We often see individuals who want to start music lessons finding hard to decide if it is better to join a group class or take up individual lessons. Group classes are more common for students of young age while the adults prefer individual classes. Indeed in both types of classes there are positives and negatives and it is useful to outline them in order to understand what is suitable for each type of student.
In order to identify the pros and cons of each side it would be better to split the research in two different parts. The first is the relationship between the teacher and the student and the second is based on teaching material and other difficulties for both.
Focus, personality and progress.
In the individual classes which are more common for adults there is more individual attention: The teacher has the opportunity to be more focused in the student?s technical difficulties, slow or fast progress or other performance malfunctions and can identify more easily what the student needs. However, paying full attention to an individual student could cause pressure and that reduces the level of performance and the effectiveness of the lesson as the student could find it hard to express any feelings or reaction. Sometimes, depending of the personality of the student, the person to person contact affects negatively the communication between student and teacher. For example, when a 
student does not understand the material it is very common to ask the teacher to repeat or clarify misconceptions which is crucial for the musical development. ?Asking a question is just as important to the teacher as playing a beautiful phrase is to the performer. Questions require students to think and make decisions about the music leading to insightful discoveries about the composer?s meaning. Since we are teaching the student, not just the materials, questions help us asses their understanding and give direction to the lesson. Questions help teachers avoid having students who respond with mindless imitation. Open-ended and probing questions require the student to form opinions and make decisions? (Sylvia Curry Coats). However what happens if the student feels under pressure which based on the Jan De Vries lecture (Stage fright, Dublin 2008) loses the balance and control of arousal and that increases the stressors (especially when there are other aspects in his/her character like shyness, lack of self expression, very common among children in late childhood and adolescence)? By blocking his/her freedom of expression the student cannot contribute well to the lesson and even the teacher understands from reactions that the pupil does not understand something and insisting to use the same methods could cause even more pressure which further more makes the student lose interest or get a dislikable feeling for the lessons. In this case, a group class is preferable as the ability to acquire personal development is higher because it works as peer motivation. ?Group lessons motivate both students and parents and are a good source of social interaction and support? (Carolyn McCall). A couple of times I have experienced students trying to demonstrate to each other a melody that has been learnt by improvising on the guitar. The students who came to individual lessons after a group class had more influences and songs in their track list than those who started from the individual level.
Indeed the group classes work better as an enjoyment and social development and also give confidence in playing. Based on my experience, students who are under full attention find it harder to perform the material correctly. As it has been mentioned the pressure causes lack of confidence while in a group class the pressure is almost eliminated.
A group class is sometimes a group of children from a different cultural or family background, a case which needs more attention. The material should be more generic rather than based on a specific cultural background while sometimes this issue is more sensitive and some students would be encouraged to have individual classes in order to avoid confusion.
Teaching material
The ability to cover more material in the individual lessons is higher than in the group class where a student with slow progress could not allow the teacher to demonstrate more material no matter if there are students with high progress records in the class. ?I apprehend that if you effectually teach a mass, or class, or group, whichever you may please to term it, you effectually teach all the individuals composing that group. If any individual belonging to it is not taught, it is plain that all are not taught, and this is not because simultaneous method has been employed, but, rather, because the method employed was not sufficiently simultaneous, otherwise an individual would not have escaped. That some faults in large class escape detection often arises from the teacher?s eye to be omnipresent? (George White 2006). This could be a very important reason why the group classes cannot give perfection.
The standards vary between the students. There are classes where the students have completely different learning abilities and educational standards and this determines the material that should be taught.
Based on my experience, there were times when students in a group class asked me to give them individual lessons and here there is something worthy to mention. Sometimes in the group class the students start talking and don?t pay attention to the lesson which could be uncomfortable for the teacher, but that does not happen in the individual class and the progress is faster.
In a group guitar class of three children, I asked from each one to repeat the material of the current class
while the others should be focused on what mistakes the one student made and try to correct him (learning by teaching). ?In professional education, learning by teaching (German: LdL) designates currently the method by Jean-Pol Martin that allows pupils and students to prepare and to teach lessons, or parts of lessons. Learning by teaching should not be confused with presentations or lectures by students, as students not only convey a certain content, but also choose their own methods and didactic approaches in teaching classmates that subject. Neither should it be confused with tutoring, because the teacher has intensive control of, and gives support for, the learning process in learning by teaching as against other methods?. (Wikipedia). Indeed sometimes it gave good results as the students found the lesson enjoyable rather than an obligation towards the teacher, however the one of the three could not perform well, as she felt exposed not only to the teacher but also to the other students. Despite that the class has students of the same age and genre it is possible to experience that the personality is very important; this specific student who felt under pressure could perform better in an individual lesson.
Students from a group class sometimes do not have high goals in music, and despite the peer motivation which is an advantage of the group class, those who decided to take music more seriously in their future studies swapped to individual lessons.
Indeed it is difficult to specify which one is better than the another as it has been identified that for some students the group works better than the individual and vice versa, based on their background, personality and of course the age. The final outcome is that both work, and the parents before sending their children to music lessons should take seriously the advice of the teacher. Despite the fact that a lot of people do not consider the group classes as something serious, it is proved that they can work miracles if used under the appropriate circumstances.
Bibliography:
Curry Coats Sylvia 2006: Thinking as You Play: Teaching Piano in Individual and Group Lessons (Paperback), Indiana University Press
McCall Carolyn 1983: Group Lessons for Suzuki Violin and Viola, Publisher: Suzuki Method International (July 1999)
White George 1862: A simultaneous method of teaching to read adapted to primary schools, Published1862, Original from Oxford University Press.
….Use Paypal