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People of different professions seem to get touchy about certain issues that aren’t a problem in others.
Some martial arts instructors think they’re being disrespected or devalued if not addressed by the title ‘Master’ or ‘Grandmaster’. But I don’t think any music teacher feels upset at not being referred to as ‘master’ or ‘grandmaster’ by their student, even if they’re very skilled at their job.
Having to experience inconvenience before having the price revealed reminds me of large gym franchises where you have to do a tour of the whole gym before they’ll answer the simple question “how much will it cost?â€
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Some martial arts instructors think they’re being disrespected or devalued if not addressed by the title ‘Master’ or ‘Grandmaster’. But I don’t think any music teacher feels upset at not being referred to as ‘master’ or ‘grandmaster’ by their student, even if they’re very skilled at their job.
Just out of curiosity: are both genders addressed by the same title (master/grandmaster)? Or is it reserved for men? I'm afraid if someone demanded from me to call them grandmaster I'd slip up and call them grandfather I'm currently looking for a piano teacher and the institute I found online states only very rough, minimal, monthly price on their website. It isn't too high, but it makes me wonder; how long lessons would those be? Does the price scale with the level of the student (I heard that little kids have shorter lessons, because maybe of the attention span)? Anyway, they have this free consultation before I commit to anything, so I can ask those questions. A free consultation actually makes sense, because if the price depends on several factors, they wouldn't be able to tell me over the phone/email, a serious, face-to-face, talk is needed.
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I'm currently looking for a piano teacher and the institute I found online states only very rough, minimal, monthly price on their website. It isn't too high, but it makes me wonder; how long lessons would those be? Does the price scale with the level of the student (I heard that little kids have shorter lessons, because maybe of the attention span)? Lesson length is most common. Personally, I still start adult beginners at half hour - not because of attention span but because of initial learning curve and practice habit/expectation. We can add more time as the amount and quality of your practice increases and you are able to do the level of work that needs longer than a half hour lesson to follow up on and add to. I've seen music schools where "master" faculty are priced higher than - well, they certainly don't call them non-masters! The lower priced teachers probably have fewer degrees, less experience, not known for producing pre-professional players, or something. How does one transition from apprentice-teacher to master-teacher in this sort of institution? How can it be objectively judged that a master-teacher's teaching is (for example) 20% more valuable or that an apprentice-teacher's teaching is 17% less valuable? What if the same teacher can command double the price as a private/independent teacher? It seems like it's all in the marketing.
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I'm kind of coming from the opposite perspective: post my rates so that if it's not withing someone's price range, neither of us waste our time. Nothing against them - we all have to work within our means - and I'm certainly not trying to price-gauge, but enticing someone with all the great stuff you can do only to have them find out that they can't afford you can be disrespectful. I teach for a living. People pay me and that's not a secret.
This is it really. I understand that teachers (and people in general) don't want what all they have to offer to be reduced to some simple number on a piece of paper but someone being out of my price range is just one of the deal breakers. Like someone living out of distance I'm willing to travel or someone working out side of time I am available. And not to mention, I personally don't want to be surprised while conversing that I can't afford it - and definitely don't want to have to divulge that information. If I can't afford it, I'd rather know it alone and move along. I'm currently looking for a teacher myself and the only one I have contacted so far has posted her rates. But if you were to think I was a price shopper - well, let's just say she's actually quite more expensive than local market rate and what I was hoping to spend!
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Hmmm...a lot of compelling arguments on both sides. Maybe I should flip a coin. Heads, keep my site as is; tails, put the rates back in. Or go the old "heads, I win; tails, you lose" route. In any case, time to shut my brain down for the night, ha ha.
Last edited by Andamento; 07/01/19 11:29 PM.
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Maybe you could add a link on your website with the line: "Don't click here if you prefer not to know my rates." That might solve the dilemma.
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Maybe you could add a link on your website with the line: "Don't click here if you prefer not to know my rates." That might solve the dilemma. LOL!
