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!

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!

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!

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!

Yes, you are remembering correctly! You can see examples of the student-designed programs on A Peek Into My Christmas Recital and Inspiration From a Home Magazine. I just collect all the artwork submissions ahead of time, then the night of the rehearsal, I display them all on a pew with a small Dixie cup in front of each one. Each student is given a penny and looks over the submissions, then places their penny in the one they want to vote for. I’m sure some students vote for their own or a friends (I tell them they’re allowed to if their conscience will allow it! ), but this process has always worked really well and we end up with a great-looking cover!

Does anyone else do artwork contests with students for their recital programs? Any tips on how to handle the process?

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!

This is actually a pretty thought-provoking question for me! I’ve never given achievement awards based on years of study or completion of levels, but I can see how something like that might be a good motivator for a student. Some of my students participate in a yearly Music Progressions evaluation program that is comprised of 10 levels. Those who participate receive a certificate each year, but I can’t remember a student ever caring about the certificate (I often find these crumpled in the bag months later). I think it would be kind of cool to have an award of some sort that was progressive from year to year. Extra incentive to stick with piano study through the hard times!

My year-end rewards are almost always tied to our practice incentive theme. And they are usually completely different from year to year. For example, this year the students who earned the specified number of Complication Coins can use them to purchase a custom-designed studio t-shirt. You can see a list of other year-end rewards I’ve used on this post about Practice Incentives and Rewards.

My mental wheels are really spinning now, though, and I’m curious to know if other teachers give some sort of progressive award based on years of study or level completion. What do you do in your studio? I’d love to get some new ideas!

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!

One of the “complications” my students can choose as part of our An Italian Intrigue practice incentive theme this year is to “memorize 4 improvisation patterns.” I wanted to provide a systematic way for students to incorporate the skill of improvising into their regular practice routine. This has been just the thing we all needed to move from duet improvisation into solo improvisation. If they choose this option, here’s the process we follow:

1. Start by selecting one or two patterns for the first week, depending on the level and playing ability of the student (World Piece, the first pattern in book one is a great starter piece for even really young students!).

2. Teach the student the left hand pattern by rote and have them practice it several times. Use either chord names or just other guiding instructions to help them remember what to play.

3. Show the student the chords or scale to play in the right and how to use it to improvise a melodic idea.

4. Once they are comfortable with each of these separately, have them try something simple hands together. For those who still seem intimidated by this, I often just have them play one melody note in the right hand with each left hand chord/harmonic interval.

5. After the student gets the hang of playing a single melody note, they can try playing it twice in a row, or playing two melodic notes while the left hand plays each chord/harmonic interval. These small steps are much less scary than trying to jump right in with a full-fledged two-hand improv!

Many of my students have been successful approaching it this way, and giving them time to work on their own with the patterns during the week enables them to develop more confidence before they have to play it in front of someone.

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!

It may shock (or horrify!) some of you better designer-types to know this, but I create almost all of my worksheets and practice incentive materials in Microsoft Word. I’ve discovered that with the use of tables, you can accomplish just about anything in Word. That said, I do use a few other programs for other related purposes.

For more graphic intensive design work I use either Fireworks or Print Shop. There are probably some much better options out there, but I started using Print Shop when I was ten years old and am so familiar with it that it has remained my go-to software for design work. It’s a low-end program, inexpensive to purchase, and very intuitive. I started using Fireworks when I got into web design and have gotten comfortable enough with it that I often use it for print design work as well.

Whenever I’m creating worksheets that use portions of a musical staff/musical examples, I create the excerpts in Finale (when I bought Finale several years ago, I did a ton of research and the best price I found for it was the academic version at aabaca.com – I definitely recommend getting it there!) and then export them over to Microsoft Word. It’s amazing the things you can accomplish with most programs if you spend enough time scouring the help menus, searching the forums, and learning how to trick it into doing what you want.

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!

I am getting pretty discouraged with the lack of practice in my students. Are you CONVINCED that incentives are worth the time and energy and money?

