Carear in guitar teaching....

[Paul Warren]

I would say that taking lessons from other teachers would be one of the best things you can do in order to find out more about what works and doesn't work for students. It would be worth your time to try to do that. It will make you a better teacher and thus help your student retention, so it's a worthwhile investment.

I've hired quite a few teachers over the years and I've discovered that while they obviously need to have the teaching and playing skills, their people skills need to also be top notch. If a teacher has zero personality or doesn't seem to get along well with the public in general, how is he going to be able to converse with parents about their children's growth on the instrument? It's a very important part of instruction since you are dealing with parents all the time. And then he may have to go from teaching an 8 year old to teaching a big time exec of a fortune 500 company. That's quite a switch and if he doesn't have the interpersonal skills to handle those situations, then it's going to make things tough. Make sure you are a good communicator with your students, parents and anybody else involved. Be a pro, like you would in any other job.

paul

[screamndemon69]

Great advice Paul. I only wish I could have more stundents that have interpersonal skills

[rickcard71]

I would think it is hard to get students. I guess not though, wow! 80 a week,...........living large!!!!

[shogun]

i taught last year w/ around 40 a week, and also worked in the music store.. it was pretty fun, but where I live I only make 10$ a lesson (30min) in my pocket, so its only half as nice as you city boys have it..

Realistically, if you took the time to make a lesson plan, you could have 60+ students a week and be making some serious cash..

[Shreddy Krueger]

I'm actually at the tail end of my teaching "career" of about 6-ish years right now.
The most I ever had was between 30-40 students and that was while I was still gigging 3 nights a week, before I got divorced and still actually had money.

I think all the other guys here did a great job obviously with the basic plan you need to make a living teaching.

I'll touch on the buisness end a bit, at least what worked for me.

I worked out of a local music store about 25 miles from my house.
The upstairs of the store was the studio/learning center.
We all made our own schedules and set our own rates.
The store never even charged us rent.

The other teacher, Dave Reed (www.myspace.com/davereedmusic), who had been there for the better part of the previous decade took me under his wing and taught me all the ins & outs of the buisness, which he still runs today and is successfull as ever.

He has roughly about 75 students per week.

1st thing the student/parent signs is a contract where you lay out all your policies in writing, in advance. Which is handy to have in the event of a bad check or non-payment.
Every student pays a minimum of 4 lessons in advance, no exceptions.
$12 per 1/2 hour lesson.
If Dave cancels the lesson there is no charge to the student, however if the student cancels for any reason they are billed for it.
He says in the contract he will do what he can to get a make up lesson in, but no make up is guaranteed.

If you show up with no $$$ on payday, no lesson until the next 4 lessons are paid in advance.
No exceptions.

I followed this to a tee the entire time I was a teacher and it worked great.
However I'm easily a push over and more often then not I allowed people to "just get me next week" which almost always ended with me getting owed money in the end.

: - {

I thought over all it was a rewarding experience.
Inevitably you are gonna get kids that don't give a ****, but the ones who became good guitar players even if it's in a small way because of me I take a ton of pride in.

Some who aren't quite there yet, at least I know I've passed on my love for music and for performing.

Some just needed someone to listen to when their parents wouldn't.
And having an adult they thought was "cool" who acted like a friend and maybe was a positive influence in their life was probably the most common role I had.

Plus it teaches you alot about yourself as a musician and a guitar player.
I know my game improved immensely from teaching.

Plus teaching right next to a world class teacher like Dave 3 days a week & learning on the job was probably not a bad situation either...

However when Green Day was HUGE a few years ago, I could have done without the hundred plus times I taught "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"....

Over all though, it's a great way to get paid for doing something you love doing..

[isaac]

so how does one launch a guitar teaching career? And what is a good price to charge? Ive been thinking about teaching guitar but i dont know where to begin.

[elcid]

Here it's right around $20 for 1/2 an hour once a week, paid a month at a time. The best way to start is to go to your local guitar shop and try to get hired there. Then they will find students for you, once you build a reputation you can look into going out on your own.

