24 June 2021 Easy Tips For Teaching Piano From Your Home

Easy Tips For Teaching Piano From Your Home

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Many of the top businesses in the world started from a kitchen table at home. 

If you’ve been dreaming of teaching piano, why not make your dream come true, right from the privacy of your own home? Whether you wish to grow it into one of the top notch music studios in your community, or want to keep it small and make a part time living with your instruction, anything is possible if you put your mind to it. 

Start with the dream. Write it down on paper. Think big … or keep it small. Project out a year, two years, even five years down the road. Where do you see yourself? Because part of success starts with knowing where your ending point is, and backing up to put the pieces together to make your dreams come true. 

Then get started by teaching piano from your home. Discover what you enjoy, what clients you’re good with, and what works for you. Use this to grow as you move forward. 

And use these tips to make the process a little easier. 

Set up a professional studio inside your home

Even if you’re teaching from home, you still are a business. People come expecting a high quality service. Make sure you have a neat and tidy workstation for every student who comes into your home. The right first impression sets the stage for expectations from every student you have. It should be a quiet place where you both can concentrate without interruption. 

Ensure you have the right equipment

If you’re teaching piano, it goes without saying that you’ll need a high quality piano that sounds great to the ear. Besides that, you’ll need a good computer or tablet, a fast internet connection that can stream videos and other teaching tools. You’ll need music stands, music, and other specific instruments depending on how you’ll teach. You’ll also need the appropriate system to invoice your clients, and produce content you’ll be sharing with your customers.

Create realistic payment terms

The reason most home businesses stay at home is they never think like a business. Creating a healthy business means getting paid for the work you do. You can start by looking at how other instructional studios make money, then use that as your guide. Asking students to pay in blocks of five, ten, or even twenty lessons at a time is an easy way to get your students to commit to longer terms, You can also offer different options and plans – how about both individual and group lessons? Be sure to review these and make changes as necessary at least once per year. 

Create a cancellation policy

If a student has already purchased a plan, and started working their way through the classes, expecting a full refund shouldn’t be a part of the procedure. You’ll have an easier time enforcing the rules if you create a cancellation policy first, and hand it out in your original member’s terms welcome packet. This way you both understand how the process works in every situation. 

Promotion

If you want to grow your business, you’ll have to market it to bring in new customers. That means you’ll need a solid marketing plan in place. Marketing is something every business works at for the life of the business – it’s always necessary to be bringing in new customers to replace the ones that move away. Create time in your calendar each week to perform the necessary steps to keep a steady flow of customers coming through your door. 

What other tips have you learned as you’re creating your own piano teaching business at home? 

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30 September 2016 Tips For Teaching Piano to Adults 50+

Tips For Teaching Piano to Adults 50+

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There are two approaches to teaching piano. The first is the pedagogical model, where teaching is teacher directed. Teachers choose what to teach and what the student will learn in logical step-by-step format.

The second approach is student directed. A student sits down and chooses what they wish to learn and approaches every lesson based on their desires for what to play.Tips For Teaching Piano to Adults 50

The second approach is often just what’s needed to keep adult learners engaged. After all, when an adult chooses to learn to play the piano, they have a pretty good idea of what they wish to play. Yes, they understand the need for some of the basics. But overall, they have a goal and a plan already in mind. They have their desires already laid out.

That’s also why in many cases adults over 50 are also easier to teach.

They have the most expendable income of any other age bracket – they choose to spend on what they most desire. That means a quality piano, the right accessories, and quality lessons.

They know what they want to learn. They may have a particular song in mind they want to learn.

They also have a better understanding of music. Even if they’ve never picked up an instrument before, they have years of experience in listening. They understand rhythm. They understand melody. And in many cases, it’s easy to “hear” that just by plucking a few notes on the piano.

When it makes sense, they become more interactive. They choose to play because they have the desire.

With older students, get them to play right away. Don’t introduce theory or basics in the beginning. Realize those will come over time. Instead, listen to what an adult student has to say. They set the stage for all that you can teach.

Also, don’t be too much of a stickler on proper finger arrangement. Adult students have a lot of experience in keyboarding. They’ve typed away at the computer for years. And in many cases, fingers will naturally fall into place, be comfortable to do what they need to do. You can adjust when difficulties arise in the future. But from the beginning, the most important thing is just to start playing.

What have you found helps your adult students to play?

