I feel bad that you’re here all alone with a question, Kay, so even though I don’t have much of an answer, I wanted to chime in to help you get started. With a student who starts young and is serious, there is a definite end date for most teachers, and that is sending the kid on to college, so in theory, a student could start at age 7 and continue until age 18. There are exceptions – I know students who began lessons with, or switched early to a conservatory-based harp teacher and continued on with that teacher in college. I’m currently teaching a former student for the summer break, even though she studies with someone else at college. My experience as a student: I spent 9 years with my first teacher and moved on to someone else 2 years before college.

For an adult student, if the relationship is strong, the lessons can continue on for as long as the student wants.

Here’s my student history:

~1 year with a college student

~5 years with her teacher (I had been recommended to the first one because this teacher had a lot of students and could only take the most serious ones)

~a couple month break (I moved to boarding school)

~a couple months with a teacher near the school

~2.5 years at the conservatory (in the prep division)

1 more year of highschool. I’ve gone back to the teacher I had for 5 years for summer lessons, but my current teacher decided that she did not want me studying with anyone else. Its a shame, and, in my opinion, hurtful to my progression. But I’ll make due 🙂

~Sam

My flute teacher has mentioned more than once that she would love to have me take a few lessons with teachers other than herself… she says “Every teacher has their own bag of tricks that they’ve learned over their years of studying their instrument… you’ll develop your own bag of tricks as you go along, but as you study with different teachers, you get to make use of some of the techniques they’ve discovered.”

However, if your current teacher is trying to teach you one concept and another teacher is showing you a conflicting method, that could also be hurtful to your progression…