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new thought-
what if you charge different prices for same length of lesson?
ex- student A was wonderful from the get go, has been with me for years, family very involved, incorporates music into life. Student accompanies at school. At church. Have never raised monthly tuition because a parent has severe health issues and other has been laid off many many times (tech field)
student B came from a school that charged a high rate for lessons, so I used that same rate, and they did not blink.
student C began after I decided to raise my rates by a small increment based on parent of student B's not blinking.
So, three rates.
Also, My private school charges by the semester, up front, and I get paid as long as I am there as teacher. No make-ups, no hassles. At home, they pay by the month. (5th week "free!") Will do make ups sometimes if they miss, my discretion. Summer is per lesson, sign up via calendar link, and they pay in full up front. So, again, different rates.
it works for me. I keep carbon copy receipts and file taxes. I am happy with my studio and (most) of my students.
Do what works for your area and your experience. We are not the same! And, that's a good thing!
Learning as I teach.
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new thought- what if you charge different prices for same length of lesson? I only did that with one student, but I didn't actually have any other student taking the same length of lesson at the time. I offered the family -- very loyal people -- a discount off my 75-minute lesson rate and said they could stay at that rate, free of tuition raises, up to the time their daughter would go away to college. I think she was a junior in high school at the time. If I'd had other students at 75 minutes at that time (or thought another student would request a 75-minute slot -- pretty unlikely), I would not have felt comfortable giving a special rate to just them, and not the other(s). Unless there are extreme financial circumstances with a particular family's situation (large medical bills, funeral expenses for the death of a family member, things like that), having different rates for the same lesson length is something I personally don't care to do.
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My opinion as a student: As a matter of principle I would never consider contacting a teacher who does not state clearly the pricing of their courses. I do not care too much about the price itself (I understand it should be a well-paid service); it is just a matter of openness. People who require you to contact them before disclosing this essential information seem suspicious to me.
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My opinion as a student: As a matter of principle I would never consider contacting a teacher who does not state clearly the pricing of their courses. I do not care too much about the price itself (I understand it should be a well-paid service); it is just a matter of openness. People who require you to contact them before disclosing this essential information seem suspicious to me. I have the same thoughts.
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My opinion as a student: As a matter of principle I would never consider contacting a teacher who does not state clearly the pricing of their courses. I do not care too much about the price itself (I understand it should be a well-paid service); it is just a matter of openness. People who require you to contact them before disclosing this essential information seem suspicious to me. I guess I am a suspicious person I'm not sure why it's so hard for people to contact professionals to ask for more information? I do this routinely for other services, especially if it's something I don't know a lot about. I'm also happy to talk to prospective students even if they don't end up taking lessons with me--- it's educational.
Private piano teacher B. Mus., M.Mus. (piano performance & pedagogy).
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My opinion as a student: As a matter of principle I would never consider contacting a teacher who does not state clearly the pricing of their courses. I do not care too much about the price itself (I understand it should be a well-paid service); it is just a matter of openness. People who require you to contact them before disclosing this essential information seem suspicious to me. I guess I am a suspicious person I'm not sure why it's so hard for people to contact professionals to ask for more information? I do this routinely for other services, especially if it's something I don't know a lot about. I'm also happy to talk to prospective students even if they don't end up taking lessons with me--- it's educational. I had no idea what my current teacher charged when I made the contact and I had no problem with asking. Most professionals and semi-professionals do not list their prices on their websites. Need an electrician, you need to ask for The hourly rate or the fee for what you need done. Need a vet appointment, fees are not listed.
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My opinion as a student: As a matter of principle I would never consider contacting a teacher who does not state clearly the pricing of their courses. I do not care too much about the price itself (I understand it should be a well-paid service); it is just a matter of openness. People who require you to contact them before disclosing this essential information seem suspicious to me. Why suspicious? There are people who post their rates, and then pull a bait-and-switch on you once you contact them. They can say, "Well, that was my rate three years ago." As a matter of principle, I would never post my rates online because I don't want people to judge me by how much I charge. I'm pretty sure there are awful teachers who charge more than I do. Then what happens?