[screamndemon69]

Working out of a store works for me. No over head costs other than renting the room. I handle all my own money and schedule so I guess I have an a$$hole for a boss

It depends on the market as far as pricing. Some teachers here actually charge $50 and hour and don't give 1/2hr lessons. I price the same as Cid said, $20 1/2hr and $40 per hour with discounts for paying by the month or more at a time.

Develop a plan for younger beginners and one for older beginners and an intermediate lesson plan to start off. I'm still trying to get an advanced plan togther but I usually don't get alot of advancd students, mostly beginners and low level intermediate players.

I break things down into the mechanical side of playing and then once the student is starting to get a little more ability I move into theory of scales, chords, progressions, ect. It has proven very efficient for me and works very nicely in a "progressive" kinda way.

[Spagbol]

Some good advice so far...

I'm a full time instrumental teacher (violin mainly with a little bit of guitar). I'm also 'Head of Strings' for the Borough provider of instrumental tuition where I live and also on the Board of Directors of same - just so you can see where I'm coming from (and also how this may not apply to you at all!!)

If you want to make this a career you need to decide what hours you're going to work and who you're going to target.

Guitar is a very popular instrument and you should have no time filling up whatever hours you set yourself. However... bear in mind that if you want evenings to yourself, you need to work during the day when most adults are at work which means effectively working in schools. For this you must be CRB cleared - this will be insisted upon either by the schools (and be warned, many schools won't accept a CRB check you had done for another school which means you must pay for a new one for each school) or by the LEA/Borough Council.
How you get to work in schools is another matter entirely. Since the government devolved music budgets directly to schools some years ago (ignoring standards fund, wider opportunities etc.) the schools can buy in who they like to provide music lessons from private teachers, to the Borough Council music service.
Privately you will need to do all your own billing, payment collections, deal with schools etc. Also, if you are not told about a school trip or TD day the parent will not assume responsibility for you not knowing and will always blame the school. The school won't pay you so you end up out of pocket. You may also have to provide annual (or even termly) reports - that depends on the school and sometimes the LEA policy which can include private/independant teachers.
If the LEA/Borough has an instrumental music service, you can apply to become an approved teacher or member of the service. There aren't many employed music services in the country now - most use either temporary/short term contracts or use self-employed teachers who pay an amount towards administration services. Some are Trusts or Co-operatives with an SLA (Service Level Agreement) or contract with the LEA and some are wholly run by the LEA/Borough music service. Depends on where in the country you are and the local history and politics involved and you will have differing responsibilities regarding timetabling, claiming pay, attendance at INSET etc. for each and every one!
If you want more information, PM me. I may have contacts in the music service where you are (I'm in the South West too).

You may find that you can find enough adult pupils during the day to sustain a job, or a few during the day and into the early evening. In that case, you don't even need to think about schools/colleges. Or you may even find that teaching from 4-8 is good enough (at £20/hr and 5 days a week, that's £400 a week).

If you intend to teach people who would like to take exams, you must know the pros and cons (or advantages and disadvantages!) of each exam board and well versed in the repertoire for all grades that you will be teaching.

One thing. If you are teaching outside of schools, definitely have the pupils come to you. You can do 6 1/2 hour lessons in 3 hours that way. If you go to other people's houses to teach, more than half your time will be spent travelling and therefore unpaid (3 1/2 hour lessons in 3 hours). If you can teach from home, that's the best as you have no room rent to pay. Where I live, it costs about £14 an hour to hire a room. That's more than 50% of the lesson fee!

A few pointers of good teaching practice in order to avoid unsavoury claims: Wherever you teach, ensure that the room can easily be seen into and there are people nearby. NEVER touch a pupil unless it has been explained how, where and why and agreement has been given by the pupil (even to place a finger on the correct fret, or to adjust a wrist position). Never use suggestive language - pre-teen up to late teen in particular have massively differing stages of awareness and experience of language, vocal inflexion and decoding facial expressions. Even adults are diverse in the way they interpret such things.

