To find students... - MusicianWages.com

Tagged: distance teaching, elearning, finding students, flyers, Lessons, pop rock cello, private, shuffle-bow technique, skype, students, teaching lessons

This topic has 6 voices, contains 11 replies, and was last updated by David J. Hahn 175 days ago.

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May 6, 2011 at 9:05 pm #6805
Andree-Ann	<p>Hey everyone, </p> <p>I am wondering how the ones of you who teach regularly got to build their student base? </p> <p>I’m moving to a new location soon and hoping to teach a bit more (and do freelance translation a bit less…) and would love to hear your ideas. </p> <p>Of course I have postings on Craigslist that have generated some interest but I’m wondering if anybody out of you has another method that has been efficient so far? </p> <p>I’ve always been lucky with word of mouth and whatnot, but moving to a totally new location, I can’t really use word of mouth to my advantage…</p> <p>Let me know about your experiences! </p> <p>Andree-Ann </p>
May 12, 2011 at 1:32 pm #7609
Andree-Ann	Just bumping this up in the list…I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one teaching!
May 12, 2011 at 6:12 pm #7610
David J. Hahn	I don’t know much of anything about this topic. I used to teach lessons, but it was years ago and my heart was never in it. But have you checked this out? I think this is one of the best guest blogs we have on the site: [url=http://www.musicianwages.com/the-working-musician/start-your-teaching-business-in-30-days/]Start Your Teaching Business in 30 Days[/url] It’s written by Greg Arney, a Berklee grad and somebody passionate about teaching lessons and finding students. Great stuff in there.
May 12, 2011 at 6:17 pm #7611
Nick Rosaci	It’s a bit difficult to say, since you’re a pianist. Though, once you get established, it’s probably the easiest instrument to make money with teaching (or gigging, as it were). As a band and orchestra musician, I email all the schools in the district and surrounding areas. I sent this email out last year after I moved to Orlando: ____________________________________________ Dear ______, Hi, my name is Nick Rosaci. I just wanted to let you know that I am available to teach private lessons and masterclasses. Some quick information about me: I am a low brass player and am qualified to teach all brass, as well as double bass (jazz and classical) and electric bass. I can run sectionals and jazz masterclasses, and can run the jazz band as well. I also can tutor theory and music technology. I graduated with my Bachelor’s on jazz bass studying with Dennis Marks (bassist for Arturo Sandoval), and received a performance certificate on low brass, from the University of North Florida while studying with Dave Steinmeyer (lead trombone, Airmen of Note, retired). I also studied with Rodney Jordan on bass and Paul Ebbers on euphonium from Florida State University for a time. I play in many ensembles in the state and have traveled the world performing. I also have played for people like Poncho Sanchez, George Benson, Benny Green, and many others. I have taught many students from preschool to the collegiate level. Currently I teach in Brevard county and have been teaching at Central Middle School under Mark Sanders, and have taught at Delaura Middle School under Scott Smith, and work closely with Joe Kreines on a regular basis. Attached is a form for parents and students to look over. Resume and further references can be sent upon request. Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you at your earliest convenience. _____________________________________ That generated more interest with students than group teaching. However, I really wanted to run classes. This year, I had seven regular schools across three counties. I’ve already sent out emails to just this county alone, and I almost have that much again right here. That’s exciting to me. However, the problem with all of this is that I can teach band and orchestra students, since I play a good chunk of their instruments. You, on the other hand, are looking for piano students. I would still look into the schools, but where I have ten to fifteen potential students at each school, you may have five. Don’t let that get you down, though. I look in all secondary schools, and you can look into elementary as well; piano students generally start much younger. I’d also look into piano stores and other music stores. But don’t just drop in and say “I want to teach, can I put up a flyer?” Get to know the local stores very well. I swing by my hometown guitar shop about once a week, and just say hey (and he’s had one of my basses in there for upgrades for the last year). He refers students and bands looking for a bassist whenever he gets a call now. And I don’t think I’ve dropped over $500 in the fifteen years I’ve been using that store, so it’s not how much you spend. Anyway, like I’ve said before, music is a very social vocation, so mingling is your best tool. You can’t rely on word-of-mouth if the mouths don’t know the right combination of words! Nick
May 12, 2011 at 6:46 pm #7612
Nick Rosaci	I forgot about that article! I remember reading it. Even though I’m not looking for a large studio, there was tons of helpful information in that article that all musicians, and perhaps non-musicians, should read.
May 12, 2011 at 7:28 pm #7613