Private Piano Teacher and MTAC Member
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My opinion as a student: As a matter of principle I would never consider contacting a teacher who does not state clearly the pricing of their courses. I do not care too much about the price itself (I understand it should be a well-paid service); it is just a matter of openness. People who require you to contact them before disclosing this essential information seem suspicious to me. I guess I am a suspicious person I'm not sure why it's so hard for people to contact professionals to ask for more information? I do this routinely for other services, especially if it's something I don't know a lot about. I'm also happy to talk to prospective students even if they don't end up taking lessons with me--- it's educational. I had no idea what my current teacher charged when I made the contact and I had no problem with asking. Most professionals and semi-professionals do not list their prices on their websites. Need an electrician, you need to ask for The hourly rate or the fee for what you need done. Need a vet appointment, fees are not listed. You don't use those services weekly and with vets you don't usually even know beforehand what will be done, so not really comparable. The trend here is that if there is a fixed fee for something, those are openly listed and even vets do list some common prices such as neuterering these days. The only real reason I can think of not to have lessons prices available on a website targeted for potential students is if it is not something fixed...so that one would charge different rates for different students. Or if one does not want the colleagues to know. I can see how that might seem suspicious to some.
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The My opinion as a student: As a matter of principle I would never consider contacting a teacher who does not state clearly the pricing of their courses. I do not care too much about the price itself (I understand it should be a well-paid service); it is just a matter of openness. People who require you to contact them before disclosing this essential information seem suspicious to me. I guess I am a suspicious person I'm not sure why it's so hard for people to contact professionals to ask for more information? I do this routinely for other services, especially if it's something I don't know a lot about. I'm also happy to talk to prospective students even if they don't end up taking lessons with me--- it's educational. I had no idea what my current teacher charged when I made the contact and I had no problem with asking. Most professionals and semi-professionals do not list their prices on their websites. Need an electrician, you need to ask for The hourly rate or the fee for what you need done. Need a vet appointment, fees are not listed. You don't use those services weekly and with vets you don't usually even know beforehand what will be done, so not really comparable. The trend here is that if there is a fixed fee for something, those are openly listed and even vets do list some common prices such as neuterering these days. The only real reason I can think of not to have lessons prices available on a website targeted for potential students is if it is not something fixed...so that one would charge different rates for different students. Or if one does not want the colleagues to know. I can see how that might seem suspicious to some. I’m sure there are regional differences. Here, no vet lists any fee for service on their website. If I would be looking for a vet for a routine office visit, I could ask for the standard fee for a new patient visit including physical exam. People here looking for a vet based on fees check with neighborhood web sites not the vet’s site
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My opinion as a student: As a matter of principle I would never consider contacting a teacher who does not state clearly the pricing of their courses. I do not care too much about the price itself (I understand it should be a well-paid service); it is just a matter of openness. People who require you to contact them before disclosing this essential information seem suspicious to me. Nobody's requiring you to contact them. You have freedom of choice in whom you choose to contact, and those with websites have the freedom to decide what information is published. If you decide you won't contact people because they excluded this, that, or the other thing from their website, then that's your prerogative. But to be suspicious of their decision not to include what you find important is silly. Why not take time to get to know the teacher before making assumptions about their trustworthiness? Interestingly, there is a recent thread on the ABF, What to look for in a teacher, and no respondents have said, "Someone who posts rates on his/her website." LOL. Not posting rates is a deal breaker for you, before you even make a human connection with such teachers? If you want to limit yourself in that way, well, nobody's stopping you, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
