My husband and I are very good about splitting household responsibilities.  We each do what is most convenient and practical for our individual schedules.  My husband makes dinner most nights since I am teaching during dinner prep time. 

But, since having shoulder surgery a couple days ago, he is now a one armed man.  I’m not counting on much help in dinner preparation over the next month while he heals.  So I am setting out on a quest to find great crock pot recipes and super quick meals.  As I find recipes, I will share them here.  I imagine I’m not the only music teacher who must juggle meal preparation with teaching!

This is a favorite of ours.  It may be the easiest crock pot recipe in the world.

Pork Tacos

Put a pork roast, a can of diced chiles, and almost a whole jar of salsa (we really like the mild Wal Mart brand of salsa for this recipe.  It’s cheap and it soaks into the pork very well) in the crock pot.  Let it cook for half the day.  Shred the pork about an hour before you serve it so it can soak in the salsa even more.  Put the meat on tortillas with whatever taco toppings you like!  Yum!  We’ve also put this pork over rice when we are out of tortillas, and it’s very good.

I recently had the lovely experience of a tution check bouncing.  This is the first time I’ve had this experience, and I was surprised to see that my bank also charged me a $7.00 “paper processing” fee.  (I’m naive, I guess!). 

I knew I would have to confront the parent who bounced the check, but I desperately hate these kinds of confrontations.  It’s times like these when I wish I had a secretary to handle this kind of stuff.  (Wouldn’t that be nice?  Instead of saying that you can’t give a makeup lesson because Susie wanted to play with her neighbor, you could just turn the phone call over to your cold hearted secretary to enforce your rules).

However, since I lack that coveted secretary, I turned to the Faber Piano Teaching Forum, a fantastic place to get wonderful advice from great teachers.  One teacher suggested I send an email to the parent and even gave me a great script.  I tweaked it just a little, and here it is.

Just a quick note to let you know that I just received your check for April’s tuition back from my bank.  Will you please bring cash to (Child’s Name) next lesson, including the bank fee of $____ that I was charged.”

There was no awkward confrontation, and the situation was taken care of perfectly.  Now I just need to figure out how to word a bounced check fee in my policy…

I’ve heard of many teachers who have a sort of “script” when they are talking to a prospective student on the phone.  I thought that was a great idea, because without one, I often forget to mention important items.  I also forget to ask very important questions (like, “Do you have a piano in your home?????”).

So here is my “script.”  Tell me if you think I’ve missed something terribly important!  Do you have a specific set of questions and items you discuss each time?

1. Do you have a piano in your home?  (Sounds like a ridiculous question, but I am learning it is a very important one!)
2. Are you willing to keep your piano tuned?
3. What do you hope your child will accomplish with piano lessons?  (I am realizing the importance of this question.  I have a student’s mother who insists her daughter learn mainly hymns.  This is fine with me since her daughter already has quite a bit of experience with the piano.  However, she is lacking some important qualities as a pianist that will hinder hymn learning.  Since I never asked her mother what she wanted her daughter to accomplish, I never had the opportunity to explain that I would be happy to teach mostly hymns, but that her daughter would also need to go through some method books to catch some training she has missed.  It’s a headache!)
4. How old is your child?
5. Does your child have experience with the piano or another instrument?  If so, what level books is your child currently using?  What method?
6. Is your child interested in the piano?
7. Your child will need to practice at least 5 days out of the week.  If your child is young, you will need to occasionally help with practice.  Can you commit to that much practice?
8. Give tuition fees.
9. Your child will require music books and sheet music as I see fit.  You can expect to pay X amount of dollars every X amount of months for music.  I try to keep costs to a minimum, and often will ask you to print free sheet music from the internet.
10. Your child will also need a metronome, which will cost about X amount of dollars.
11. Give makeup policy.
12. Piano lessons are a huge commitment, but worth it if you are willing to put forth the effort!  I would love to meet with you and your child face to face (or set up a lesson time- depending on how the interview goes).

1. Place an ad online.  In Salt Lake City, www.ksl.com is an online news website that also has free classifieds.  When I was starting out, all of my students came from my online ad.  See if your city has a free classifieds online.  You can also try www.craigslist.com.
2. We all know that “word of mouth” is the best advertiser.  But if “word of mouth” is taking a little too long for your liking, give it a kick in the pants!  Last summer, I wanted to beef up my studio, so I offered one free month to anybody who referred my studio to somebody who signed up for lessons.  I signed up 5 new students that summer.  I felt that the loss of income for one month was worth it because it really wasn’t loss of income:  Even though one parent wasn’t paying, another was.  My monthly income was the same that month than it would have been without a new student.  But the bonus was that the next month, there was an extra student. No doubt you have one or two eager parents who would jump on a discount or similar incentive you can offer!
3. Lure students to your studio.  I know that sounds creepy, but hear me out.  Students in my studio participate in an incentive program in which they earn an ice cream party.  When the day of their ice cream party comes, they are allowed to bring a friend to their lesson.  At the lesson, the student and friend eat ice cream loaded with candy, play simple piano games that even a child with no music experience can learn, and the student performs for the friend.  My original purpose of the ice cream party was for motivation and a chance for my student to “show off” to a friend.  The added bonus has been new students!  I have acquired two new students from these parties, with two more interested.  Maybe you could host a casual recital just for students where each student brings a friend.  Or allow your top practicer of each month or quarter to bring a friend to one lesson for music games.
4. Tell everyone you know that you are a piano teacher.  Tell people at church, parents of your kids, neighbors, repair people who come to your house, your piano tuner, the school bus driver, your spouse’s co-workers…you get the idea.  They may not want a piano teacher when you tell them, but they will meet somebody who does.  And who do you think they will recommend?  That’s right: YOU! 

