My Students' Musical Instruments

One of the signs that really proves to me a client is taking their child's private lessons seriously comes when they decide to buy them a new instrument or equipment for their lessons (like a guitar amp, strings, or even a music stand). Naturally, due to the fact that I teach a variety of instruments/subjects, this can take a number of different forms. Obviously my guitar students need either both an electric guitar and an amp or just an acoustic guitar, and my piano students need at least a keyboard if not a piano, but even my theory and composition students tend to need supplies of some sort.

Usually this takes the form of some sort of textbook, but it can also extend to having notation software, a midi keyboard, and some sort of DAW (digital audio workstation) like Logic or ProTools. In fact, one of my composition students' family is so dedicated to their sons' pursuit to become a film composer that they bought him not one, but TWO new Macintosh computers (a laptop and a desktop) along with the full-fledged version of Logic and a number of sampling libraries! All of this in addition to lessons with me and a more experienced film scoring teacher!

I would say a little over half of my guitar students play on acoustics, and to my knowledge, none of them have bought their instrument after we started working together, but a few of my electric students have gone out and bought Epiphone Les Pauls and Line 6 amps, as per my recommendation. When this happens, it always gets me that much more excited about lessons, not only because their parents are taking lessons seriously enough to invest even more in them, but also because I know the students will be more inspired with new better-sounding/playing gear.

Finally, most of my piano students already have a piano at home, but even this sometimes requires tuning, which I help them set up with the guy who has been tuning my piano since I started playing many years ago. Some of my clients who are perhaps less certain that their child is going to want to keep playing piano opt to get them started on a typical built-in-speaker keyboard, but one of these clients recently made the plunge and bought an upright piano! This kind of thing is a big boost for my confidence as a teacher, as it shows that they have faith that I'm leading their child in the right direction, especially considering that in this case I'm the only teacher she has ever had.