Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum "Guided Practice" Session Rates, Sibling/Referral Discounts

Hi all,

I'm a beginner piano teacher who graduated with a BA in Music, and I've been teaching at a small private music school for a while now, but have recently decided to start teaching at my home studio.

The parent of my very first private student asked me if I had a rate for "guided practice" sessions. I've never heard of this before, but I'm more than willing to offer it. What do you think I should charge for these practice sessions? I imagine I'd be teaching the 6 year old good practice habits, reviewing material from previous lessons, speeding up music, working on playing the duets from Alfred's Premiere course more comfortably, etc. The main difference between practice sessions and lessons are that I will not introduce new topics in the method books in practice sessions. For comparison, I charge $50/hr for lessons and $40/45 min lesson. Since these practice sessions have a lot of lesson-based material, I'm thinking $25 an hour and $15 for 30 minutes. Too much? Too little? Just right?

Also, I was asked about Sibling discounts. Any ideas that have worked for anybody?

As for Referral discounts, I told the parent that if she refers me another student, the parent who did the referral would get a discount on their next set of books, and the new student would get a free lesson. Sounds good?

Again, I'm a beginner teacher, so any honest advice helps!

If you are devoting all your attention to the student, charge the same fee.
If you can do other tasks concurrently, you might consider charging less, but still, they are buying your time. Private schools charge a a lower rate for "after school care" than they charge for "school, but the staff of school is more highly trained and compensated than the after school staff.

Here is my take on fees: time is time and your expertise is your expertise. The things you listed - teaching practice habits, reviewing material, working on faster tempos, playing duets - are completely valid as lesson activities; lessons do not always have to be about new topics, especially if the next topic requires mastery of a previous topic. A cynical person might think the parent is trying to take advantage by getting you to accept less pay for the same (similar, appropriate) type of work. So no, don't charge less for "guided practice" on the incorrect premise that it's not as valuable as a lesson.

My actual response to a parent would be something like: "Well, we can certainly work on practice techniques, you can show me how you're practicing, and I can give you feedback. If you don't know what to practice, let's make sure to go over how to fill in the weekly assignment chart. But to meet separately for practice, I would have to schedule you as if for a second lesson. Part of my job is to teach you how to learn, so it's good for you to try this out on your own in between lessons."

(By the way, I have heard of teenage students being "practice helpers" for younger children so it's like babysitting but with practicing. You're not a practice helper; don't charge like one. Now if you set up a child care arrangement or something and happen to do some practicing, that's different - which I actually did for one week in the summer for a few kids. Fair market value of child care trumps "time is time" in that case.)

I'm of two minds about sibling discounts. On one hand, time is time, see above. On the other hand, two students in the same family means you didn't have to go looking for a second student to fill the spot, and that is worth something (which some teachers give back in the form of the discount). On the other other hand, two siblings have to be scheduled consecutively, which places limitations on scheduling, and if/when they leave, it's a longer block of time to fill than if one student left.

I never gave referral incentives either. I did thank students/families who referred their friends and even though I worked hard as a teacher to show my appreciation, I would work hard as a teacher even for students who don't refer others. In general, I just don't view lessons merely as a transactions of money for a product (in this case, time) and my operating procedures reflect that. (Related topic - do you charge a prospective student for an interview/trial? If not, what's the difference between getting a "free meeting" because that's the way you do things vs. because of being an existing student's friend?)

I have heard of "guided practice" and I don't think it's what you wrote that you imagine it to be.

As I understood it, it means literally what the words say: the student is practising, and somebody is supervising and guiding that practice. If you are playing duets, speeding up music etc., that is not guided practice. That is more teaching. Imagine "unguided practice". A student sits at the piano with his assigned music and gets at it somehow. If he is at the piano for 30 minutes, what exactly is he doing during those 30 minutes? What would he be doing from moment to moment if this were guided? (I imagine that you are already tell students how to practise at home, and probably expect parents of someone as young as 6 to be involved in that).

What I've seen in guided practice, often a senior student got paired up with the student, or maybe a senior student who is interested in learning how to teach, as a first step.

re: "guided practice session". It does sound like the parent is asking you for a second weekly lesson. As the other replies have suggested, a practice helper or guide would be someone with lesser expertise than the teacher, someone who is just there to ensure the student is completing the assignment correctly. A young beginner would actually benefit from a second lesson during the week, so it's completely reasonable for you to offer that to the parent at your regular rate.

I would suggest against offering a sibling discount. Even though you gain another student without having to recruit, you still have to do the same amount of prep. each week for each student. Also, I do think that paying full price for a service shows that what you offer is valuable and should be taken seriously. There are parents would have a sibling take lessons just because it's convenient to stay another 30 mins. after their other child and "get a deal" on the lesson rate. If it happens that the sibling does not actually like piano, you end up teaching a difficult student for less pay.

Same with referral discounts. If you do a good job with the student, the parent will recommend you.

Your studio will grow if you do good work!

"Guided Practice" exists. I've been asked to do this several times.

Do not charge anything lower than your regular rate.

This "Guided Practice" job is typically reserved for college undergrads or grad students, but some rich parents didn't get the memo.

Two (very different) scenarios come to mind with the term 'guided practice': (1) a teacher supervising practice every day, which would be the equivalent of a super-intensive course of instruction, or (2) the guided practice might just be the only practice each week.

If the parent is asking for guided practice one day per week, this isn't practice--it's another lesson and you should charge accordingly.

I have a young student who is an only child with older parents who dote on her.

The child has asked/demanded that she not be picked up from after school care until the doors close at 6pm- she does not want to miss out on play time with friends. But she also wants dance, and swim, and piano, and church activities. So, the parents rush around and take her to all those classes after 6pm. After they have both worked full time in demanding fields.

Then they have dinner and homework and bed.

The parents have asked for an advanced student of mine to "babysit" 2-3 practice sessions on Saturdays, basically, cramming in three practice times into one day, with a few breaks in-between.

My ideas-
I do not want to "torture" my advanced student. The personalities do not mesh.
Why are the parents not working with their own child? If they cannot spend time on a Saturday with their girl, and I know they have no time M-F, then why spend so much money on enriching a child they never see?
The mom asked me last week, "Why is she not learning the 'black keys' yet?" Well, she is still primer level, and without practice, she has trouble remembering steps and skips, which will then turn into whole and half steps and thus incorporate the black keys that you asked about. Oh. Ok!


The parents do not want to learn how to GUIDE PRACTICE themselves, they want a music babysitter to do it for them, and know that it would be cheaper to have a pre-teen do it. They think the older child will be an inspiration and cheerleader for their daughter.

Be careful of the difference.

Good luck!