Time in Music Lessons is Never Wasted: A Conversation with Eloise Hellyer (Part One)

I am thrilled to be bringing you the first in a two-part interview this week with Elloise Hellyer, violin teacher and author of the Violin Teacher’s Blog and the book 1 Teaches 2 Learn: Private Music Teaching and You. Eloise was born in Chicago, IL, and currently lives and teaches violin in Italy. She was a recent speaker at the American String Teacher’s Association conference in the spring of 2024, which is when we first met in person, although we’ve been connected online for years.

Eloise Hellyer Time to Practice Podcast Episode 59

In this episode of the podcast, we talk about

The importance of flexibility and understanding each student’s unique needs and personality when teaching, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach.
The value of the teacher-student relationship and creating a space of trust, empathy, and support for the student.
Recognizing that students may have different reasons and motivations for learning music beyond becoming a professional musician and that value can be found in learning music for a number of different reasons.

To Listen to the full episode with Eloise Hellyer, you can find the Time to Practice Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Audible, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. You can also listen directly from the link below:

Highlights of our Conversation include:

On why Eloise wanted her daughters to learn music: “It was important to my whole being, because as you know, music encompasses everything. Your physical, your intellectual, and the spiritual aspects, everything together. And that had been very important to me in my development. And so I really wanted my daughters to have that.”

On teaching one’s own children: ” So many people say, you shouldn’t teach your own kids. And I even wrote a blog post about that because I very firmly believe that if you want to teach your own kids, why not? If you want to, why not? It’s a great gift you can give them. And yeah, maybe you’re going to be a little irritated sometimes, but then tell me when. I mean, I dunno about you, but I would get irritated with them for other things. So I mean, it’s just part of raising children. So I am kind of tired of people who tell you, you should never teach your own kids, and you should absolutely find a teacher if you can. And I think if you want to, you should.”

Don't confuse not wanting to practice with not wanting to play. Eloise Hellyer

On not confusing not wanting to practice with not wanting to play the instrument: “First of all, don’t confuse not wanting to practice with not wanting to play. That’s a big one. And kids will do this, and so will their parents. I get this a lot. Oh, he doesn’t want to practice. That means he doesn’t want to play. I said, wait a minute. And I asked the kids, I said, does your mom and your mom and dad, do they like a clean house? They said, yeah. I said, do they like to clean it? And some of them say, oh yeah. And the parents go, ah!”

On teaching: “. It’s like giving birth. It’s like being a Midwife. You help them give birth to something that’s theirs. At least that’s how I see it. “

Listen to our entire conversation through the links above or you can read the transcript below