The high cost of music

Recently, a fellow violin teacher posted to her facebook page a mother's blog rant called "The high cost of music".  I believe the blog post has since been taken down, so I will not even try to link to it.  I have no wish to denigrate the mother who wrote it; I'm sure she is frustrated that music lessons are more expensive than she had expected.

However, I do want to toss a little bit of information out there for other parents so that they might have an idea why lessons cost as much as they do.  I know there is often genuine surprise and confusion about this.

I can only speak for myself, although my experience is not enormously different than that of many other private music teachers.  I am not trying to attract any sympathy.  I chose this profession, and I love it.

Just so we're starting on the same page, here are a few paraphrases from the rant:

• Lessons are $60 an hour!?!
• $60 an hour at forty hours a week with a couple weeks off for good behavior is a take-home pay of $120,000 a year for a music teacher.
• Starving artist image blown!!!

Here are some economics to consider in return:

Lessons carry a variety of costs in different places in the country due to many factors, including the cost of living.  In the north end of our metro area, lessons are on average about $70/hour.  In the south end of our metro area (where I live) lessons are on average about $54/hour.  

I realize not everyone can afford this, and I am sad about that.  I love what I do, I love the students, and I wish I didn't have to charge at all.  I also wish I didn't have have any business expenses, self-employment taxes (which runs well upward of 30%), or have to pay for my family's health insurance in full (things I would not have to consider if I were working for a regular company).  The $60/hour runs down to a post-tax take-home of $30/hour.  Those are just the reality of being self-employed, and often people who work "regular" jobs haven't had a chance to consider that.

...However, this is not the end of the $30/hour.  Music teachers often spend time working for the student outside of lesson time.  Efforts include sending emails to the parent about scheduling issues or problems they're experiencing in their home practice routines, researching new repertoire for the student to learn, creating practice charts for the student, and contacting institutions to locate and schedule performance opportunities for the student.  

Then there are those performance opportunities.  This year, for example, my colleagues and I are having three Sundays of recitals for our students - one in November, one in March, and one in May.  On each of these dates we are having two recitals to accommodate all of our performers.  The teachers arrive an hour early to set up the recital room and to set up the reception room.  Then the students arrive and we help them tune their instruments and talk them through whatever issues they might have in the moment (and there seem to be plenty on recital day!)  I also accompany a large percentage of the students on the piano, which means I've spent time at home practicing their parts.  We help manage the two receptions, and at the end of the day we don't leave until everything is cleaned up and put away.  This is all volunteer time - none of us are getting paid a dime for it.  But we do it because it's good for the students, and it's expected.

There's also a lot of time spent outside of lesson time trying to recruit students.  Unless one has become very in-demand with a waiting list, this is part of the package.  This week, for example, I have spent several hours on the following recruiting activities: answering inquiry emails, cold-calling orchestra directors in the area, and rehearsing a program to take into the schools.  I'm not getting paid for any of that work time.  Even if one has a "full studio," recruiting rarely ends, because students graduate from high school, move away, or quit taking lessons for a variety of reasons.

Also, I spend time every day practicing to maintain my own skills and to remind me what I'm asking my students to do (practice daily!)  and to help me be a better teacher.  I read books and articles about teaching and about parenting and about education to help me work better with my students and their parents.  I also take advantage of other educational opportunities for myself along those lines - for example spending a week observing other teachers in the summer to see how they do things.  Again, these are all hours in which I am working to directly benefit my students but that I am not paid for.

The summary of those last four paragraphs is that students are not just paying for their lesson slot each week, but for a lot of other work the teacher is doing during so-called "free time."

One other item which needs to be examined is the "working 40 hours a week 50 weeks a year" assertion.  I do not personally know any music teachers who have been able to recruit forty hours of students.  If you're looking at beginners, that is a teaching load of 80 kids taking half-hour lessons.  In the year-and-a-half of recruiting I've had in my present location, I've been in one-on-one contact with probably forty potential students who were interested enough in my recruiting efforts to contact me about starting lessons.   Eighteen students have actually signed up and paid for one or more lessons.  I'm currently working with ten or eleven students, because some of those eighteen have quit or moved away.  Unless one is teaching mostly adults, preschoolers, or homeschool students, most people want lessons between about 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm, which means if you're working Monday thorough Friday and are lucky enough to fill all of those time slots, you're able to teach twenty hours a week.  (Let's not discuss the challenge of filling those time slots when every family has their own mosaic schedule including swim practice, soccer, church youth group, math team, fencing, ballet, school orchestra, school plays, etc.)  Most music teachers in my situation are delighted if they are able to work twenty hours a week.  But it is not a 50-week year.  You're looking at a regular school year with holidays and breaks in it, so you probably have a regular teaching year of about 36 weeks.  Many students take the summer off or take just a few lessons here and there, so you have to plan for reduced income in the summer, unless you can get yourself hired at these various festivals around.

Anyway, there are no complaints on my end.  Some benefits of the job are that I do get lots of vacations and lots of flexibility with my time.  I get to work with students who love music.  I get to help people open their eyes and ears to new experiences.  But if you go back and do the math, you will see I am not making anywhere near $120,000, and this is not for lack of effort.

Let's just think for a moment: what does the student get for $60/hour?  Well, they get another adult in their lives on a regular basis who cares about them and believes in them and who is opening their minds to new things and giving them the tools to enjoy music and music-making for a life time.  They are being given the opportunity to learn critical thinking, discipline, creativity, and a whole host of technical and musical skills.  They are studying works written by some of the great minds of the Western tradition.  They are getting structure and love.  Most music teachers also have quite a bit of education and experience under their belts.  For those students who choose to study with me, that means they are getting the fruits of ten years of piano lessons and ten years of violin lessons prior to college, the efforts of earning every bit of two degrees from a major music conservatory, the intensive study of music at summer programs ranging in length from one to nine weeks over the course of nearly two decades, the study of all ten Suzuki violin teacher training core courses plus several others, experience performing publicly and professionally at all kinds of levels throughout the years (church music, chamber concerts, prison performances, professional orchestral concerts, wedding gigs, solo recitals, concertos), and a teacher who has been teaching violin and viola students since 1997.  I don't say any of that to brag, but merely to point out that there is a large body of experience which is backing up that hypothetical $60/hour.

And what about those students who can't pay?  I know times are tough, and if there is a student who is very interested in study but doesn't have the cash flow, I am always happy to discuss barter or work-study with the family.

So there you have it.  The high cost of music.  It is expensive.  And although I wish it weren't so, it is expensive for a reason. Please feel free to pass this along to someone who is disappointed to learn how expensive music lessons are, so they can at least have the opportunity to understand why the teacher is charging what they charge.