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My opinion as a student: As a matter of principle I would never consider contacting a teacher who does not state clearly the pricing of their courses. I do not care too much about the price itself (I understand it should be a well-paid service); it is just a matter of openness. People who require you to contact them before disclosing this essential information seem suspicious to me. Nobody's requiring you to contact them. You have freedom of choice in whom you choose to contact, and those with websites have the freedom to decide what information is published. If you decide you won't contact people because they excluded this, that, or the other thing from their website, then that's your prerogative. But to be suspicious of their decision not to include what you find important is silly. The poster is from France. I do not think it is appropriate to say his way of thinking is silly because it is different to yours. If we go to that, there are countless of things many people in US think as normal that might be considered silly on this side of the pond...but we should be respectful of each other even when not always able to understand. You might not be aware, but at least in my country the regulations require marketing to include pricing whenever reasonable and possible. That includes services. I have not checked if there is any consumer office ruling about music teaching especially, but there is for some other teaching services. This sort of regulation is probably common in EU. So someone not complying to the regulations certainly can be seem suspicious. Out of curiosity I checked out the web for piano teaching in my area. Most were very informative about the teachers credentials and all but one listed rates. That one did not have much information anyway, not even the teacher's identity. I have thought my teacher is at the top when it comes to rates, but I found one that is significantly higher. Of course that must be justified, since it also says it's the best piano school in town
Last edited by outo; 07/24/19 11:55 PM.
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The poster is from France. I hadn't noticed that. Thanks for pointing it out. I do not think it is appropriate to say his way of thinking is silly because it is different to yours. You know what? After I'd written that, I thought to myself, "I shouldn't have used the word 'silly' there." But it was after the edit window had closed. (BTW, your post is identified as having been posted "Yesterday at 11:11 PM" and at the bottom says it was last edited by yourself yesterday at 11:55 PM. How were you able to edit 44 minutes after the post time? Has the editing time been increased? At the time I posted yesterday, my edit button disappeared at the usual 10-minute mark.) If we go to that, there are countless of things many people in US think as normal that might be considered silly on this side of the pond...but we should be respectful of each other even when not always able to understand. Agreed. Certainly there are cultural differences from one place to another. It was not my intent to be disrespectful of that. You might not be aware, but at least in my country the regulations require marketing to include pricing whenever reasonable and possible. That includes services. I have not checked if there is any consumer office ruling about music teaching especially, but there is for some other teaching services. This sort of regulation is probably common in EU. So someone not complying to the regulations certainly can be seem suspicious. I see. But I'd be interested to hear from ericco if he thinks it reasonable to consider what I said about simply contacting teachers to learn more about them instead of being suspicious? I assume he does have the freedom to do the former, whatever regulations might be in place in his country. Out of curiosity I checked out the web for piano teaching in my area. Most were very informative about the teachers credentials and all but one listed rates. That one did not have much information anyway, not even the teacher's identity. I have thought my teacher is at the top when it comes to rates, but I found one that is significantly higher. Of course that must be justified, since it also says it's the best piano school in town In my area, a higher percentage of music schools have a web presence than do independent teachers like myself. And out of the independent teachers who do have sites, more of them do not post rates than the number of them who do. Interestingly, in the few months since I took my rates off my website, I have had more inquiries about lessons than I did during the whole two years prior--from the beginning of when I started my website. And of the inquiries I've had in these recent months, all of the people have signed up. Also, traffic to my site has not increased recently, so that can't account for the inquiry and enrollment rates being higher than they ever were compared to when I did have my rates on my site. Correlation doesn't necessarily indicate causation, but when things are going as well as they are now, I'm a little reluctant to change anything more at this point.
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Well, that's odd, but I couldn't edit my post past the 10-minute mark again, despite outo's apparent ability to edit his post 44 minutes later. ?? Anyway, I tried to add this additional sentence to the end of my above post: "I think there's something in the human connection--by phone or in person--that no website can replicate." I'll leave it at that.
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:34 PM
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:23 PM
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