Remember back in April when I visited Jody and her Piano Cottage? In her waiting room area, she had a blank notebook lying around for students to draw artwork.
After being inspired by Jody, I ordered a blank, hardcover notebook from Amazon for my own waiting room area. It has been a few months now, and I thought I would share a peek at some of the artwork students have created!
Yes, even my cat Coda made it into the notebook! 🙂
I have just finished updating two of the studio business forms from the Printables page.
The first one is the Record of Lesson Attendance & Payment pdf — I have updated the dates for use for the 2013-2014 school year. I received a number of requests from teachers to make this form available again this year, and I am happy to do so!
Here is how the form works: Write your students’ names in the first column. Each week, write the lesson date (in a month / date format) in the column for that week. This is how you can track attendance. The small circles in each cell are where you can write checkmarks indicating tuition payments. Whether you charge by-the-week or by-the-month, you can place a checkmark by each paid lesson date.
Continue reading “Studio Business — Printables Updated for 2013-14”
Have you heard about the new podcast for piano teachers created by the folks at TeachPianoToday.com? I have enjoyed listening to the first few episodes since they launched their podcast last month (click here to listen to Episode 1 and Episode 2).
So, I was honored when Andrea asked if I would be willing to be a guest for Episode 3, which has been released today! Click the link to listen to our conversation about the challenges of relocating and starting a piano studio again from scratch.
While you are there, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss TeachPianoToday’s future podcasts and blog posts!
For a while now, I’ve been looking for something with more drawers to put in my studio. I have lots of drawers across the room, but I wanted something small enough for the spot next to my chair when I teach.
I recently found this fun little filing cabinet for $30 at a thrift store:
I just had to share a photo with some fellow teachers who would understand my excitement! 🙂 I can’t wait to fill it up with my games pieces, flashcards, music dice, etc.
Our last Forum Q&A post was sharing about the first piano you learned on as a child. It was fun hearing your piano stories!
It’s time for a new Forum Q&A topic. This one is an important topic for any self-employed music teacher to consider: Health insurance!
Do you pay for your own health insurance out-of-pocket, or does your spouse’s job provide insurance for you? If you are paying for health insurance out-of-pocket, did you find insurance through the services partnered with MTNA, or through another source? Does your insurance only cover major medical, or does it cover annual check-ups, etc.? Do you feel that your health insurance adequately covers what your needs? Is the premium reasonable, and is the co-pay/co-insurance reasonable?
I’ll admit that this topic is timely for me, because I am currently shopping for health insurance. As I’ve been researching health insurance, I found it very interesting to learn how difficult it can be for self-employed individuals in the United States to find both adequate and affordable coverage, especially for those who have “pre-existing conditions.”
This is a topic definitely worth discussing. I hope you’ll all take a moment to leave a comment below to share your experience!
I was running low on business cards, so I ordered some new ones a couple weeks ago. I decided to try my hand at a little bit of graphic design and make the cards myself in Photoshop Elements. I’ve ordered from Moo.com in the past and have been very pleased with the quality, so I decided to order from them again. They have a handy photoshop template that you can download to help with the process of designing your own business cards. They also have lots of pre-designed templates to choose from.
Here is the result of my efforts:
The colorful design is to give out as an accompanist or when attending conferences with other teachers. The second design is for my piano studio, to give to students/parents.
The QR codes on the back of the cards lead to my websites. I generated them for free via this website.
If you’d like to order cards from Moo.com, you can use this link which will give me referral credit and give you 10% off your first order. The cards from Moo aren’t cheap, but the quality definitely shows: the paper is nice and thick, and you’ll get two-sided cards. I’m a happy customer! 🙂
I was recently contacted by Carlos Fontiveros, creator of the brand new Moosic Studio app, which is designed to help manage the business side of running a teaching studio. You can best read about it in his own words:
Moosic Studio was created for my wife, Margaret, and her piano & voice studio. I started off creating a solution for her to manage her business using combination of Bento and Excel on her laptop. It worked well and did the job. But she was always switching back & forth between applications entering lesson information while at the same time duplicating her lesson notes in her student’s assignment journals. On top of all this juggling, when she wanted to record audio or video of a student playing, she would have to get her audio recorder or iPhone. Witnessing this chaos for several months, came the idea for Moosic Studio on the iPad.
Carlos kindly sent me a promo code so that I could review the app. (As always, I was not obligated to write a positive review. This review contains only my honest opinions!) I don’t have my own iPad yet, but I was able to test it out on my husband’s iPad. (Eventually, the app will work on the iPhone, too.) The Moosic Studio app truly looks like a handy solution for the independent music teacher. Let me tell you about it! Continue reading “App Review: Moosic Studio”
This year for Halloween, I plan to pass out candy with my studio name on it again and wear my piano costume dress again. I was thinking about having some scary classical music playing on my porch too, so I compiled a list of music! Let me know if you have any suggestions to add to the list. 🙂
Alkan – Prelude Op. 31 No. 8 (a madwoman at the seashore)
I’ve created a new flyer template for advertising piano lessons, and have just added it to the Printables > Studio Business page! (Scroll down to the P’s for “Piano Lessons Flyer Template #2.)
This flyer template has the rip-off tabs just like the previous one, but this one is in color and includes a picture of the piano keys. You can view the previous template here.
I hope you can make use of this flyer template!
Piano Lessons Flyer Template #2 (714.0 KiB, 21,439 hits)
On Friday, I gave a presentation for the local MTNA chapter back in my hometown, the Piano Teachers’ Forum of Grand Rapids. This association was the first one I joined as an undergraduate music major and piano teacher. I learned so much from the presentations I attended during those years! It was so fun to go back this weekend and see some of my colleagues.
The name of my presentation was “Business Sense for the Piano Teacher of the 21st Century.” Many of the topics I talked about are topics I’ve blogged about too. Here are a few related blog posts for your enjoyment:
It has been a little over a year since my husband and I moved to Ohio from Michigan. I have been thinking a lot lately about what it was like to relocate and start a studio from scratch in an unfamiliar area. I’m sure some of you have been through this too, or will be going through it soon — perhaps my reflections can be of encouragement to some of you! Here is what I learned from the experience:
A couple of weeks ago when the small bookcase next to the piano in my studio starting leaning rather precariously, I knew it was time to find a new one! Finding a bookcase that has shelves that are tall enough to hold music books is a challenge, however. The other challenge is finding something sturdy enough to support the weight of all those music books!
But I think I found the perfect solution. 🙂
My sister and brother-in-law along with my two nephews have been visiting for the last week (hence the lack of blog posts lately — sorry!). We made a trip out to IKEA yesterday, and I bought this BESTÅ shelf unit for $130:
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