Ethical Concerns With Online Music Teacher Conferences

Private music teachers, I’d like to propose a business deal. Here are the terms: You compose a musical work, put together and record a well-researched presentation, write a major article, make a music recording, or some other high-quality creative product. You upload it to my website. You get a one-time […]

Flat Tuition Payments For Private Music Lessons

Years ago, a piano teaching colleague and friend of mine gave up teaching piano and switched careers. I could hardly believe this, because whenever we talked on the phone, he always brought as much excitement, curiosity, and fascination into our conversations about teaching as I did. What could make such an enthusiastic […]

Music Teachers Associations: Stages for Showcasing or Hospitals for Healing?

In 2012, I moved across the country and joined two different music teachers associations. One of these associations held certain education and experience requirements for joining, a foreign concept that disturbed and continues to disturb me. Not that I had any trouble joining – my qualifications are more than solid. And granted, […]

Thinking Twice About Strict Make-Up Lesson Policies

Many private music teachers have harsh make-up lesson policies or policies that deny make-up lessons altogether, and we are told in journal articles, conference sessions, blogs and teacher forums that this practice is a sign of professionalism. This is not true.

How Multilevel Music Stores And “Schools” Hurt Private Music Teachers

“Why be the cow when you can be the farmer?” In my previous article, How Music Teacher Directories Hurt Private Music Teachers, I began with the same quote and compared music teacher directories to farmers using cows for milk (and to the mafia demanding pay for protection against themselves). If those comparisons […]

How Music Teacher Directories Hurt Private Music Teachers

“Why be the cow when you can be the farmer?” I’m not sure where this quote originates, but I heard it in a Leverage episode from season 3 titled, “The Studio Job.”  The context in this case was to ask, “Why write songs yourself when you can steal others’ songs […]