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7 October 2015 The Elements Of Teaching Piano: From Buying A Piano To Teaching Students

The Elements Of Teaching Piano: From Buying A Piano To Teaching Students

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Teaching piano involves a variety of things. Yes, it starts by knowing how to play the piano; a good teacher has to be good at playing. But a good piano doesn’t necessarily have to be a concert pianist. A good teacher must appreciate and enjoy the challenges of helping their students learn how to master the piano. They have to be able to give their students an appreciation and love of the instrument.The Elements Of Teaching Piano: From Buying A Piano To Teaching Students

In most cases, when a parent looks to find a piano teacher for their child, they have a few goals in mind. They rarely say “I would like my child to become a concert pianist”. Instead, they simply want to give their child the benefits of having a deeper appreciation for music, for the arts, and a way of relaxing after a long day of activities.

The most obvious place to start is with purchasing a piano. In order to give your students every advantage of loving to play and loving to learn, the quality they play on has to be top notch. Why do you play the piano you do? What qualities do you look for in a piano? Many students and their parents will look to you for guidance in selecting their own piano.

From there, every music teacher has a different approach to teaching, depending on the style and methods they learned with. To appreciate music, a student must learn a variety of things.

  • Keyboard and Fingering – simple exercises can help students learn keys and patterns. This is where scales become valuable. It helps a student learn majors and minors and how they sound when played together.
  • Music Reading – a good method book can help a student sight-read music. Care should be taken so a student doesn’t switch to memorization or playing by ear, and truly learns to read music.
  • Learning and Memorization – playing the piano well means practicing again and again. There is a skill to memorization; teachers can help them develop the skill and use it for concerts and recitals.
  • Music Theory – usually for more advanced students that are thinking of making music a career, theory can help develop an appreciation for developing their own music. It can help reinforce music and playing, things they should already love.

If you’re ready to inspire your kids for a lifetime love of music, introduce them to the art of piano playing today.

Filed Under: Piano Lessons, Piano Playing Tagged With: ,
3 December 2014 How To Start A Successful Piano Teaching Business

How To Start A Successful Piano Teaching Business

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People start piano teaching businesses for a variety of reasons. But no matter what reasons you’ve had in mind, chances are two of the top are:

  • To help people bring piano into their lives
  • To make money

If you are in business, one of your top goals is to make money; without it you won’t have a business. But even the concept of making money varies widely from teacher to teacher. Some simply want to supplement their income with a little extra spending money, while others want a full time career.How To Start A Successful Piano Teaching Business

There are a few strategies that can help you bring success to your piano teaching business, no matter what goals you have in mind.

Planning

The end of the year is a great time to map out the following year. This helps you see how many clients you’ll need, what you’ll have time for, plan for vacations, and help you increase sales by doing extra things. How about a bootcamp for adults? Or a summer camp for kids? By mapping it out early, you can start the planning process for getting your marketing ideas together, and advertising it early enough to have a full house.

Budget

Its easy to add up the checks to see how much money is coming in. But that isn’t taking everything into account. How much is insurance, taxes, marketing, and other studio expenses … like rent? How often will you have to replace your pianos? How often will you buy accessories, music, tune your pianos, photocopies for recitals, etc? Be careful to estimate all of your expenses and budget accordingly.

Forward … Back

What worked well over the past year? Where do you hope to grow? In some cases, the best way to plan is to look back over the past year and find things that worked, as well as areas you wish to grow. Don’t just look at your actions, look to the numbers as well.

Grow

How big do you want your studio to become? Are you happy with spending money? Or do you wish to have a six figure income? Put numbers to it now so that you can see how large you will have to grow in order to achieve the results you are looking for. When you see that boosting your income only needs an additional 10 clients, for instance, it can change your perspective on what is possible.

Partner Up

You can’t build a business alone. If you don’t understand marketing, you may have to hire a consultant to help you put the pieces together. And when it comes to keeping your piano equipment in good working order, it also benefits you to have a trusted source at your fingertips. From regular tunings, to periodic repair, to complete restoration, or maybe purchasing a brand new piano, part of the process is having someone you can trust to be there when you need it most. What would you do if you had a major repair the day before a recital? When you choose a reputable piano company to have on board as a resource, you know you’ll always be at the top of your game.

Filed Under: Piano Lessons, Piano Playing Tagged With: ,