Tag Archives: music education

eBook release

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After a long hiatus, I am happy to announce the release of our first eBook! Building Your Private Music Studio offers insight and suggestions in establishing, growing, and enhancing, your studio to increase impact and income. Numerous suggestions are strategies are offered for organization, scheduling, technology use, and avoiding the numerous financial pitfalls that can occur in this profession. For just $6.99, less than half the cost of one lesson, the eBook can be downloaded from amazon.com . Please click here to get your copy!

Work -Life Balance for the Musician

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By Cindy Hallo

 

I was going to title this post “Time Management”…..and then I remembered I don’t know ANYTHING about that subject. Like at all.

I’m the girl that works two jobs, runs 40-50 miles a week, travels around the country for marathons, and sleeps no more than 5 hours a night. Free time is something I had back in 2005.

I think a better word for what I want to talk about is “Boundaries”. It’s very easy for people whose job doesn’t require them to be parked in a cubicle from 9 to 5 every day to extend the work day. This is especially true for lesson teachers – it’s like a game of Tetris sometimes to fit all your students in the allotted amount of time on the right days at the right school, during the right class period. Obviously the administration wasn’t thinking about our needs when they created the school day…rude!

Maybe other people learned this a little more quickly than I did, but I can’t tell you how many times my schedule come September would resemble a 12 hour shift on an assembly line. Student willing to start lessons at 7am? Sign me up. Stacking them four deep after school? Hellz yeah. Going to students houses in the evenings/on the weekends if I couldn’t fit them in during normal school hours? Of course! Before I knew it, I was working 10-12 hour days 6 days a week. An 8 hour day was like a vacation. When the drive-thru girl at Taco Bell knew my order by the sound of my voice, that’s when I realized how bad it had gotten.

This year, I’ve taken a step back and realized something.

I don’t have to take every student that crosses my door.

I know. I’m a freaking genius.

Turning down students does not make you a bad teacher, much like saying “No” doesn’t make you a bad person. This took me several years to understand. The first part anyway…I’m still trying to figure out the second part. It actually makes you a BETTER teacher when you realize how many students you can comfortably handle in your studio. Each student gets a little more of your brain power, a little more of your time. And you get to eat something besides Taco Bell for dinner during the week.

I’ve found myself spending more time thinking about the best plan of action for each student, following up on emails, making sure I bring the right music to school with me, etc. And I’m definitely taking better care of myself. I eat better, find more time to run, have more time to relax with friends and family, and sleep better. And I don’t think I need to tell any of you that a well rested teacher is a much better teacher.

Now I’m not saying drop all your kids and only accept a few each year. We’ve all gotta pay the rent. But I am suggesting instead of just blindly accepting any student that sends you an email, you take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Is there a lot of driving? Am I going out of my way at rush hour? Am I giving up something I enjoy to teach this lesson? How serious is this student? This might sound a little selfish, but teaching is a lot like being a parent (says the girl with no kids, so take it with a grain of salt)….taking care of yourself first makes you a better teacher.

And quit eating Taco Bell. That stuff will kill you.

Income and Impact – Dr David Cutler Guest post

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Music studio teacher is excited to kickoff 2016 with a guest post from Dr. David Cutler. His new book,  The Savvy Music Teacher is available here.

The Direct Link Between Income and Impact: Savvy Music Teachers
By David Cutler

On the surface, the suggestion that the best independent music teachers are those who earn the most money seems ludicrous. No obvious, mathematical correlation can be drawn between fiscal and pedagogical success. We have all encountered incredible educators who struggle to make ends meet, or financially comfortable ones who are mediocre instructors at best.

Yet I argue that there is indeed a parallel. When done right, impact and income are closely related bedfellows. Savvy Music Teachers (SMTs) find ways to make them both go up, in harmony.

How is this claim supported? It is difficult to devote 100% of attention to teaching excellence when tormented by problematic personal finance. Economic woes trigger a host of problems, inducing stress, strained relationships, and zapped enthusiasm. Individuals forced to take supplementary “day jobs” they despise just to get by, or those with unmanageable schedules and an unbalanced life, are unlikely to have time or energy to go the extra mile for students.

On the flip side, a sound financial model increases likelihood that teachers find the psychological space to offer their best. It provides a foundation for maintaining a studio, organizing meaningful activities, pursuing professional development, and tackling passion projects, in addition to fulfilling personal desires such as buying a house or raising a family.