Whatever and wherever, I would advise taking out Public Liability Insurance (this will be required if working for a music service unless membership automatically covers you) and many music services are also now insisting on teachers having Professional Indemnity Insurance (councils worried about people suing for failure to educate!) which can cost a few hundred pounds in premiums. Where I am, I must have £5 million cover for professional indemnity and £5 million or £10 million (can't remember which) public liability cover in order to teach in schools.


You must also know about accident procedure and policy in your place of work (if self-employed at home, you must have your own)

There are other things too but I'm knackered so it's off to bed. Sorry for the rambling post. I appreciate that much of it may not apply in any way, but hopefully there are a few things you may not have thought about in there.

[Akirean]

Sorry for digging up an old thread, but I stumbled across this thread when doing some research.

I'm putting together a business plan in order to start giving guitar tuition. I'm aiming to teach guitar courses through schools and through home tutoring. I'm just looking for some advice with regards to this business plan and any other issues I need to take in to account regarding teaching as a career. A lot of what has been discussed already has been very useful, just wondering if there's anything else?

Thanks.

[Dino]

Originally Posted by Akirean

Sorry for digging up an old thread, but I stumbled across this thread when doing some research.

I'm putting together a business plan in order to start giving guitar tuition. I'm aiming to teach guitar courses through schools and through home tutoring. I'm just looking for some advice with regards to this business plan and any other issues I need to take in to account regarding teaching as a career. A lot of what has been discussed already has been very useful, just wondering if there's anything else?

Thanks.

As long as you are spelling "career" the correct way then you are already ahead of some people. Best advice, at first don't quit your day job. Enjoy what you are doing and people will enjoy taking lessons for you.

[Akirean]

Lol, i'm half way there then it seems!

Contacted the council today; i'm shocked with regards to the lack of funding there is for instrument teaching in schools.

[Spagbol]

Originally Posted by Akirean

Contacted the council today; i'm shocked with regards to the lack of funding there is for instrument teaching in schools.

That's mainly because the bulk of provision was made directly available to schools a few years back. Instead of providing the funds to council to run a music service, most of the money is now given directly to schools who have a much more direct say in who provides their instrumental teaching and means that they aren't tied to using the LEA or Borough Council music service.
Having said that, many councils are also very underhand in the way they deal with the issue and the director of music services for some have managed to retain control of the budgets in a variety of novel ways.

Other ****-ups in this area include the way the Standards Fund was administered. This was a budget made available to councils to enable extended provision of music services. Basically, a council put in a bid and stated in their bid how much they were ring-fencing for the provision and the government matched it.
I know of at least one music service whose council put in a bid, received the matched funding and then withdrew their part of the funding (siphoning it off to other departments) leaving just the government money to fund their service. This money was supposed to extend the service, not pay for it. Then when the standards fund support for that period ended, the councils were left with no money to support their music service as they had budget none of their own money towards it.
There is a new round of standards fund but it's set up differently.

Another reason for less money available for instrumental tuition is that until recently, vocal tuition has been not allowed to be taught within school or provided for by the music services. It's all tied up with the fact that most schools use singing to teach the music curriculum. Anyway, last year vocal tuition was allowed in as part of intrumental tuition services and so funding must be put towards that too.

The government under their 'access for all' mantra has decided that the best way to get kids playing - or at least the way that they can say has given huge numbers of children the opportunity to have intrumental tuition - is by using intruments in the provision of the music curriculum. This has led to the 'Wider Opportunities' scheme which is basically delivery of the music curriculum with instruments.
Many councils are claiming this as instrumental teaching (which it isn't), many councils are stating that x number of children have learnt violin/clarinet/trumpet/african drumming (when they haven't, they've just had curriculum music lessons with those instruments in their hands) and the government are claiming that x number of children have had access to learning instruments when in fact a huge percentage of that number is those 'enjoying' Wider Opportunities.

Another set of funding has been around 'endagered species' - things like Bassoons, French Horns and other less played instruments. This is another ring-fenced budget and in this case is actually doing some good but it's all budget towards the provision of music services that most kids and any learning through traditional channels with traditional instruments won't get to see.

Anyway, just some info on the state of music service budgets for you! The stories I could tell you...