Building a Private Music Studio #1 - How to Start a Private Music Studio

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Building a Private Music Studio #1 - How to Start a Private Music Studio

Posted by Thomas J. West on July 10, 2008 at 10:58 PM

This blog entry is the first in a series of entries intended for my readers who are practicing music teachers. These will be a series of tips, hints, and suggestions for building and maintaining a private studio of music students outside of a full-time teaching job in a school district.

Why Work Outside of Work?

Most music teachers put in long hours at their jobs past the normal school day for rehearsals, festivals, dress rehearsals, musicals, and concerts. How can they possibly have time to teach private students as well? Depending on what level you teach, you simply may not have the time to invest in starting a private studio. As a high school band director, I rarely had enough hours in the day to even think about private students, especially during marching band season. If you can devote the time, here's my top reasons to have private students:

Your own students during the school day can enhance their learning with you outside of school, which deepens your relationship with them and their family as well as strengthening your own program.
Taking on students from neighboring school districts is a good way to know how other music programs function from the inside and a good way to build rapport between music programs (if you are giving them quality instruction, of course).
Private instruction pays really really well. In my area, for example, most instructors are charging $20 for a half-hour lesson minimum. If you are traveling to students' homes to teach, that's $20 an hour, and if you are teaching in your own home or at a music store, that could be up to $40 a hour! Waaay better than a part-time job at the local mini-mart.
Private students are your best advocates for attracting more students to your studio. If they like you and the value you are providing, they will tell their friends about you.

Beginning the Process

When I began, the first thing I did was to talk to other private teachers in the area and get a feel for how they functioned. One instructor I had taught part-time at a local school district and filled the rest of his work day with private instruction. He had a studio of over 50 students that he had built over the course of about 5 years! He gave me all sorts of great tips, including his lesson policy and payment procedures.

Policy and payment procedures are a must. Parents and students want to know the answers to questions like: "When?", "Where?", "How long?", "How much?", "What if I cancel?" and so on. Having all of that information in writing beforehand makes it more likely that they will be comfortable with signing on. Visit my lesson policies for an example. I have never had any problems with it and I always work with families to the benefit of both the student and myself.

Part of establishing your policies is determining where lessons will be taught. The most common situations are at the teacher's home, at the student's home, or at a local music store or studio. Most music stores will hire you for specific times that their practice facilities are available and will handle all the billing and scheduling for you. They do usually take whatever your rates for lessons are and add a percentage on top for themselves.

Another important part of getting started is determining what your rates will be. The best way of doing this is to find out what other music teachers in the area are charging and make your rates price competitive. In the long run, it really is up to you to make that determination no matter what others charge. What rate is going to make your time, effort, and travel worth it?

Getting Your First Students

If you are already a teacher in a school system, the obvious place to start is with your own students. They already know and presumably trust you, and you already know which of your students are most likely to be interested in enhancing their instruction on their own time. In addition, contacting your colleagues in different buildings within your district and the teachers in neighboring districts is a good move. This is starting with a "warm market" as these music teachers already know you and what you are capable of.

Other ways of getting students include:

Advertising in the local paper
Advertising in your local church bulletin
Craig's List for your area
Using an online service such as Musika and TakeLessons

Of the methods mentioned above, I have had a lot of success using Musika and TakeLessons. Both operate similarly - they hire you (after a background and resume check) as a private contractor for a year. They handle all student acquisition and payments. They are definitely an option if you live in a major metropolitan area anywhere in the US.

When students sign up with Musika, they go on an "available students" list and you receive an email. If they live close enough to you for you to travel to them or have them come to you, you send a reply email and they assign the student to you (it's basically first-come-first-served with any other Musika contractors in your area). Musika has you teach them an introductory half-hour lesson and then gives them the opportunity to opt out or sign on for a semester.

TakeLessons provides you with a spiffy cool profile page (here's mine) and promotes it for you. You give them your availability schedule and they fill it for you. It takes several weeks for them to get you your first students, however.

Something of note for both of these companies: you do have to sign a contract, and both of them are very adamant that you do not acquire students from them and then talk the students into quitting their organization and joining you privately afterwards. TakeLessons' policy in particular is rather nasty, fining you $5000 per person for every student you steal from them!

Introductory Lesson

The first lesson is a critical first impression, especially if the student is not one from your own program. Don't make the mistake of thinking that because it's outside of school that you can dress casually. I still wear a collared short-sleeved shirt and khaki pants to my summer lessons. When you meet them, have a paper copy of your policies and payment procedures to hand to them along with your business card. I got 100 great-looking laminated business cards online from Overnight Prints for ten bucks.

Unless they are a student from your own program, you really don't know coming in what they can already do. Starting out with playing a scale or whatever method book they have from their school is usually a way to get started. The first lesson should be all about what they can or can't already do. Try to leave them something new to try for their second lesson, even if it's something as simple as an adjustment to their posture or a simple song to learn by rote.

Sometimes, the student or parent might have second thoughts about starting private studies. This may or may not have anything to do with you at all, so don't take it personally. The introductory lesson is for them to get to know you and what the lessons will be like as well as for you to find out what kind of a student they will be.

Building Anything Takes Time

If you are a public school band, orchestra, or choral director, I don't have to tell you that one twice! Building a program takes time, consistency, and patience, and building a private studio shares that quality with school programs. Committing to a private studio for a year is the bare minimum if you want to see any long-term results.

So, my fellow colleagues, good luck with building a studio and if there's anything I can do to help you, please contact me.

This article (c) 2008 Thomas J. West. If you wish to reprint this article on another website or offline, please contact the copyright holder before using.

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Categories: Private Teaching