Business Update

Before I get started, I’d like to say that I’m not complaining here.  It might, however, sound like whining.  And maybe I am. But a year or two from now when I go back and read this post, it will give me a lot of encouragement and hope, because I will be able to see that things got better and I became a better person because of it. The facts, however,  speak for themselves.

2009 was a strange year. It started off very promising and quickly headed in a southerly direction. My husband lost his job two weeks into the year, which I discussed at length in the last post. This set off yet another major shift in my rather careful and conservative business plan.

At the start of the year, I had five local students and several webcammers. I was happily playing in a professional orchestra, picking up smaller gigs and thinking about the next school year. At the end of May, I sadly and resignedly turned my incredible locals over to another teacher and moved back to Iowa. I miss Kansas a lot — it felt like I was starting to make some musical and personal progress and the studio was growing. Since then, I have played one gig — a wedding — and I did that as a gift. Other than that, there has been nothing.

In 2008 I moved my website to a new host. In 2009 the traffic picked up considerably, but so did the number of spammers.  Other than that, it has been pretty dead online as well.

So, as I think about 2010 — what I want, what I need, how I envision the future of my studio — I know that a) the economy will eventually improve; b) the economy will eventually improve; and c) the economy will eventually improve.  That is perhaps the one thing that keeps my discouragement in check. Yes, I’m discouraged. I said it, in black and white. I’ve never heard a teacher admit discouragement (gasp! in public!) before. But let me ask you: wouldn’t you be if you worked, networked and hatched various plots of musical domination and nothing you did produced results?

I’m very tempted, more often than I’d like to admit, to throw in the towel and get a real job. I sit here and look at the library I’ve collected over the years, at my carefully organized mess of an office space, the money I’ve spent upgrading my technology so that I could offer my love of violin and what knowlege I’ve acquired to people who couldn’t learn about it except for the wonderful world wide web. I think about the progress I’ve made, which is, by my standards, very small. After 3-1/2 years doing webcam lessons, I have eight regular students, all of whom started as beginners. One is an adult. The others are children. My studio got mentioned in a recently published book, but it wasn’t because I’m a fabulous, sought-after teacher. I was mentioned because my website has a catchy tag line. Some days, I just want to give up. It’s not worth it. I’m not doing what I love to do, which is teach. I’m sitting here, writing, thinking, pining. Not teaching.

Luckily, my husband is an optimist. We complement each other that way. He is the one who says, “Give it some more time” every time I talk about reassessing and setting a time limit to stop the madness. He is the one talking about buying a piano. He’s the one who buys me sheet music so I can learn new things, branch out into other areas of music. He’s the one who talks about being my manager and booking my gigs as a rock/blues violinist. He’s my most passionate promoter. I am my most passionate critic.

So, I have a feeling that this year will once again be devoted to reestablishing myself, reintroducing myself, reinventing myself. My immediate plans include making several series of videos on general violin topics, being a little more aggressive and targeted about my advertising, and putting out more business cards, with the hope and intention that 2010 will be a better, more stable, more fulfilling year. A year with lots of music! Which I promise to talk about from here forward.

Practical Practice Tips: Make it fun

One of the biggest reasons students don’t (or won’t) practice is because it’s not fun. When we’re dealing with pre-schoolers and grade-schoolers (maybe even middle-schoolers to some extent), the primary reason it’s not fun is because it takes time away from something that is fun, like playing computer games, sports or other extracurricular activities. Part of the teacher’s job is to teach the parent how to keep it fun between lessons so the student will want to practice. At some point, either the student will take over the responsibility of making it fun for themselves, or be motivated by something other than fun, or they’ll move on to other things. There’s no shame in quitting lessons if it causes a student to regress emotionally or psychologically.

For the little ones, a really successful way to make it fun is to turn practice into a game. There are many ways to do this, but some of the best ways challenge the kid to do something that the parent does easily. You could call it the “Contradiction Game” or the “Betcha Can’t Game”. It works really well with my four-year-old son  who, if told he can’t do something because he’s too small or whatever, immediately does it.  “You can’t pick up your toys faster than I can!” is much more successful for us than “Pick up your toys. Now. Please.”

Contests also work well, especially for grade-schoolers. When my studio was involved in a 100-day practice challenge in the spring of 2008, my student Cameron asked me two questions every single lesson: what day it was on the practice challenge, and if the other students were still in the running for the grand prize. It provided a fun motivator for him to practice, and he ended up winning the grand prize. Unfortunately, I discovered after the challenge was completed that the motivation sometimes disappears. Contests can be rigged up for whatever goal you’re trying to accomplish. Some of the ones I’ve run, as a larger studio thing, have included “100 Days in a Row Practice”, playing a recital piece 100 times before the recital, making a certain number of correct bow holds, and others.

Older students usually have a different definition of fun. I’m not always sure what it is, but thinking back to when I was in high school, the fun came from things like orchestra trips and contests and auditions. As long as there is some kind of motivation or goal that they’re working toward, that is usually enough to give them whatever it is that they’re looking for from music. The best part is that sometimes they’ll even trust you enough to share their motivation with you.

Another reason that fun ceases to exist during practicing is that the practice goal is too large. Until certain playing techniques become automatic, lots of reminders need to be offered: check your bow thumb, check your feet, is your tickle spot open?, and so on. The tendency for a lot of students is to start playing through the entire piece, even if (and, for some reason, especially when) the teacher says “Wait! Only practice the hard spots this week!” I often ask my students, “How did practice go this week?” The usual responses are “Fine” or “OK”.  Sometimes, I’ll call their bluff and tell them to just practice for ten minutes or so during the lesson, exactly like they would at home. It’s often eye-opening, but usually confirms my suspicions about what’s really happening, which is usually not OK or not fine. I’m amazed, even after teaching for fifteen-plus years, at how often my instructions and practice tips are ignored, even after spending a whole lesson working on them.

Personally, I think practice is much more fun when I can actually hear my progress, when pieces start to become easy. Easy equals fun. Conversely, fun can create an environment that makes it easy. The balance between easy and fun is something that the student must find, and the teacher is only too happy to help. Just ask!