Years ago I started conducting and interview and evaluation/assessment with every prospective piano student and their parents. This is so helpful in getting to know the families, the individual student, and their musical expectations and aptitude. I’ve recently been coming up with some new questions that I’d like to add to the forms I use, and just came across a list of 40 questions from Yellow Cat Music Education that has some possibilities I’ve never even thought of! These are very thought-provoking and so helpful in establishing clear expectations regarding practice right off the bat. This would actually be a great list to send to parents even before the initial interview so that they have a chance to look over it and think through their level of commitment to their child’s musical studies.
Category Archives: Business Issues
Sample Lesson Note Template
Leila Veiss has written a wonderful post about the “Apps I Use at Every Lesson” that relate to the business side of studio operations. One of the listed apps is Evernote, but she also includes with it a Sample Lesson Note Template that is fabulous!
I love the Glossary of Terms section, especially the brief explanation of what “Learn” and “Master” mean (I guess my students aren’t the only ones that seem confused by what I really meant when I told them to learn a particular piece or portion thereof… 
). I also really like her Progress Score numbers and explanations. What a great tool for maintaining consistency and providing tangible instruction and feedback for each lesson!
Skype and Three Other Solutions for Snow Days!
Our area has received an inordinate amount of snow in the last week so we’ve had a couple of snow days. Whenever my students ask if I’ll be teaching I tell them that my philosophy is that I don’t have to go anywhere so I’ll gladly teach anyone who wants to come for a lesson. However, I know that sometimes it’s not safe or desirable to traverse the icy roads to make it to a piano lesson, so it’s nice to have some other options in place. Plus, I have a number of rural students who were literally snowed into their homes and couldn’t make it out the driveway. Since I don’t offer refunds or make-up lessons, it’s nice for families to know that our studio has other possibilities available to them for these types of situations. Here are some possibilities:
1. Skype (or Facetime for those who have Apple products) – This is definitely the most ideal alternative for those who can’t make it to the studio. I usually use the Skype app on my iPod Touch, but you can also download a free desktop/laptop version which makes this a great option for almost any family!
2. Phone Call – Yeah, this feels pretty 20th Century now, but I actually did give a lesson over the phone yesterday. The internet went out for one of my families, so the kids put their cordless on the speaker phone setting and then propped it on the piano.
3. Instant Messaging -Yes, we’ve actually resorted to this a few times for lessons when we were having sound issues with the video chat. Obviously it doesn’t work for listening to the student play, but you can at least touch base with them, go over assignments, and answer questions. Plus, this is a fun way to invest in your relationship with students and get to know them better!
4. E-mail – Sometimes just putting together an e-mail with some specific suggestions and assignments for the student for the following week can be helpful so they have some direction for their practicing. Even a little bit of accountability and focus like this can help students maintain a regular practice routine.
The bottom line is that I want to be available for my students in any way I can during their lesson time. How do you handle snow days? Any other creative ways you’ve found to teach lessons?
Monday Mailbag – Media Release Forms for Piano Students
Love the student videos. Do you have your students sign media consent forms before filming and posting publicly online? Just curious if you’ve experienced any negative reactions. I’m sure there are plenty of very positive ones as well!
Yes, I include a Media Release Form along with the Parent Questionnaire, Studio Policy, and business card at all of my initial student interviews.
I wrote this based on what seemed necessary for my studio, so I recommend obtaining legal counsel as you develop a form that meets your studio needs. Here’s the wording from mine:
“I, _______, hereby grant permission for my child, __________, born on ____________, to have his/her photo and/or video used by Natalie’s Piano Studio in promotional materials, downloadable products, website content, and blog posts.”
Parent Signature _________________________ Date ______________
I have only had one family decide not to sign the form because they prefer not to have any public internet presence. However, it has still worked out great to record the student and post the videos on my YouTube account, but set them to “Private” and just send the parents the links to the videos. They are pleased to retain their privacy, but still get to experience the technology used in the studio.
I’d be curious to know how other teachers handle this. Do you have parents sign a Media Release Form? What do you include on the form? Have you received complaints from parents?
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!
Tips for Buying a Piano – Guest Post by Coach House Pianos
Buying a piano is not as dissimilar as we think to buying a car. Before we want to hand over a large amount of money to a car dealer, we would want to fully inspect the goods, test it out and make sure it is as described. This is the mindset we should have with any large purchase. A piano is a very personal thing. It is a significant investment and you, and your piano shall likely be together a long time. As such, you must be absolutely sure of your decision before you commit.
