A viable career. (Independent Music Teachers Forum).(Brief Article)

I feel a bit like those wonderfully patient radio astronomers who have continued to send their beam out into space and continue to await a reply. By the time you read this, all who have read the October/ November 2001 column will have flooded my e-mail address with their most searing questions as independent music teachers (IMTs), and I will have expeditiously bounced them off our erstwhile Advisory Committee for their thought-provoking answers. But, since the column soliciting your questions hasn't reached you yet at this deadline, I must rely on a question I recently received from a former student.

Kristen, who earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Michigan and a Master's from Manhattan, seeks to establish an independent clarinet studio back in our hometown of Vienna, Virginia.

She asks, "What should I charge?"

Dear Kristen

First, how wonderful it is that you have chosen this career. If you teach well and you can inspire, motivate or cajole meaningful practice from your students, I am certain you will find it both musically and materially gratifying. If your experience is like that of most of the IMTs I know, you will have to develop your studio over a period of years before you will be able to charge what you are probably worth. As a relatively new teacher, you'll have to be careful not to charge so much that prospective students will seek instruction elsewhere. Yet, you'll also have to establish the fact that your credentials entitle you to a professional hourly rate. Do you know what IMTs in the Vienna area are charging? Do you have a feeling for supply and demand in the local area?

Talking about supply and demand, how many of us evaluate the tuition we charge with a little bit of Economics 101? You know that in our economic system, the value of a service is supposed to be determined by consumers bidding for the time of the provider. For many years, many IMTs have artificially depressed their own income by charging not "what the market would bear," but, rather, as little as possible given their economic condition. Many had spouses with "real jobs" to provide a livable income.

Many felt guilty about charging more than they had paid for their own music instruction two, three or even four decades before. Some loved sharing music with others so much that they had trouble charging more than "pin money" rates. Great surgeons, by the way, love their work and seem to have little difficulty charging for it.