Thanks to Music Matters Blog reader Brooke for alerting me to a fabulous resource! Visit the Sonatina Enterprises website for archives of two years’ worth of masterclass videos taken at their summer music programs. Just click on the 2011 Masterclass Archives or 2012 Masterclass Archives buttons on the home page to view a list of repertoire and select videos to watch. I’m already enjoying watching these great video recordings and picking up helpful teaching tips!
A Simple But Fun Note Identification Game for Students
Collin Wade, of the PianoTeacherNOLA blog recently posted a simple, but fun note identification game that could easily be used with students either in a private lesson or group class setting. It’s called Learning Space Notes, but the idea could be adapted for use with specific notes and both treble and bass clefs. You can download the game files for free on the For Teachers page of the website.
Monday Mailbag – How to Raise Tuition Fees
I have not raised my rates since I began teaching in 2007. I charge a flat monthly rate, and am considering increasing each month’s payment by $5 starting in Sept. I find myself worrying about how my families will react to this change, and how I’ll prepare to answer. I am very involved with MTNA and my local chapter, which I was not 5 years ago, I have more resources at my finger tips, I attend conferences and workshops, and I earned NCTM… not to mention inflation, and the fact that I recently got married and have a hungry husband to feed every day! I don’t want to go into too many details, but want to stay professional. Would it be easier if I just increased monthly tuition by a dollar every year? How do you handle this? Any advice?
Continuing in the same vein as the last two weeks with a business-related question, I though this one seemed particularly apropos for this time of year as we evaluate and implement changes in our policies for next fall. I’m sure there are lots of different ways to go about raising rates, but I personally think that a brief statement with a reminder of the studio benefits is probably sufficient.
As much as it’s tempting to want to give long-winded explanations (a.k.a. apologies) for rate increases, as you alluded to, the professional approach is to assume that families will understand the rising costs and place enough value on the services and education they are receiving from you to be completely fine with it. A $5/month increase per month seems very reasonable in light of what you are providing for your students. You might want to read this post on Three Simple Questions to Help You Figure Out What to Charge For Lessons for additional ideas. I also encourage you to read the comments on Do Independent Music Teachers Get Sick Days? and Determining Monthly Tuition for some fabulous perspectives from other teachers!
In case it’s helpful, here’s some sample verbiage that I’m using in my studio update this week to inform families about the new studio rates:
The rate for lessons will be increasing from $__/month to $__/month effective September 1, 2012. This will continue to include weekly private 45-minute lessons as scheduled, participation in all studio group classes, recitals, and creative projects, access to the studio lending library, use of studio technology, and opportunity for involvement in many other community festivals and competitions.
If anyone else has input on how to raise tuition rates in your studio, please feel free to offer suggestions!
Remember, if you have a question you’d like to contribute to next week’s Monday Mailbag, leave it in the comments below or send me an e-mail sometime this week with Monday Mailbag in the subject line!
And the Winners Are…
#26 -Karen
#46 – Patty
#8 – Emily
#44 – Kathy
#63 – Valerie
Congratulations to these five readers for winning the Red Leaf Piano Works giveaway! I’ve contacted each of you via e-mail with instructions. Thanks to everyone for participating!
Interval Ear Training Without an App!
Those of you who have been around here for a while know that I probably couldn’t function as a teacher anymore without my amazing little iPod Touch. However, I realize that there are still holdouts among us who prefer to dwell in the Dark Ages. 
It’s getting harder to find non-app resources these days, but the folks at EasyEarTraining.com have a soft spot in their heart for the afore-mentioned teachers, and have put together a Free Interval Ear Training Pack that contains mp3 files.
According to their post, “The downloadable pack includes 5 MP3 files, each of which is about 3 minutes long. Each focuses on a different interval. Once you’ve downloaded the tracks and added them to your favourite music player, listen to them regularly. Ear training is a skill which you want to practise every day to see real improvement…”
Even though this is a great resource for any musician, I can especially see my highly aural learning students getting into something like this!
Music Videos in 1900?!
In doing some research for a curriculum I’m working on for Adventures In Character, I came across this fascinating history of music videos on the PBS Kids website. Sheet music publishers often used music videos (a.k.a. illustrated songs) to boost sheet music sales. It was highly effective. The Little Lost Child, one of the first illustrated songs, sold millions of copies!
