Quick back story. I picked up a bass a few years ago and played it quite a bit. Never learned to read music, but I had a pretty good ear and great timing. Tabs were always enough to get by.
I bought my girlfriend and I each a violin as we were both interested in playing. I like learning it, but given our schedules and when we are both at the house, we end up 'practicing' together. By practicing, I mean spending 10+ minutes trying to get our things in tune (they aren't the greatest instruments quality wise), and then trying to do the same basic exercises until we both just can't stand it anymore.
I'm finding it damn near impossible to learn this instrument alongside someone else who is also learning. I feel like I get more done in 10 minutes on my own than in an hour of trying to practice together. We'll try to do a simple excessive like playing each string open four times and moving on to the next. I turn on a metronome and whenever the two of us are playing at once, I lose all ambition to try and play. I find playing alongside someone else to be a choir. The combined volume of both instruments drown out the metronome, and the fact that we both suck makes it really hard to play to simplest of counts.
I guess my question is, is it typically harder to learn when you're learning alongside someone else? I can't imagine being a music instructor and having a dozen or so kids all playing like shit.