Things I have tried that have NOT been effective-

1. Fliers.  I posted fliers EVERYWHERE I could think of, and only got one student from it.  That student didn’t always pay, so it wasn’t even a good deal!  (That was my first student- before I knew how to have a backbone.  But that’s another story completely.)
2. Business cards.  I’ve handed out business cards to all my friends in hopes that the cards would circulate around.  I keep business cards with me at all times.  But I have not ever found an opportunity to give away a business card (other than to my suckers for friends).  Maybe I’m just not talkative enough, though!  Do you use business cards?
3. A poster in my window.  It was ugly, and now I even have leftover tape on the window that I’m too lazy to figure out how to scrape off.  I posted a bright pink flier in my front window on Halloween one year, hoping that one or two sugar crazed kids would see it and beg for lessons.  Nobody bit.  I kept it up for months afterwards, hoping that a parent walking a dog by my house would come up and ask questions.  Again, nobody bit.

What has been successful for you in getting new students?  What has been unsuccessful?

Like I’ve talked about before, I teach from home.  So it really irks me when the first student of the day shows up for lessons early.  I feel like I have to answer the door because they know I’m home.  And then, I feel like I have to start teaching because, well, what else can I do?

In my studio policy, it states that students should remain in their cars if they arrive more than 5 minutes early.  Most of my students are pretty good about doing that, because they realize that when they come in any earlier, they are interrupting another student’s lesson.  But it’s those darn first lessons of the day that I just don’t know what to do about!

I am thinking of posting a note on my door that says something like this:

Piano Students: If you arrive for your lesson early, please remain in your car.  I will not open my door until your lesson time begins.

Is it too harsh?  Is it inappropriate?  What are your thoughts?  What have you done to fix similar situations?

I’ve only recently started doing interviews before accepting new students. I have one coming over this week, and wanted to throw out the questions: 1. Do you interview prospective students? and 2. What do you do or talk about in your interview? and 3. Do you do anything at the piano?

I’ve been so occupied with getting our Christmas recital (in two weeks!) ready. I’m worried because I don’t think I’ve given my students enough time to really perfect their pieces. There just isn’t much time between a Halloween recital and a Christmas recital. I think I will skip the Halloween recital next year.

So anyway, I just thought it would be fun to hear what other people are doing for Christmas recitals. What pieces are you excited about? Is anyone having a recital in an interesting location? I tried to find a nursing home for ours, but couldn’t find one with a piano! I was actually shocked. But then…I procrastinated my search, so I’m sure I could have found one if I had been looking sooner. (Just another lesson for next year…) What treats are you serving? Is anyone having ensembles perform? Are you, as the teacher, performing? Are you requiring memorization?

Wow, that’s a lot of questions! But please comment~ I love to hear from other music teachers!

In yesterday’s post, I was asked what I do with my baby while I teach.  I thought I would share my answer in today’s post.

I took a month off after my baby was born, and spent that month getting her on a good sleep schedule.  Not everybody likes to schedule their babies, but for me it was imperative.  I read On Becoming Baby Wise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam for help in this area.  (Greatest book if you are serious about getting your baby to sleep through the night!)

Because I had gotten her on a schedule, it was easy to teach when she was little, because she slept right through everything.  As she’s gotten older and needs less naps (aarrgghhh), I have come to depend on things with restraining belts.  First it was the bouncy seat, then the activity center, and now the high chair.  These work wonderfully (now), but I know I will have to adapt to something new very soon since she is now becoming an expert walker!

I still make sure she sleeps through the first hour of lessons.  Even if she wakes up early, she stays in her crib and plays.  I will then let her crawl/walk around during one lesson, and by the last few lessons, she is restrained.  My husband comes home during the last lesson and takes over.

It’s an evolving system, and not nearly perfect enough. Any tips from anybody else?

Ok, we’re going to try this again.  A while back, I attempted to start a discussion through comments, but it never really took off.  (I do appreciate those who made comments, however!)  Perhaps my topic wasn’t too exciting or discussion worthy, so I am going to give it another go with this question/topic:

If you had a student who wasn’t making progress, (couldn’t remember notes, couldn’t play a piece that had been passed off before, couldn’t count, etc.) would you drop that student or just work harder on your own teaching?  I don’t think I’m qualified to answer this question, because I’ve only had one student like that, and she moved away before I ever had to make that kind of decision.  However, without having had the experience, I think I would always focus my efforts on better teaching if I had a student like this.  I don’t think I could drop a student unless there were some serious behavioral problems.  What would you do or what have you done in the past?

Now, let’s get a good discussion going here!  Leave your comments and come back to respond to others!

I love the feedback I get on this site. Everyone has such great experience and offers helpful tips. I hope to get some good feedback on this topic.

How do you handle refreshments at recitals? I recently had a recital and asked for volunteers to bring refreshments. Only one parent volunteered, so I spent a lot of time baking cookies the day before (as well as setting up, printing programs, and all the other things involved in a recital). I felt like I should have required instead of asked for volunteers. However, after asking other people their opinion on this, I found that some people feel the teacher should provide refreshments since the parents are paying for lessons.

What do you think?