Just finised giving a lesson to the pupil I have the most worries and doubts about. She already has a teacher at school who wants to enter her for grade 5 next year (said girl has only been playing for a year by the way). When the mum arranged lesons with me I decided it would be better for me to focus on developing her overall technique rather than having two teachers both working on exam pieces and contradicting each other - also I felt it was the best thing I could do to improve her playing overall. I have to say, she is very good for someone who has only been playing for a year but I'm still really worried that vital technique development will have been missed - especially as she only gets a half hour lesson at school.

I think the trouble is I'm not too sure how to proceed with this girl (she's 14 by the way). We started off looking at staccato and also double stopping as one of the exam pieces she's working on has triple stop chords and I felt it was important to teach her the correct way of practising them. I've also been working on third position stuff and, because she asked me to, grade 4 scales. Today she said her teacher does some work on scales in lessons so I don't know if she's already started doing grade 5 ones while I've been plodding away with the grade 4 ones. Today was just a bit messy - I forgot that it was my grade 4 book we were using and I also fogot that I had said she could borrow my grade 5 book and insisted on looking for it as I was convinced I must still have it. I also have these ongoing worries about just what I'm supposed to do with this girl to help her playing We did do some sightreading today as she had said at one of her earlier lessons that she can't do it so it's something tangible to work on. I don't know if I'm puting too much pressure on myself trying to help her because I feel that I will have let the family down if I don't get it exactly right.

Sorry for the massive post - think I just need to get it off my chest!

I think you are probably doing much more than you think already! If you are helping her feel more confident in these different aspects of her playing then that is terrific, the artificial goalpost of a future Grade 5 should not become an overshadowing worry.

Do you take time to play duets and other things that are less 'intellectual' so that she gets a fix of real music each lesson? That would be fun for you too!

I think what you are doing sounds great. I'm sure you're just feeling a bit down because the lesson didn't go smoothly, but that's just how it goes sometimes. Doing a combination of technique and musicality is probably a fantastic resource for her playing which will really support her exam work. Also the sight-reading is a great idea - time and again it comes up as a weakness - so that in itself is time well spent.

As for letting the family down - it's the emotional risk we run every time we take on a pupil - but in reality - it's impossible to predict what is "right" - we just do our best.

In short I would say don't be down on yourself - keep doing what you're doing!

When I was teaching (which admittedly was 15 years ago) no teacher would knowingly have taken on a pupil who was already having lessons with another. On the one occasion I found that a girl I was teaching had started lessons at school I told her parents they had to choose and I never saw her again. Every teacher I knew at the time would have done the same thing.

Liz

I agree. I think the problems you feel you are having are quite simply due to being 'the other teacher'.