How to Cultivate Your Music Studio 8

When I first began teaching, I had no idea that my piano studio would take on a sort of life of its own. Some students go on to other things in life, some seem to come and go, and a few pursue music as their own life’s work. Your studio becomes an in intricate web of various personalities.

But how do you cultivate the type of studio that you want?

In Music Studio Success, I give a sort of “nuts and bolts” approach to a studio’s life-cycle. In essence:  Understanding and cultivating your studio’s building blocks, advertising and marketing, teaching and learning, and reassessing and growing.

What I really keep coming back to is that initial “building blocks” component. As I describe it:

Building blocks is just the “stuff” of your studio, the things you need to get going. This is everything from pencils and paper and an instrument (if you teach music), to a website, studio policies, etc.

This also includes you – your teaching abilities, your expectations, your mindset. As you grow, your building blocks will include your reputation as a teacher, your involvement in the musical community and so on . . .

Just like a business is an outgrowth of the people behind it, your teaching studio becomes something of its own organism – reflecting your own personality, quirks, strengths and weaknesses.

In the initial stages of building a studio, your tendency is to accept any students you can get – financial necessity wins. As you grow, accumulate savings, and become more visible, you get to have more say in who best fits your studio.

I think you’re doing both you and your students a huge favor in thinking about your criteria. 

Some teachers do will with a certain age group or level of student. But I have found that I do my best with a certain type of student. Here are some questions I ask myself:

• Is there a genuine desire to learn and improve?
• Do I feel energized or drained after a lesson?
• Do I feel like I have a mission with this student?
• Would I teach this student for free?
• Am I having to challenge myself and grow in teaching?

This type of question doesn’t single out a particular level of student, but it does point to the type of students with whom I can have the most mutually beneficial relationships. For instance, these criteria might be met by:

• An adult beginner with a great personality who is eager to learn.
• A bright and talented advanced child.
• A student with a learning disability who works hard and loves music.
• A serious high schooler who will go on in music.

As you can see this is a wide range of people. I will leave examples of the students this would exclude to your imagination!

Do you think of your studio not just as teaching but as your own creation? You might be amazed at what you can build.

Check out Music Studio Success today to learn how you can build your own teaching studio from the ground up!