Tutoring Music – Could You Do It?

Teaching music isn’t just an extra revenue stream for gigging musicians to see them through off-peak season. If you can communicate your love of music and help someone else develop their skills, you could really make a difference to people’s lives and further your own passion for the subject.

How you’d know if you have what it takes to be a great teacher?

Although music teachers obviously have to be skilled and competent musicians, the ability to motivate, inspire and encourage is arguably even more important. Performers are used to being centre stage, all eyes on them - but the great teacher puts their pupil in that spot. The successful teacher must be able to park their stage persona and shift their focus to their pupil.

To understand this more clearly, the successful performer needs to have great technical skills, a real talent for, and love of being centre stage and a love of their instrument, whether it’s their voice, drums, violin or piano.

Now consider the key characteristics of a great teacher. They too need great technical skills and love of their instrument, but they also need to appreciate and find joy in their pupils’ achievements. This real and genuine joy in the progress and development of others is what makes ordinary teachers great and keeps pupils loyal to their tutors. Pupils soon realise if their progress is important to their teacher too, and this motivates them to keep going when they hit a difficulty.

So, if you can take genuine pleasure in the progress of someone you have helped, you could be a great person to try music teaching for yourself.

Why would you want to devote your time and energy to teaching others?

Apart from the financial benefits, teaching others can bring you professional development benefits too.

Teachers often say that they learn as much from their students as students learn from them. Students will help keep you on your musical toes. Firstly, they’ll ask questions that you might have to revise or research the answers to.

By finding musical pieces to motivate and stretch them, you’ll keep yourself abreast of current trends and developments too. You’ll be surprised how that will help you in your own professional life. Many teachers say they never actually understood things about their craft deeply until they had to teach someone else to understand that aspect properly.

If you’re not sure how much to charge, check out local teachers’ rates, ask muso friends, and consider your qualifications and experience. Do consider how you will deal with ‘no shows’. Most teachers allow two or three weeks’ holiday a year and state that other missed lessons have to be paid for.

As a performer yourself, you may prefer to offer teaching blocks of six weeks or follow local school half terms to fit in with your gigging schedule. You could offer a 10% discount for students who pay for the block upfront. Whatever you decide, be clear and unapologetic about your policy.

How do you get started?

First off, you need a pupil or two. So how do you advertise that you are offering lessons?

The very best advertisements are satisfied customers. If you have the chance to teach a friend or colleague, or their child, it can be a gentle way to get you started, and they will tell their friends and spread the word. Starting gently will build your confidence too.

Make sure you’re covering all your social media bases and keep them updated. You can set up a website with details of your experience, musical education and rates, or create paid ads. At the very least keep your social profiles updated with clips of you performing and news of latest lessons.

Show your personality and passion for music and teaching to gain the trust of potential pupils. As a gigging musician you probably already have demos and professional recordings of you playing at events. A video of you showing what you’re made of on stage is a great advert in itself.

If you’re after new pupils, why not offer the first lesson for free or at a discount? Record a simple video explaining who you are and what you do and get friends and fellow musicians to share it. Remember to say something inspirational to your potential pupils.

You are highly unlikely to get a prodigy like Mozart or a future Mark Knopfler, but you are very likely to be able to help tens of people enjoy making music. Let your advert encourage them to take those first, slightly intimidating, steps towards fulfilling a lifelong dream of theirs. You’re really never too old!

The first lesson

It’s vital you spend some quality time finding out what your pupils want to achieve through their lessons so you can help them work towards their goals. Sometimes it’s just to have fun, other times they have serious professional ambitions. Here are a few questions you might want to ask them:

1. Why do they want to learn to play?
   
2. Will it be for personal pleasure, to join a local group or do they dream of Wembley?
   
3. Do they want to learn one specific number? (This often happens with mature students and you may need to be diplomatic as well as realistically encouraging!)
   
4. How do they learn best? Will they respond better to a more creative and individually tailored programme or more traditional approaches? This might take you a few lessons to figure out.

Once you start listening to their answers you’ll see how much your own knowledge and experience will stand you in great stead to help them begin their musical journey. Have a variety of exercises and approaches to hand to ascertain their current level, as well as basic beginners book for children, and a different one for adults.

Get into the habit of keeping a daybook, whether traditional or digital. Keep a register, record of monies paid, and a brief note about the lesson area and maybe musical pieces being worked on, as your pupils progress. Each of your pupils should bring a notebook for you to jot down any tasks they need to work on before the next lesson, too.

Other important things to remember

• You will need to get yourself DBS checked (previously known as CRB clearance) so check out the straightforward process here www.gov.uk/overview.
  
• Once you have built up some experience you might find you enjoy teaching so much that you’d like to be a peripatetic instrumental teacher for music departments in state schools. Speak directly to the Heads of Music department and ask them to keep your details on file should any vacancies arise
  
• Needless to say, income from teaching will need to be logged and accounted for with the inland revenue so make sure you keep clear records - just as you do for your gigs.

Finally

If you do decide to add the teaching string to your musical bow, make sure you find your style and build a reputation for yourself that represents who you are. People will book you for gigs not because you get every note right, but because you bring your unique personality to what you do - and teaching is just the same, so make it your own.