Learning with a teacher is a powerful way to supercharge your musicianship but does come with a vulnerability attached - what happens when that teacher leaves.

They are a very important and embedded part of the process and many musicians find this challenging, either when their teacher can’t make it and a replacement is sent in or when their teacher inevitably leaves (All good things must come to an end).

This can also come up for a musician when things are not going so well with a teacher, or if it is time to move on from a teacher who you may have outgrown or who may no longer be working for you.

We know that changing up your tutor can be a bit of an adjustment, especially for one-off lessons. But working with a replacement/new teacher is fantastic learning and being able to draw from many inspirations and work with many different musicians is a huge positive. We highly recommend it, here's some of our thoughts: 

1) Be open to new ideas - assuming you are working with a reputable organisation the teacher that has been arranged for you is both a fantastic musician and wonderful communicator with a wealth of knowledge to share. We don’t hire easily. Be a superstar student and draw them out. 

2) Don't compare - every teacher is different, they are working with you from their background and not your usual teachers, music is so rich and there are so many ways to approach it. Relish the opportunity to hear a different perspective. 

3) Every lesson counts - don't write off a lesson just because it's not with your usual teacher. Even if you have an ongoing project or goal you are working towards, take the opportunity to broaden your horizons and learn something different. 

4) Break dependence - teachers come and go (especially creative ones!) so be prepared for change and embrace it. Your music is yours to nurture and grow. 

5) Take responsibility - it is your responsibility to learn from, draw on, work through and improve, teachers and inspirations will come, go and change over time and we highly suggest thinking of your usual teacher as one of the many wonderful musicians you are going to learn from and your replacement teacher as another one! 

6) Parents - we would love for you to encourage your children to be open to the process and understand the above too, young people can find change especially challenging but can be taught to see the value and importance of sticking with something through adversity, and the reality of loss.

Hopefully that's given you some insight, feel free to us if you have any thoughts or ideas, we're absolutely open and strive daily to run the best place to learn music in our community. 

If you have any questions you would like answered about music or would like to find out more about us please get in touch! 🙂