Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Do you keep a stock of music books?

I searched "materials" and "resale", but this topic didn't come up in the top ten, so hopefully it hasn't already been done to death.

Whether you’re a fan of Bastien, Noona, Alfred’s or whomever, do you assign books and send parents to the store to purchase them? Does that work well for you?

Or…

Do you keep a stock of materials and bill the student? If so, do you buy from a store or a distributor? e.g. Bookmark, etc.. Do you have a resale license, i.e., do you make a profit from the sale of the music? Or do you simply pass the expense along to the student?

If the score is hard to find, easily confused with another book, has to come from another country, or requires any other sort of research, I'll do the legwork and then ask the student/parent to reimburse me. If it's something I can just send them to the music store for, or give them an amazon link, I do that instead.
I think it's good for the students and parents to have some responsibility in making sure they have all the right materials, but I don't expect them to do hours of research to get something. That is what obsessive teachers are for

Our local piano book store went out of business. Now I send parents to buy their own books on the Internet. It's very convenient.

It is a bit of work collecting money from the student for books I've purchased for them. However, then I have the book right away and there's no three week delay as they finally get to the store.

The advantage of having the student go to the store is they get used to being there, and it becomes part of the culture of being a piano student. It might be an idea at the higher levels to have the student buy their own books.

I either have the students buy them, but sometimes they forget to it takes a while. Otherwise, I buy them as needed and let them know what the cost will be and to bring the money at the next lesson. It's not really been an issue, especially if I put it on their invoice for lessons.

I rarely keep stock, however. I only keep a copy for myself.

My kid's piano school keeps stock of beginner books and adds them to the bill. But once you are about level 4 they don't carry them. I think it is because they get a lot of beginner players but don't retain many. They will order materials if I ask, but the internet makes it just as easy for me to get materials and we also really like our local music stores (but they don't carry/order ABRSM stuff).

I keep a stock of most everything I would assign at the beginner or intermediate levels. It's much easier this way than sending students online or to a music store. I just add the price to the tuition bill when I give something out to a student.

I charge what I paid, or less, so as not to run afoul of any tax issues. And to skip bookkeeping altogether. IOW, I don't declare either the purchases or the sales. Maybe I lose a few dollars overall, but to me it's a nice service to offer my students.

I suppose at any given time I have at least a couple hundred items for sale in my teaching library. If you're a beginning teacher, you might not do this, as it's too costly. But over time as a studio teacher you just keep buying stuff, figuring sooner or later some piano book will be right for some student. And of course publishers give you freebies now and again.

I don't keep inventory.

Sometimes I'll put the book on reserve for student at the music store, and this insures they get the correct book.

Sometimes I have the student order the book themselves. This can be problematic, however. Recently I had a student order a theory text. Some online store shipped him a ten year old book. We couldn't use it as it wasn't current with the exams the student was studying for.

Sometimes I will pick up the book at the store for the student, and hand them the receipt and the book. They reimburse the expense.

Haahaha! Yes! I think Mr. Becker falls well into the category of obsessive teacher. And impatient, in a way. I think that’s what has led him to keep an inventory of books and individual pieces. In the early years, well before the internet, sending a student/parent to the music store wasted SO much time. Weeks might go by before the needed material made it to the lesson. Stockpiling lesson books and, later, individual books and pieces, really made a difference for him.


Exactly!

I like that idea!


See, I think Mr. B’s issue is he rarely thinks ahead to what the student is going to need. That’s just a very difficult thing for him to do (thinking ahead). It’s been the bane of our married life. Keeping an inventory has been the answer at the studio.


Mmm…maybe. It may be that Level 4 students leave the school setting for a private one. It may also be that once a student reaches Level 4 the repertoire and available materials become considerably diverse. It’s about this level, I think, that many teacher’s will jump from one set of books to another, e.g., maybe begin with Bastien or Alfred’s then switch to ?? ← That’s a guess on my part.


Yes, it is all about convenience, for both the teacher and parent, I think. Bill has amassed quite a few of these freebies, many of which, sad to say, are not useful to him. Every couple of years he’ll go through the drawers and weed out what’s not being used. This is not to say he won’t keep a piece just because it’s not been used in a couple of years. Oh the TRIUMPH when he pulls out something that hasn’t seen the light of day in a decade and it turns out to be a student saver! The key is his brain, he actually remembers that obscure little piece. (Though I suppose I do the same with recipes. I don’t memorize the recipe, but I know exactly where to find it.)


How frustrating for both you and the student.

Thank you everyone for your input. No resale licenses though? I know resale is not a huge money-maker for us, but it’s not negligible either.

I use my own method Paloma Piano LLC, it's all online and printable. If anyone is interested check it out. There is a lot of free music on the site. If you need something right away for a new student you can download and print the first few lessons free plus there are a lot of other resources for teachers.

Doreen Hall

www.palomapiano.com

I usually keep lesson books on hand for my students. The nearest music store that carries most of the materials that I use (if I'm lucky!) is an hour away. Every few months I take inventory of where my students are at and try to anticipate who will need what in the next month or two and order everything in one big order. I usually round up to the nearest dollar, figuring the change takes care of the shipping. Now and then if I earn rewards for buying so much or find a great coupon code, I use the savings to purchase something for the studio, usually something fun to loan out to students. In the summer I keep a box of "borrow books", which each student is allowed to choose something from every week.