To help you have a clear idea what it is you need, Coach House Pianos has put together a few things to consider when you are ready to make this investment:
- Cost – do you want a good quality second hand piano? This can cost anywhere up to £18,000 ($29,000), whilst a brand new Steinway could cost in excess of £130,000 ($209,000).
- Type of Piano – A Grand Piano or an Upright Piano? You will need to consider carefully its use. For home use, teaching, at a venue and many others.
- Quality – This applies when inspecting prospective instruments. We would suggest checking for rust on the iron frame, cracks in the wood (particularly the soundboard) and the condition of the strings.
These are to name just a few of the important features to consider. Your piano is one of the bigger investments you will make and like a car, you will intend for it to last and be with you for a long time. There is benefit to buying your piano from people with experience in these beautiful creations. Speak to someone who understands how important this instrument is going to be and who appreciates that it is going to be your personal creative outlet.
Coach House Pianos is our newest advertiser here on Music Matters Blog and we are grateful for their support of the online music education community! If you are interested in finding out more about how you can promote your company, event, or product, just send me an e-mail and I’ll let you know about our advertising packages.
Monday Mailbag – Year-End Evaluations
A number of people have commented and/or asked questions about the Year-End Evaluations that I hold in my studio. I started doing this ten years ago and it has been so helpful for me and the families! The last lesson of the year one or both parents attend the lesson with their child. The week before this, I send home a Parent Questionnaire and a Student Questionnaire, and I complete a Year-End Student Evaluation. I tweak the questionnaires a bit each year so that I get input and feedback from the parents and students on specific issues. (You can click the above links to download copies of this year’s forms.)
Conducting these evaluations does take a considerable amount of time as I consider each student’s progress and evaluate where they are in different musical areas. But the results of my own time spent doing this and recommending specific goals and ideas for the future, along with the responses on the questionnaires from the parents and students, has proved to be invaluable as I work on a theme and lesson plans for the following year. I highly recommend giving this a try in your studio if you haven’t already! If you conduct Year-End Evaluations in your studio, I’d love to hear what you include and what’s been most helpful to you.
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!
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!
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!
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!
Teaching Tips from Snowboard School – Part Three: Plan a Systematic Approach
From the moment we set our snowboards down on the powder, it was obvious that our instructor had a clearly laid out plan for teaching us. He gave descriptive explanations and walked us through each step, familiarizing us with the board and what we should expect from the class. This was an incredible confidence-booster and helped us quickly trust him for the direction we needed.
Similarly, an organized music teacher, with established studio guidelines and a systematic teaching approach will promote an attitude of confidence and trust in her studio families. One of the best things I started doing years ago was conducting student interviews for prospective students and their parents. The interview includes a time of getting to know the student, assessing their musical aptitude and skills, and having the parent complete a questionnaire (the forms I use can be downloaded for free on the Student Interviews post). When the family arrives at the studio for their interview, I always have the questionnaire, a media release form, and one of my studio business cards affixed to a clipboard and sitting on a chair. I have a separate interview and evaluation form on another clipboard that I use with the student. It’s amazing how even a little touch like this speaks volumes of your professionalism and builds confidence in your organization and excellence as a teacher! Establishing Clear-Cut Studio Procedures is a great first step for setting up a systematic approach to the business-side of studio operations.
Then there’s the teaching side. As independent music teachers we have the freedom and flexibility to use a variety of teaching methods and approaches according to what we think is best for each student. On the flip side there is also the potential for a teacher to completely wing it and never establish any semblance of organization in his teaching methods. When I first started teaching, I definitely belonged to the latter group. Thankfully, God brought many experienced teachers into my life to help me “see the light” and guide me toward resources that have been invaluable! By far, the greatest asset to my teaching structure has been our state Music Progressions curriculum. It is a 10-level program that outlines skills a student should have in performance, keyboard facility, applied theory, rhythm, sight-playing, listening, and written theory. Local associations hold evaluation days during the spring semester so that students can participate at their various levels and be evaluated by another teacher. Even though I don’t require my students to participate in this evaluation, the curriculum provides a wonderful framework for working with students and making sure that they receive a well-rounded music education.
Many states have a similar curriculum and there are even some that are available on a national level. If you’ve never used a leveled curriculum like this, I encourage you to get a copy of one somewhere and study it in great detail. Then start using it with your students. The best thing you can do is arm yourself with the knowledge of where you want to take your students and how you can get them there one step at a time. It’s inevitable that everyone will have gaps here and there in their education, music and otherwise, but the more organized your thinking and teaching is, the more likely your students are to have the confidence and skills to succeed!
Read the rest of the Teaching Tips from Snowboard School series: Introduction | Part One: Be a Pro | Part Two: Give Students a Vision of Success