Being A Private Music Teacher

The upside of being a private music teacher is that it’s an incredible, rewarding, endeavor. The downside? It can also be frustrating, infuriating, aggravating and yes, even boring. Hey, I’m just being honest. But the rewarding part of the equation always, always, always, trumps the downside.

When you have the opportunity to change people’s lives—young and old alike—by opening up their world to something as amazing as music, well, there’s no greater reward. Music to me is lifeblood. I cannot imagine my world without it. And when I see the “Aha!” look on a student’s face when they finally get “it,” it’s almost better than anything. When I sit and listen to a student who came to me not even knowing a thing about music, beautifully play a classical piece on the piano; or listen to a student play and sing a song they wrote on the guitar; or hear a student sing a note they never thought possible, I know I have the best “job” on the planet.

The Downside

So what about being a private music teacher is frustrating? Oh, there’s a lot, but for example, when I take on a new student, I try my best to temper their expectations in order to keep them from quitting from frustration after two, three, or four lessons. I also emphasize the importance of daily practice that will aid greatly in their progress. Learning to play music, to become a musician is not an immediate gratification activity. Even though I try to drill into their heads it will take practice and time, some students just won’t practice, or they “practice” but not enough or not properly, and end up quitting after a few lessons.

What’s infuriating? That’s an easy one. When students quit right before it’s time to pay for the next month of lessons—with no notice. I ask that they give me a month’s notice, at the very least, two weeks out of courtesy. It’s an agreement when we start lessons together; yet, inevitably, I’ll have a student quit with no notice. When students do that, it is infuriating. Perhaps they didn’t want to tell me ahead of time thinking they wouldn’t get my full attention, which couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, when I’m given a full month’s notice, I tend to focus my attention on them even more. Why? Because, 1) I want to make sure they leave me on a positive note; and 2) it gives me a month of lessons to see if I can address why they’re leaving. So yeah, it infuriates me because it’s so frustrating.
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Being a private music teacher can also be aggravating. Here’s an excellent example of aggravation: I have had students who are given assignments by me, the professional who they’re paying to teach them, and they’ll come to their lesson having not practiced their assignment, and will instead challenge me on something they found on YouTube. Really? Usually, what they’ve found is far outside the scope of what I’m teaching at the moment.

I know, some teachers will say, “You should teach the student what they’re interested in.” That’s fine for some teachers. I don’t teach cafeteria style. Sure, let’s “read” Moby Dick before you’ve learned the alphabet. My students don’t get to pick and choose what they learn. If that’s what they want, I am not the right teacher for them, which shouldn’t be a surprise because I tell them right up front how I teach.

Now, I mentioned that being a private music teacher can be boring. It can. From time to time, I’ll have a student who doesn’t practice, doesn’t really want to be there, but their parents insist. I’ll put up with it for a little while, to give the student a chance to discover the love of music and/or their instrument. At a certain point, I’ll sever the relationship. If it’s boring for me, it’s got to be horrible for the student, and that’s not why I teach. My job is not to make students hate music and scar their psyches for life. I want to inspire my students and give them a gift that they’ll carry to the end of their days, not bore them to death.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line for me is, you could triple the downside of being a private music teacher, and I’d still choose it as my primary vocation every time. The reward of teaching music transcends all of the negatives combined. When I help create a musician, I improve the world just a little bit. Now, tell me, what can be better than that?