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Affording Music Lessons (Suzuki…)
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Hi All!
I am wondering what you all do for music lessons. I would really like to start my kids on something. For their ages (3-1/2 and 5-1/2) our nearby music school offers suzuki violin and guitar (early start) and I think maybe one other instrument. I have been very interested in suzuki violin for a long time! However, it costs around $30 per week per child. Do the math and that is around $3,000+ per year (year round) for lessons only. I would have to purchase instruments, etc. as well. That sounds like a lot to me, is this what everyone is paying? I am wondering if there is another option.
My daughter is in the Music for Young Children program. She started a month after she turned three (you can join at all different ages). I cannot say enough good things about it! It’s primarily piano, but also singing, rhythm, composition, a small amount of composer study etc. It’s incredibly well rounded and a great launching pad into other instruments. My daughter is just finishing up her second year and actually had her year end recital today. She played the theme from Swan Lake for her piano solo.
We pay a registration fee that’s just shy of $150 usually. Then for each ten months it runs, we pay $68. That includes a weekly hour long lesson (high parent participation), two recitals, all the materials and endless teacher support. We need to own an 88 weighted key piano/keyboard. I found one on sale 50% off one time for $300. It is definitely an investment and a challenge for our quite low income family. For us, it’s completely worth it though, and I have full intentions of putting the rest of my children in when they’re old enough.
Hope that helps,
Rachel
We LOVE, love our simply music lessons – similar in method to suzuki in terms of teaching children to play the instrument before teaching them to read music (kind of like we learn to speak before we learn to read). My girls are playing AMAZING things after less than a year of lessons. It’s still kind of pricey – I think ours is $20 a child per lesson, but SO worth it in terms of where they are after such a short period of time. My younger daughter was 6 when she started, I wouldn’t start much earlier than that unless you have time to sit with them for practice each day – I have mine practice without my help or supervision – I’m sure they’d be even farther along if I sat with them! (but I’ve got two littles and one on the way, so it’s just not happening right now). I’m not sure if they do instruments other than piano…
We did suzuki. The suzuki group in our city has a bursary to help with lessons for a few kids… usually returning students. But I was able to get one for both my oldest kids when they each got old enough. It cut the cost down. I couldn’t get my 3rd child in though. Our last year it was a bit different, and I bartered with our teacher – but things ended badly.
I wish I could make music lessons happen for my girls, but right now it’s just too expensive. So I’m going to do the next best thing, figure it out at home. I think we’ll just work with the recorder next year. It will help us get a feel for it and learn to read music (something I’d like to do myself).
I have been doing violin with my dd for the past 18 months or so. Using various resources, some free and some paid, I am learning myself and then teaching her, following the suzuki materials, although I can’t claim to be doing a true suzuki program, as I’m not trained. If you want details, send me a pm with your email and I can send some information to let you see what’s possible so you can decide whether to try it. There are things I have learned that I will do differently next time, but all in all it has been a good experience so far.
We can’t possibly spend much with a single income and son to be eight kids. What we do is wait until a child is old enough to commit to a year of work on an instrument, then find a teacher who we can afford or an alternative way to learn (mommy teach, dvd course, books, internet videos). Right now we pay for lessons for oldest daughter (12 next week) $20/month for two half hour lessons. She’s taken piano for close to 2 years with a 10 month gap in the middle where we couldn’t afford lessons so we kept working on her skills at home. She adores piano.
Our next children down have Kinderbach DVDs available if they want piano lessons beyond what mommy or big sis can offer until they’re old enough and serious enough to find a way to pay for lessons. (My others are age 8 and under). I got the Kinderbach dvd set from another homeschool mom who was finished with them at a great price ($99 for all levels and I can reuse for all my kids). I ca also play piano some, and my oldest now can play well enough to help with basic lessons too.
For piano (which my husband, who’s the musician in the house, says is best to start with:)) we have found older ladies or stay at home mommies who used to teach music or played at a church to be the best price and enviorment. The lady we go to charges $60 a month for 30 minute lessons once a week. We drop my oldest two off and they each have their lesson with her, an hour later I have some errands run and pic them up. Easy Peasy and not too much green.
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