Is there a more direct correlation? There is if you do things right. In order to increase impact, SMTs are known for employing teaching tools and strategies that expand beyond the average studio. As a result, their offerings are differentiated in innovative and meaningful ways, which translates to more students and higher fees. In addition, they offer a variety of products and services beyond lessons that enhance learning and revenue. Independent music teachers looking for a raise have an opportunity: imagine new, valuable musical experiences. Connect those initiatives to a sound economic model and, voila, both earnings and value rise.

When writing The Savvy Music Teacher, I had the good opportunity to interview more than 150 independent teachers from across the globe (many are profiled in the book). Typically, I would contact them with a particular angle in mind: curriculum, policies, tuition model, studio management, etc. During these talks, however, the conversation often strayed in wonderful ways, exploring peripheral issues that were also parts of the model. We discussed challenge, opportunities, frustrations, and solutions.

As a rule, instructors with inventive business models matched them with creative teaching approaches, and vice versa. For example, music teachers who generated substantial incomes were more likely to integrate improvisation, technology, and multiple musical genres than those who didn’t. That was a fascinating lesson. It seems that creativity is a transferrable skill. Those who master it benefit in a host of ways, creating simultaneous wins for themselves, students, and communities.

Income and impact; money and meaning. These terms may not be synonymous, but for SMTs, they are closely related.

DAVID CUTLER balances a varied profile as a jazz and classical composer, pianist, educator, arranger, author, speaker, and director of the world’s premier experiential arts entrepreneurship workshop The SAVVY Musician in Action. His books The Savvy Musician and The Savvy Music Teacher help musicians build a career, earn a living, and make a difference. Cutler serves as the University of South Carolina’s Director of Music Entrepreneurship.

 

 

 

David Cutler’s Savvy Music Teacher

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Fellow music teachers, have you ever wished there was someone you could approach for specific advice on maximizing the earnings and efficiency of the niche market of private lesson teaching? Look no further! I give you your new career guide: David Cutler’s The Savvy Music Teacher.

9780190200824

Having just finished this book, I was extremely impressed with the author’s ability to relate and expound upon the daily struggles of private teaching combined with the provision of various strategies for financial and personal improvement. At times I found myself turning pages with the excitement of a Harry Potter novel!

The book outlines a clear goal: Become the most impactful music teacher possible while earning a yearly salary of $50,000 to $100,000. Is this really possible for us private teachers? I can say, without hesitation, that if you were to aggressively implement David Cutler’s strategies into your financial model of music teaching, you would be well within this figure.

How many unorganized or un-savvy music teachers do you know living week to week, with no concept of their financial future, or present earnings? This sad situation can even sometimes lead to musicians leaving the music field entirely. If this describes you or a teacher you know, this book will be a lifeline for changing your views on earning and managing money, as well maximizing impact on your students.

Even if you consider yourself a highly organized teacher without any more room for financial expansion, this book will outline additional financial avenues you may have not considered, or overlooked, that will enhance your current earnings.

The book is divided into two halves. Part one outlines seven distinct streams of income available to private music teachers. It then outlines detailed steps on how to integrate these into your life, or how to expound upon them. These numerous streams include:

Private teaching
Group classes
Camps
Events
Technology
Products
Additional (miscellaneous services)

If you believe you are already implementing these elements into your small business of music teaching, you will be surprised by the many avenues available you may not have considered in each chapter. Specifically for me, I always see a significant drop in earnings during the summer months. I’m teaching as many students as I can, but it is never enough. This book proposes a detailed process on establishing summer camps, and clearly outlines the large financial benefits this type of event can have on your summer earnings.

If you feel many of these categories are not realistic to you, you may be surprised at how easily you will be able to generate extra income from the author’s suggestions. True, not every teacher may be able to integrate every stream into his or her lifestyle, but even getting just a few streams of music income going besides private teaching can really have a positive effect on your bottom line earnings.

 

 

The second half of the book is dedicated to setting up your studio, filling your studio, time/life management, winning the money game, your financial picture, and career blueprint. In a field that can easily be isolating, these chapters are gold. How often can one receive free financial advice specific to the private lesson field? These chapters are even more valuable than the first half because they help motivate music teachers to plan for the future of their business, and not live in the now of lesson check to lesson check.

 This book is completely inspiring and a must read for lesson teachers in any capacity. Whether you are teaching one night a week or full time, you will be inspired to teach better, smarter, and create higher earnings after completing this book. Personally, I have been planning many, many expansions to my studio from reading this book and am confident my earnings will rise as a direct result of reading this book. To purchase a copy click here

Reeds, Reeds, Everywhere..and all of them seem to squeak!

