Longer lessons

[Molly]

Hi everyone!! I am new to this forum, glad to have found a harp community! There are so many good topics on here. 🙂

I started playing the harp about 8 months ago, so I am still a beginner/late beginner. I am fortunate to have found a wonderful harp teacher who I have been working with since I started playing. She is teaching me the Suzuki method and I am currently about half-way through Book 1. I take a 30-minute lesson once a week, and practice at home for about 15 minutes each day. What I am running into, is that after each lesson I will pick up on the new materials quickly (a good problem to have!) but by the middle of the week, I am ready for more. I always end up trying to work ahead on my own, but I am coming up against a wall because my abilities are still limited. Especially since I am still learning to read music. Is this an indication that I should be taking longer lessons? Or doing more independent study?

Any suggestions would be appreciated 🙂

[Biagio]

I think you should discuss this with your teacher. Some teachers want the student not to deviate from the assignment. Others might encourage you to try different things if you are bored and feel that you have mastered the assignment. All my teachers have suggested a set time period (every day) of 30 minutes to an hour divided more or less as follows (hour example):

Warm up and exercises – 10 min.
Work on assigned piece – 20 min.
Review earlier pieces – 20 min.
Fun/improvise – 10 min.

Natch the time amount is flexible – maybe one is busy and only has a few minutes between chores so you can split it up. The main thing is to play at least a little every day. If practice is boring or onerous something is wrong….we do call it “playing”, after all:-)

[Molly]

Thanks! I try not to do too much on my own as not to de-rail my lessons, but I’m just itching for more. I will definitely talk to my teacher about increasing my lesson length or picking harder pieces!

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

If you want to practice like that, then you need a daily lesson. Or record your lessons so you can review them at home. You are definitely not going to progress very much at 15 minutes a day. Expand that by five minutes a day until you are playing at least an hour. If you want to improve.

[Molly]

Thanks!! I might start recording them for sure. I agree there is only so far one can go with once a week lessons, but I am trying to make the most of it until an extra time slot opens up and I can go to 45min lessons. I have also been increasing practice for 15-20 minutes at a time, then coming back again, so my total time is now around 45 minutes a day. I am currently working on 2-3 pieces at the same time (within my level of course) and my teacher says that I am progressing really fast. I think I have enough to chew on for the time being! I wish I could take daily lessons.. if only there were enough hours in the day!! I work 2 jobs so that would be a bit too much!

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