In my last post, I discussed five important and essential expectations you should have for private lessons with any private instructor. Private lessons should be personal, friendly, engaging, and fun, regular lessons. But they should also provide musically some key elements that will stretch beyond what a student may experience in a great band, orchestra, or choir program.

1. You should expect deepening and expanding learning of your instrument, beyond the fundamental level. This includes extensive embouchure, posture, breathing, fingering and holding techniques. Private lessons should spend significant time working on tone, pitch, range, and overall sound quality (this includes expression, lyrical ability, and developing your own unique sound eventually).

2. You should expect to develop a keen sense of intonation throughout the range of your instrument and ear training (the ability to discern pitches, intervals, eventually even chords and chord progressions). If you play guitar, ukulele, or another stringed instrument you should learn how to string and tune your instruments. Basic instrument maintenance whatever the instrument should be learned.

3. You should expect an even deeper concentration on reading melodic and harmonic notation, rhythmic interpretation, and expression than in an ensemble environment. What’s more, you should have extensive training in sight reading. You should sight read in a group regularly, but the level of difficulty in that environment needs to fit the group. Individually your teacher will pace the increase of challenge directly to your level and needs.

4. You should learn all of your scales, beginning with the foundational scales (Major, Minor, Harmonic Minor, and Melodic Minor in all 12 keys, in the circle of fifths). Once proficiency on these has been accomplished, you should learn your modes and then perhaps even advanced scales like pentatonic, blues, super Locrian, etc. You should also learn all of your chords, first triads, and then 6^th and 7^th chords, and finally tensions. Melodic non-chording instruments should learn to read them, understand them, and arpeggiate them (this includes vocalists).

5. Just as with a great band program, you should be using a time-tested curriculum, however, in private lessons your teacher also will likely draw from other sources as well for a broad range of musical repertoire as you are ready. A great private teacher will also occasionally write out personalized exercises or arrangements for you.

6. Music needs to be played in community and before others. This is very important. You should have regular opportunities to play in front of others in a recital form, and before the community at large.