Andree-Ann	ohh I forgot about that article too! Thanks Dave for the link. Will definitely check it out!
May 28, 2011 at 7:37 pm #7649
contrabasso76	I’m reading that article right now. Great information! For me, as is probably the case with many other bass teachers on here, one of the best decisions I made for myself in the teaching arena was deciding to teach guitar. Once that happened, my student base nearly tripled (over time, of course). One thing I don’t think anyone has mentioned here are private schools. They can be a little more open to outside ideas about music education, as opposed to public schools. You might be able to set up a private lesson program at the school itself. I am involved in a situation like that, and students are allowed to miss one P.E. period per week for music lessons. Benefits? 1. You can teach before 3pm which is always a chore for private teachers. 2. The students are already at the school and parents don’t have to rearrange their schedules to get their children to a different location. 3. If the student decides to quit and still owes you money, you can contact the parents a little more easily because the kid is still at the school. I could probably think of some more, but you get the idea.
May 28, 2011 at 7:48 pm #7650
contrabasso76	PS. There are other unique and perhaps unconventional ways of trying to build clientele. 1. Offer Skype lessons. Easier done with string instruments, and not so much with beginners. But Skype is free and a decent webcam (assuming you don’t have one built in) will set you back two or three lessons at the most. I have a few students in the military who want to keep continuing with me after they get deployed/stationed elsewhere. 2. Plastic stick in the ground yard signs. They sometimes work better than fliers, but be careful where you put them! There’s a local guitar teacher here who had 200 yard signs made and blanketed an extremely busy main road with them. They went on for at least a mile and a half. The next day the city called him threatening a $50 fine per sign if he didn’t remove them. So he went back and pulled them all up. …but he got 30 or so calls the first day.
October 26, 2011 at 1:11 pm #7919
yomanite	Ciao, I teach modern piano myself in Firenze, Italy and I promote myself -through a facebook profile called something like “(name) modern piano lessons-Firenze”. The info are well written and organized; I put a few nice photos of myself playing keyboards live. Then I constantly add/like local venues, associations (music, theatre, art..), bars, restaurants, events organization agency, key people (chief of…manager of…promoter of…), shops….and I post my written-in-advance presentation. Very important to add every local profile possible, so that your name will spread around and you’ll get a few people every month adding you cause interested in lessons. Seems easy but gotta work on it almost 1h every day! -flyers with a striking/curious image in as many public places as you can (libraries, schools, universities, recreational centers,etc) -(I don’t know if it’s legal in every country) flyers in every mailbox. Order a large amount of simple flyers (2 flyers on a simple black and white A4 page, simple paper) and organize your work! Start with your neighbourhood, hand them out every day with a logic, don’t be chaotic, remember the streets you’ve already done..etc. Though I already have a few students, last weekend I handed out flyers in part (1/3) of my neighbourhood (total: 33.000 people) with a friend (I bought her sandwiches and a gelato). The next day 2 people called…And I haven’t tried with the rest of the city yet! (total: 500.000). We all know that 2 students more can really help at the end of the month ;)
October 28, 2011 at 3:55 am #7921
David J. Hahn	I like those ideas!
November 27, 2011 at 5:50 pm #7995
Elias	Hi everyone! I´m new to this forum. But i have been reading this site (musicianwages.com) for long and i want to thank you, the creators and contributors for the information here! Its truely a great site. Helped me a lot. Back to the topic- I am only beginning to teach on Skype (I am a professional pop/rock cello teacher from Finland), and actually the idea to do it came from other cellists who listened me play on Youtube. I have about 1500 subscribers on my Youtube account, 515 Facebook fans and the numbers are rising, and i noticed that most of them were cello players (or at least musicians) themselves. My thing is a thing called “shuffle-bow” technique that i created for the cello, bow hand. This way you can play like a triplet feel shuffle groove for the bow hand, and basicly a lot of western pop/rock music is based on that groove (except metal for example). Creating a new playing technique (which opens doors, cello players have told me they previously thought playing Red Hot Chili Peppers on the cello could not happen very well on the cello) has been good. That way i have been able to gain new students. Of course you have to be versatile and also get into teaching metal, punk, you name it. I also did a graduation exam of “teaching pop/jazz cello online”, and did further research on it. greets from Finland Elias http://www.youtube.com/eliaskahila http://www.kahila.net
November 28, 2011 at 2:39 am #8000
David J. Hahn	Cool clips Elias. How’s it going with the Skype lessons? Are you successful sourcing students from your subscribers and Facebook fans? Do you let them all know that you’re offering lessons?