There has been a lot of talk lately in the blogosphere about practice incentives and whether they are helpful or harmful to students. Anyone who has been around here very long knows that I am a huge proponent of using practice incentive themes, however, I am very particular and very intentional about how I structure practice incentive themes. There are a variety of purposes and benefits of using such a tool in your studio, and making your students practice more is not at the top of the list. Surprised? Many factors contribute to a student’s practice habits, but practice incentives are seldom a primary or direct influencer. That said, I think that implementing practice incentive themes in my studio (misnomer though it may be!) is one of the best things I ever did. Here’s why:

1. They Build a Sense of Community and Camaraderie. Students of all ages and levels look forward to the revealing of the new theme each year and eagerly contribute ideas at our Year-End Evaluations. With the studio wall decorations and various ways of representing each student, they can see each others’ progress and feel connected to one another.
2. They Encourage Enthusiasm. This is for both me and the students! I thrive on change and new, exciting opportunities, so I confess that part of my motivation behind developing new themes each year is to keep me from getting bored teaching lessons. If I’m bored, you can bet my students will be bored, too! Enthusiasm is likewise contagious, and it’s so fun to set new goals and work toward higher levels of musical achievement together.
3. They provide a framework for lesson planning throughout the year. Instead of taking considerable time to do detailed lesson planning each week for my students, I take off the whole month of August and do a lot of praying, brainstorming, and setting a system in place that will enable every student to work toward specific goals each week. The custom assignment book that correlates with every practice incentive helps the students and me stay organized and focused throughout the year. This helps us maintain a common vision and make sure that we’re working toward the same objectives.
4. They serve as a means to help students develop diligent habits. There are 4 Components of a Good Practice Incentive, in my opinion: Age and Level Inclusiveness, Realistic and Measurable Objectives, Student Options, Rewards that Contribute to Musical Growth. Practice incentive themes should give students the opportunity to hone their strengths and build up their weak areas. Ideally, the structure they provide will facilitate steady progress that will motivate the student to maintain diligent practice habits long after they’ve left the studio environment.

Also, as far as certificates and trophies…I personally don’t use either of those. I prefer to invest in rewards as a way of expressing my appreciation to the students for the hard work they’ve done, and I try to think of things that will contribute to their musical growth. Here are some things we’ve done:

* Special admission to a rehearsal at our local symphony, followed by an ice cream sundae party back at the studio.

* A trip to a recording studio where we received a tour and each student had the privilege of recording a piece they worked on for the occasion.

* A music dictionary.

* Composer fandex.

* Participation in a historic group class that traveled back in time to visit a great composer.

* A position on a committee to plan a big year-end event for the whole studio. This ended up being a patriotic-themed evening of dinner and musical performances by the students.

* Private access to a website for our studio.

It does take a lot of time and energy and money to put together themes and events like these, but I am convinced that the rewards to you and your students go far beyond checking off a good week of practice. Their whole musical experience becomes so much more memorable and enriching!

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!

My emphasis on and philosophy of sight-reading tends to shift the more that I work with students. I agree that the number one way to build fluent sight-reading skills is to play through a LOT of new music. However, what I’ve discovered with many of my students is that they don’t intuitively recognize patterns in the music that seem obvious to me. This is why I recently started using the series, Joining the Dots with a few of my students.

So far it’s going really well! The students are experiencing great success with the approach and are even enjoying it (I intentionally chose a few students who don’t prefer sight-reading, to put it mildly ). The way each unit is organized, it does a great job of building pattern recognition, utilizing keyboard topography skills, and incorporating rhythmic awareness through improvisatory activities.

These are some of the specific benefits that I have found from using a sight-reading book. I’ve used a few others over the years as well, and find that for most students it is necessary to intentionally point out patterns over and over again before they start to automatically recognize them in their new pieces. And as students develop confidence in their sight-reading abilities through shorter, systematic pieces, hopefully they will be more inclined to play through new music on their own at home.

Any other thoughts? I’d love to hear from others on this topic! Do you use a sight-reading book/curriculum with your students? What benefits have you experienced from doing so?

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!