Hello everyone! I have been struggling with scheduling lessons for the upcoming year. To give you some background on my situation: I am a full-time mama, wife and homemaker and I love teaching piano lessons. I teach only in the after-school hours on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 3:30 - 6 to be exact. I can't teach much later since my preschooler and toddler start to get ready for bed around 7. The latest I could teach is 6:30.

In the spring I am also the music director/assistant director for a local high school's spring musical. I love theatre as much as I love teaching piano. Rehearsals are typically from 3:30 - 5:30 Monday through Friday. They begin the final week of February and rehearse the months of March and April with the performances occurring at the end of April.

Since it's impossible to be in two places at once, I have been trying to figure out the best way to continue both teaching and directing. Last year I didn't have many students as I just started teaching again (I took a break to have some babies. ) so I arranged with the high school that I could not be at Wednesday lessons and taught Wednesdays and Saturday mornings. This worked fine - I don't think it was ideal. Occasionally we had Saturday rehearsals for the show so then I needed to reschedule lessons.

Ideally, I would love to do something different but just as beneficial for the students during musical time but not teach regular lessons during those two months. Some options I've been considering are:

-group lessons

-piano camps

-doing one longer lesson at the beginning of both months and a mini-recital type event at the end of the month to give them an opportunity to work on a piece by themselves - learning and perfecting

-something as simple as lessons every other week

Just wondering if anyone else needs to balance lessons with something else and how you do it. If you don't have to, do you have any suggestions to share?

Thanks!

Hmmmm....I am not sure....

Initial thoughts:

Your families would need to know this from the very start, and know that you are taking a break during this time. I do like the idea of doing some group lessons things during this time, like every other Saturday. I would think you'd need to extend your teaching year to include the summer to make this work for your students.

If teaching on Saturdays is OK with you, you might want to look into teaching adults, who may want to be in small groups for recreational playing.

As the Asst director & music director, could you ask the Director to let you specifically rehearse music on the M & F rehearsals so you can keep your piano students on T,W,TH? Maybe cancel one week of lessons for more theater rehearsals in March or during dress rehearsals. I mean, once the performers GET the songs, you shouldn't have to be there all the time, right?

Personally, I think beginning pianists have a very hard time learning by themselves; they need lots of guidance & feedback, so unless your students are late-elementary to early-advanced, teaching one long lesson at the beginning of the month would not be productive for the students. Lessons every other week MIGHT be workable, but your students' progress will be adversely affected. Group lessons in between the bi-weekly lessons might help, but it's not the same as having the students every week.

I agree with musicat that your students' families should know about your commitment to the theater production in advance so they can plan for the schedule adjustments appropriately. Saturday mornings might be tough if any of your piano students play spring sports, but then again, it's probably still pretty snowy in Minnesota in Feb.

Not to sound like a money-grubber, but is the theater thing a paying job for you? I like doing things for my local theater, but it doesn't pay much at all. If I have to choose between my studio & theater, I usually prioritize the studio; it's my "meat & potatoes" while the theater is "gravy".

Hope this helps,
Amanda

Thank you both for your reply. Yes, the theatre gig is a paying one - not much but it's something I really enjoy. My piano families are aware that I am involved in the musical and that I am still trying to figure out what to do during that time. I have asked for their feedback and they are all completely supportive of my decision to continue working on the show which is AWESOME! One family mentioned that two months off from lessons seemed like a lot (but then they opted to take the entire summer off from lessons). Piano is a first priority for me and if I have to quit the show then that's what I will do. I'm just really trying to make it work because I love them both! Thank you again for your replies! I appreciate them!

How many students do you currently have? If you get one day a week off from working on the musical how many of those students could fit in that day? Would you have enough time on the weekends to teach the remaining students?

I know weekend time is precious (especially when you have little kids... I have 2 myself), but you might need to sacrifice some of it in order to do the musical and continue teaching.

If you have enough students who are close enough in levels you could consider alternating private lessons one week with group lessons the next week. For example, you could split your one weekday teaching afternoon to do several half-hour private lessons and one hour-long group lesson, then the next week the kids who had private lessons would have their group lesson and the rest would have private lessons. That way you could fit more students in a day, but no one would go 2+ months without the benefit of private lessons.

I'm curious how many students you have and what levels they are at... it would help to know this to figure out the best course of action.

Good luck!