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by Cindy Hallo

As my first official order of business, I’ve decided to alienate half of our readership. Woo hoo! I’ve really got the hang of this blogging thing already, don’t I?? It’s my goal to see how many times I can get Sean to regret his decision to ask me to write a few posts. I think we can all safely assume this will be the first, but definitely not the last…So brass players, take a load off. Go pick out a new mute, empty your spit valve onto some unsuspecting person’s toe… or whatever it is you guys do for fun.

What I wanted to talk about today is something that only affects some of us, but for those of us who have to deal with it, can cause a real problem in any studio or lesson setting. I’m talking epic, Biblical plague-like problems. Giant swarms of locusts would be easier to deal with than this.

I’m, of course, talking about single reeds.

Or as I like to call them: tiny, tiny pieces of the devil.

I’m not even going to touch on how much I hate picking out reeds for my own personal use. Rest assured choosing reeds is not one of my favorite activities.

What I’m here to discuss is kids and reeds. Two things that should probably never, ever be in the same room together. The old saying “like a bull in a china shop” comes to mind. One of my biggest pet peeves as a teacher is having a student with equipment that doesn’t work properly, whether it be a non-working key that a student has known about for weeks and is just ignoring, a ligature that won’t screw properly, or broken reeds. Broken reeds are the bane of my existence. I haven’t quite figured out how a sixth grader who seems to have a psychic ability to determine that the student next to them is one-seventyith of an inch too close to them in class can miss the giant, softball sized chunk absent from the tip of their reed. Or the thick coating of mold emanating from the very thing they’re sticking in their mouth every day. Ugh…I think I just made myself a little nauseous. It can be like pulling teeth to get a student to play on something that doesn’t look like they gave it to their pet guinea pig to gnaw on for a while. And I think we all know the terrible habits kids start to pick up when they’re deliberately changing their embouchure to make a horrible reed sound okay.

I feel like I’m digressing a little bit from my point, so let’s get back to it – this post is dedicated to sharing ideas on how to get students to use and take care of their reeds properly.

Sheet Music Plus Teacher

First and foremost is something I never did as a kid, but one of the band directors at my school teaches his beginning band students to do it, and I find it genius in its simplicity. As part of their required supply list, all students purchase a four slot reed guard at the beginning of the school year. Each slot is marked with a number or a different colored sticker – anything to differentiate the slots from each other. Throughout the week, the band director has his students cycle through the reeds, using one each day and basically ensuring that there are 4 broken-in reeds at any given time. When one reed breaks, the student immediately refills that spot with a new reed, working it back into rotation. Like I said…simple, but genius. Easy enough for kids to understand and implement and gets them started on thinking about having more than one working reed at a time. As an added bonus, the reed guards are MUCH easier for little fingers to use than those terrible plastic sleeves the reeds come in. Whoever came up with that little idea obviously never worked with 11-year-olds. Of course, these reed guards still require monitoring. Every few weeks, I peruse through the reed guard, immediately demolishing any reed that’s chipped or starting to mold. I’m probably costing the parents a little extra money, but I’m also saving their child from contracting some medieval form of black lung.




But what about those students who refuse (for whatever reason) to buy new reeds? Has anyone else had a kid try and use the same reed for…I don’t know…six months or so before physically taking the reed from them and crumpling it against a wall?

Not saying I have or anything…

I spent many years frustratingly asking “Is this an old reed?” or “How long have you had this reed?” before I decided that was dumb and I was wasting my breath. Currently, I buy a box of reeds at the beginning of each semester. If you spend too many weeks sounding like you’re trying to play a kazoo, you must destroy your reed and take one of my new ones. Once I run out of reeds for the semester, that’s it. No more. Luckily, I haven’t had anyone try and cheat the system by making me their free reed supplier, but I figure if that ever happens, a quick email to parents with my new reed policy (If your student spends too many weeks on a bad reed without replacing it, don’t worry – I have you covered! I’ll simply add $5 to your next bill for the reed your student purchased from me!) A little harsh? Maybe. But definitely to the point.

How about all you clarinet and saxophone teachers out there? Any great ideas to help your students learn about reed care?

First week of school Adjustments

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The beginning of the school year always seems to bring a lot of drastic and unplanned changes to my teaching schedule. Although we frequently spend hours ( or at least I do) obsessing over the most efficient teaching schedule to maximize the number students, and minimize travel, something always seems to come up in the first week. Many times this week I have received the following emails:
“Our student has quit band, we forgot to tell you”
“Our student no longer wants lessons”
“We have moved to another school”
“We can no longer afford lessons for our student”
If this were to occur in the middle of the school year, it would definitely create a gap in my daily teaching schedule at least for some time, but, luckily the beginning of the year is a great time to re load when it comes to your studio.

