Timing on changing a teacher

December 27, 2025, 5:22 PM · I can share what we are doing. My dd has 2 teachers, one local and one who lives 2 hrs away. If it were feasible to simply work with the long distance teacher, I would have dd take that route. It isn't at this pt. She sees the local teacher every week and the long distance teacher 2x per month. The long distance teacher is a former student of Dorothy Delay and his teaching style is so encouraging while being equally excellent. Her local teacher is the best teacher in our area. He offers excellent explanations and is a great teacher. We really like him a lot. The short coming is that he cannot really demonstrate at a high level what he is explaining when dd isn't picking it up immediately (unless it is a piece he has played a lot and somewhat recently). She can listen to recordings to understand, but it is an issue during her lessons.

The long distance teacher doesn't want to interfere with her local teacher. He works with her on bowing exercises (a long list of bowing techniques) and an etude that she is not working on with her local teacher. The local teacher is currently working on scales/etudes/concertos/Bach.

It isn't ideal. But, her bowing technique is improving leaps and bounds. I know nothing about violin and even I can hear the difference.

December 27, 2025, 7:33 PM · What you could do, which is what I do with my teacher, is have hybrid lessons - some online, some in person. You could go out maybe twice a month for an in person 1 hour lesson, and maybe have a 30minute online lesson on the other weeks.

December 27, 2025, 7:40 PM · Studying with a good teacher is invaluable. Lessons once or twice a month is not enough in my opinion. Thus supplementing is necessary.

I think you should ask yourself the goals of this study, both in the short term, and long term. Then ask the new teacher their assessment of the goals.

Studying with the new teacher twice a month will in theory put your child behind other students of the teacher. Will that placement be enough to meet your goals?

Most students end up a few rungs below their best teacher.