So you are ready to take some oboe lessons. You’ve just moved to the area, or you’ve gone through a
year of band and your parents have decided that you seem committed enough to begin to be serious, or you feel that your own private practice has stalled and you need new insights. What does it mean, when a teacher suggests that you come in for a trial lesson?
The trial lesson is usually not a free lesson – you are still occupying the teacher’s time and energy with your presence. It is, however, a low stakes, low commitment way to see if you and your teacher are going to be a good fit for each other.
Of course you should use this opportunity to learn as much as possible. Even if you’ve been taking lessons for years, a different perspective will inevitably offer some new insight into your oboe study. If your teacher says something brand new, that lesson was 100% worthwhile. If the teacher only says exactly the same things as your previous instructors, that should be a major red flag for YOU. Perhaps this THING is a real problem that you actually should work on. If the teacher contradicts something else you’ve been told, this is a golden opportunity. You could silently take the advice away with you and then experiment to find your own truth, or you could ask the teacher to explain the contradiction – either way you learn and you get new ideas. Not bad for a single lesson!
As you are going through your trial lesson, notice the way the teacher interacts with you. Does she play her instrument with you? Does he demonstrate proper technique? Does he engage with the problems you seem to be having? React to you as a person? Everyone has their own style, and you want to make sure that you are comfortable with the person who will be working with you one on one every single week. Some teachers are nurturing, some are taskmasters, some are easily distracted, some are more interested in equipment than technique and some go to the other extreme. The lesson you are getting – is it helping? This is your chance to feel out what the relationship will be like, and if you don’t sense that you are getting good value, or enjoying the process, or at least heading in a good direction, you can thank the teacher and pay her and never come back.
Please understand though, that trials go both ways. A teacher isn’t going to bring you into her studio if she doesn’t enjoy working with you. A teacher might choose not to take a student whose playing is not at a high enough level. There can be personality differences, or style issues. And this is your time to show that you can learn, and you can change what you are doing, and you are an interested, engaged party to the work at hand. Be open to new ideas, be willing to try, and be yourself. Let the teacher get to know you so she can like you right away.
You may not realize this, but you are on trial as a client as well as an oboist. Teaching is a job, and running a full studio is a business, and bad clients can make your teacher’s life hard just as quickly as bad oboists can. If you cancel your trial lesson, or reschedule it more than once, that’s a bad sign. If you accidentally leave your oboe, reeds, and music locked up at school and come to your trial lesson empty handed, that’s a bad sign. If you ignore a rescheduling email from the teacher and come at the wrong time and then blow off the correct one, and don’t get in touch to apologize or clarify, that’s a super bad sign. Things come up, in life, and all of these sorts of misunderstandings can happen – but if they happen early on, in your trial lesson, that’s a red flag to the teacher. First impressions are important, and the teacher is trying to decide whether you’ll be an asset to her class, and you may not be. Many times with younger students this is a parent issue, more than a student one – if you are applying for lessons for your child who needs to be driven and scheduled and paid for by you, you are ALSO on trial at the trial lesson!
All this to say – a trial lesson with a new teacher is a great opportunity. It’s not a bad idea to take one with every oboist in your town – you get to hear lots of different ideas, and can make an informed choice about who you want to work with. But please know that a trial lesson is effectively an audition for BOTH parties.
Have a great Back To School, Everyone!