This is great information to share with students! And I could see even using it as inspiration for a special project, maybe as part of a composition project where they create a music video to promote their newly composed work…
Monday Mailbag – Do Independent Music Teachers Get Sick Days?
Though I don’t like hanging on to the per lesson price part of my plan, I don’t see a way around it to be fair to the parents if I have to miss a lesson. Do you ever have to miss a lesson, Natalie, anyone? What do you do?
Last week’s Monday Mailbag post on Determining Monthly Tuition got a lot of great feedback, including the above question. I purposely titled the post “Do Independent Music Teachers Get Sick Days?” because this is how we really need to think about the question. We have to keep in mind that we are business owners employing ourselves, so it’s imperative to consider what benefits we should include in our policies. If we were working for another school or organization, we would probably expect to get a certain amount of time for vacation and sick days. Since we are our own employers, we should figure out a way to incorporate those into our payment plan. This has been a really helpful perspective to keep in mind over the years as I’ve established my studio and set policies in place.
My approach is pretty simple. I just state in my policies that I reserve the right to cancel one additional non-scheduled week off each semester. This is to be done at my discretion, however, I’ve only used it a couple of times – once when I traveled out of the country, and once when I was sick. If I don’t take that time off, the student benefits from an extra lesson that semester, which is usually what happens. Also, because most of the teachers in my area still offer makeup lessons of some sort, I keep my rates a little lower to compensate for the fact that I don’t offer makeups for missed lessons.
Are there any other thoughts or perspectives on building room for vacation, personal, and sick days into your schedule? What has worked well in your studio?
Remember, if you have a question you’d like to contribute to next week’s Monday Mailbag, leave it in the comments below or send me an e-mail sometime this week with Monday Mailbag in the subject line!
Free Educational Arrangements of Christian Sheet Music
One of my students showed up a couple weeks ago with a simple arrangement of the contemporary Christian praise song, Mighty to Save. Her Grandma had found it as a free sheet music download on-line, and it’s the perfect level for her. She kindly sent me the link and it’s a treasure trove! If you have early level students who would love to play simple arrangements of hymns or contemporary Christian praise songs, you have got to check out Jeanie’s Online Music Studio!
You’ll find a wonderful collection of arrangements for piano, violin, and ensembles with various instruments. As an extra perk, the piano arrangements are leveled to correlate with the Piano Adventures levels so you can easily find appropriate songs for your students. I am so thrilled to know about this site and will be back often!
Review and Giveaway of 5 Piano Books from Red Leaf Piano Works! by Martha Duncan
Thanks to Martha Duncan for submitting the following guest post highlighting Red Leaf Piano Works:
Don’t miss your chance to win one of these exciting new piano books!
What do you get when a group of piano teachers who also double as award-winning composers get together? The answer is Red Leaf Pianoworks -an online composers’ collective designed to showcase an outrageous collection of over 300 titles from beginner to advanced covering all genres from solos to quartets. All of their music is available from their easy-to-use website http://redleafpianoworks.com where you can sort by level, genre and composer as well as see first pages of scores and listen to sound samples. Readers may remember another Red Leafer – Rebekah Maxner, composer of the timely Titanic piano books for elementary and late intermediate piano. A sampling of other Red Leaf elementary collections is highlighted below:
Creatures Great and Small – by Joanne Bender. Fresh and fun, silly and sweet, these pieces are dedicated to the early pianist with an imagination and a sense of adventure. Fairies and Gnomes, Spooky Spider and Wiggly Worms, Dancing Donkey and Crazy Monkeys are some of the attractive works playable by Introductory to Elementary students. Chromatic and octatonic scales along with swing rhythms are introduced to make this tonal music interesting and appealing - and the front cover artwork is delightful!
Dances, Daydreams & Dinosaurs – by Janet Gieck. Seventeen piano solos to capture the imagination with a variety of styles from jazzy rhythms in Sixty Four Beats and Gameboy to gentle 7th chords in the lovely Outdoor Skating Rink. Find contemporary techniques such as cluster chords in Spring Day, foot stomps in T. S. T-Rex, and aleatoric choices in Tricky Tracks. Boys will be particularly drawn to the dinosaur pieces that allow them to bring out their high energy dramatizations of prehistoric times. This book will lead students to dance, dream and
discover!
