see that there is anything unæsthetic about them at all....

The reason I wear make-up is that I think I look ill without it....it's not to impress particularly.

Have to say I'm with Digby on this one - I think feet are ..

It depends on the feet! And the toenails. And the ankles.

Only if you think that well-groomed = wearing make up and self adornment. To me, well groomed just means somebody who has looked in a mirror and checked what others are going to see! This can still be combined with very understated or simple styles.

There's another element to this I think: when you are working at home, although I has many wonderful advantages, it can mean that work time and other time run into each other, ditto working on your own and working with others. I find I need to keep the distinctions clear for my own state of mind, to keep healthy working patterns. So for my sake rather than my pupils I would want to look reasonably smart for teaching, so I feel like I have 'gone to work' even if it's only in my own living room, then afterwards I can 'come home' to the same living room and feel free to slob around in any clothes I like. But by being smart I mean clean ironed clothes, brushed hair etc. rather than suit or make up!

By the same token, if my teacher came to the door with hair in a tangle and slippers or whatever, it might just give the air of absent minded professor who had been interrupted from being engrossed in their thoughts and wasn't quite adjusted to now having an appointment to work with someone else.

I always wear lipstick as I have very pale lips and look totally washed out otherwise. I don't wear any perfume at all just in case it makes people sneeze.

If I'm teaching at home on a day when I've been at school also, I'll be in a long skirt, nice top, and decent shoes. If it's not a school day then I'll be wearing what I usually wear - ordinary trousers or jeans, fitted T shirt or shirt, and possibly trainers. Nothing ripped or grubby though!

Oh I think that's terribly unfair on feet. We cram them into sweaty socks and shoes and expect them to carry us around for our entire lives. The poor things need some fresh air now and then.

Interestingly both my oboe teachers have on occassion pottered around bare foot.

For me, it's shoes I have the problem with: for a start, I dislike having shoes trailed through the house, bringing in goodness knows what from the street, so we all take ours off at the inner front door - feet do get abused by footwear, and perhaps get distorted through bad shoes, but of themselves, I'd rather see feet in my house than shoes.
Even when performing, I'll be wearing soft ballet slippers rather than shoes - they're black, so merge with the rest of concert gear. And if people are really that fussed about what my feet are doing, then clearly I'm not playing well enough....

I still think a bikini is a good idea!! Ok only joking. I wear anything that I feel like, bare feet, or socks or shoes or sandals. Clothing - again nothing that I'd do the garden in - but apart from that, if I'm comfortable, so what? Make up, well, it depends what mood I'm in!