Sheet Music Plus Teacher

I have found emailing the parents of beginner students is usually a successful strategy when it comes to filling in holes in your schedule. Usually beginners are quite excited about instruction and this can provide a smooth transition in your schedule, so you do not miss a week of work at that specific time slot. Additionally you may try coming into their band class and doing a short performance to drum up interest.




Also, in the beginning of the year I like to avoid telling a student I cannot fit them in the schedule until I have a concrete understanding of what my schedule looks like. For me, this usually takes about one or two weeks. Often times when students drop you can reexamine your schedule and find moving a few during the school day lessons around can often times erase any gaps that can pop up, and simultaneously allow you to create time for students you were not sure would previously fit.

Tunable Review

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This week I would like to continue with a brief review of another app I find quite helpful in teaching lessons. It is called Tunable and is just 2.99 in the App Store. With the multitude of tuner apps available, I like this program for a few important reasons.

The interface of the app gives the user an engaging experience. The tuner line runs the length of the screen vertically. If the tone is sustained,the line will remain straight.If there is unintentional variation, there will be waves and bends within the straight line. If vibrato is added the waves in the line will oscialite at the rate of vibrato.

Sheet Music Plus Teacher

The actual pitch tuning exists in both left and right quadrants of the screen. These will expand outward to the edge of the screen when the pitch is most in tune. This is a more engaging visual representation of pitch accuracy for many of my students.

The format of this app creates a video game like experience with goals and animations beyond the traditional tuner. Additionally, it includes a metronome and drone feature. For only three dollars, this product is definitely worth considering to add to your musical app arsenal

Chromatik app

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As we enter summer lesson mode I sometimes depart from the traditional repertoire and allow my younger students to play something “fun”, which to them is a pop song or a work from a movie soundtrack. Usually, this takes some planning ahead and often times transcribing skills. Also, you have to have a working knowledge of popular music which I do not always possess.

 

Recently I discovered the chromatik app, and this has revolutionized my access to music of this nature. This app is free to download and requires a free account to utilize. Once you do this you are allowed access to sheet music ranging from pop, rock ,country, movies, etc. Most of this is in concert pitch, but this is not a big problem in a private lesson setting.

Additionally, the app has a classical library where you can search solo pieces in the public domain by instrument. This is ideal for the occasional student who forget his or her music.




Also, the app offers a real book function that simultaneously plays chord changes. This is a great feature for a student who does not have access to Aebersold play alongs.

I am thrilled to have discovered this app and it has made summer lessons more enjoyable for all my students. I highly,recommend it!

 

Tracking down end of the year payments

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The end of the school year is upon us.  If you are like me, you have a few students who don’t pay on time.  They always do pay you eventually, but frequently it occurs one or two weeks into the next month, rather than in the month lessons actually occurred.  My normal motto for this type of situation is to kill them with kindness, and persistence.  Each Friday I send a Bcc email to all my students still owing for the current month, asking kindly if they could please bring a check the following week.  Most of the time I am fine with this strategy and my number of outstanding accounts drops each month until everyone is current.

 

However, at the end of the year if you are not paid by the last day of school, it becomes much harder to track down payments.  You are no longer seeing the student each week, school is out of session, and you are unable to roll the money over in to the next month’s bill.  In this case I try several strategies until I am able to collect the check.

 

First, I use a direct email, rather than my Bcc technique above, explaining school is over and everyone needs to get their accounts current.   I then ask for a response in the message verifying funds will be brought the coming week.  If I do not hear back this way, I try a phone call.  This is a bit more direct, but sometimes works better.  If no one answers the phone I try a text.  If this doesn’t work I speak directly to the student about it, and will even text the student a reminder the day before to bring payment.

 

Your last card to play is band director intervention.  Frequently band directors wield larger influence than the private lesson teacher.  So, you can try telling your student if they cannot bring funds you will be forced to tell band director.  This may scare them into paying you, or you may actually ask if the band director will contact student’s parent/guardian.  If all else fails school band budgets will sometimes compensate you for one month of unpaid lessons on a school by school basis.

Persistence will pay off in this matter.  There have been times where I wasn’t able to collect a check by then end of school and could not get in touch with parent suddenly.  I just kept emailing weekly, daily, until suddenly a check appeared in my mailbox.