If Dogs Could Talk – by Martha Hill Duncan. If you have 5 – 9 year olds who like lyrics and coloring with their music, this set of little dramatic solos will be perfect for them. The composer’s favorites include a talking dog, a cat lurking behind the couch and a little bird who’s fallen from its nest. Great recital gems for the beginning or early reader who’s exploring legato/staccato touches and contrasting dynamics. The companion book Flying Horses, Talking Fish is only slightly more advanced in its keys and features touches of pedal, tapping and clapping effects.
Imagination – by Teresa Richert. Take a ride on a unicorn or meet a frog prince as he charms a fairy princess in this fully illustrated collection of ten solos composed especially for young students. Set sail with fierce pirates aboard a ghost ship in search of sunken treasure or march in a parade of pixies and meet a jolly elf. Imagine yourself as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, taking control of a magic wand or being really adventurous and waltz with terrible, clumsy ogres. These pieces explore a wide variety of harmonic, melodic and rhythmic resources and include dynamics, articulations, and damper pedal appropriate for students at this level.
Little Hands, Big Pieces – by Susan Griesdale. Fun and imaginative music for little ones to sound big! Fifteen pieces constructed of major triads that cover a wide variety of style and mood. Discover the delicate Faerie Dust, or the pounding drums of Tribal Dance. Join the fun with Hero’s March and Space Adventure, or the playful Sneaky and Three Cornered Hats. Cast your own spell with the eerie Magic Spell, or enjoy the sweet harmonies of Tea & Sweets and Cotton Candy. This collection works well for all ages at the elementary level – easy to learn, easy to teach, but sounds difficult. What more could a teacher ask for!!
Rags to Riches – by Beverly Porter. Bev Porter’s most famous piece Chromatic Rag (move over Fur Elise) is in this collection. One young fan writes: “Dear Ms. Porter I like your music because of the starting of Chromatic Rag. I also like the 2nd lines ending because it gets more louder in a fun place. Thats why it’s awsome.” Other infectious solos featured in this elementary collection are the jazzy Jazzmatazz and Get a Move On along with the lyrical Rainy Day Song and impressionistic Silently Falls the Snow. Great recital fare!
Each of the above five composers has generously offered to giveaway a copy of one of her books. That means there will be five books total given away! If you’d like to enter to win one of them, just leave a comment below. The drawing will be held using a random number generator at noon (CST) on Thursday, May 10.
Monday Mailbag – Determining Monthly Tuition
After the past few months of lost income due to students canceling lessons for injuries, soccer games, vacations, etc., I am realizing how wise you and other teachers are for charging monthly tuition rather than per-lesson fees! Switching to such a policy for this fall is top on my priority list, but I am curious about one thing: how do you handle monthly tuition when students have different lesson lengths? Do you charge one tuition for everyone, or is it dependent on length of lessons?
Glad you are finally seeing the light! Unfortunately, most of us have to learn the hard way. Having a parent call a few minutes after their lesson is supposed to start to say they can’t make it because they are at the mall shopping and lost track of time makes you start re-evaluating your business practices real quick! [True story, by the way...]
The only lesson times I offer are 45-minute and 1-hour. I charge a different flat monthly rate for each of those and the families pay accordingly. I’ve been offering 45-minute lessons as the minimum now in my studio for many years and I can’t imagine teaching 30-minute lessons. You can read a post I wrote several years ago about How to Transition to Longer Lessons.
Some teachers pro-rate longer lessons, but it makes more sense to me to charge the same base rate and just bill the family based on whether they opt for the 45-minute lessons or something longer. Some teachers actually prefer to charge by the semester, which I think is a great option as well. For now, the monthly seems to work best for my studio. As you’re switching over to this new tuition model, you might want to check out another post I wrote on Three Simple Questions to Help You Figure Out What to Charge for Lessons.
I would love to have input from other teachers on this important subject as well, especially those who have made the transition from per lesson fees to monthly or semester tuition!
Remember, if you have a question you’d like to contribute to next week’s Monday Mailbag, leave it in the comments below or send me an e-mail sometime this week with Monday Mailbag in the subject line!