Music is a priceless gift—A gift which enriches our students, and through them, our world. When we teach music, we nurture students to think creatively; to improvise; to find ways to express harmony and dissonance; to express who they are in diverse, complex, and integrated ways. Imparting our music to the next generation is a crucial service.
Let me tell you my story:
Staring Down the Gorilla
Or how I set my lesson fees
When I first began teaching piano in January 2010, I had a problem.
The going rate in my area was $20-$25/lesson. A large, well-established music school in my area was charging $34/lesson. How much was I going to charge?
Remember that old joke: Where does an 800-pound gorilla sit? (Anywhere he wants to!) The big music school was the 800-pound gorilla in my local community, and as such, it could charge what it wanted.
Even so, $34 a lesson seemed low to me, considering how much overhead the big music school had (and how little the teacher probably got). Let’s face it, doing business costs money, costs beyond the time a teacher spends with his or her students. To have a sustainable business, you must figure those costs into the price of your product.
I wanted to quit my day job in HR and Compensation. But I quickly realized I had to bring in at least $64 per teaching hour to work less and meet my income needs (hello mortgage!).
I’m a good teacher with a great curriculum (and a lot of confidence), but I also knew I was just starting out. I fretted a lot: Could I possibly charge what I really felt my time was worth?
How is a Music Lesson Like a Fine Wine?
People only recognize its value if they are told.
In 2007, a team of researchers at Cal …Read the full story
Source:: Musician Wages