r/MusicTeachers

I need a new job regardless because the one I have is NOT it. But I’m currently finishing my first year teaching and I am teaching 6-8 band a choir and as I’m searching for another position I’m thinking maybe teaching elementary school aligns with my life goals much better than teaching secondary.

I’m 23 and have a lot of goals outside of my career. I participate in a sport in which I am trying to be competitive in. I LOVE playing my flute and really want to get back into that. I love conducting and making music with an ensemble but as a job I’m wondering if I’m more fit for elementary school. I’m thinking I’ll have a better work/life balance and I’ll be happier teaching that age group.

The only thing is I have NO experience with teaching elementary school. My college didn’t make me take elementary methods so I don’t even have the basic knowledge from that class. How can I tailor my resume and interviews to an elementary school? My resume highly caters to secondary, with the exception that I have worked with 5-11 year olds at summer camps and when coaching.

Also tell me why you love teaching elementary! Convince me that’s where I should be.

Fellow teachers, I've been thinking about building a simple tool to handle the scheduling + payment chaos most of us deal with. Before I waste time on it, I want to know if I'm solving a real problem or just my own. Quick question: what's your biggest admin headache? chasing payments, rescheduling, parent communication, something else? What does your current setup look like?

I’ve been teaching for 10 years, have a bachelors in general/choral music education, and have plenty of experience teaching choirs, solo voice, etc. The job I’m at now I’m finding will just never have a good music program, choir especially, mostly at the fault of the district for how they structure the schedule and almost encourage students to only take two years of a music elective, so any growth is pretty much impossible because I’ll never get students in the class long enough to actually grow. I’m trying to find another job where I can get back into teaching choirs again, but it seems like the only schools I’ll actually get hired for are ones with a terrible music program or one I’d have to build out of nothing with students who have zero experience. I know I can teach choir well and I know I’m a good enough teacher to teach at a good school with a good choir program, but the fact that my piano skills aren’t proficient enough for me to accompany is going to make it impossible. The schools I’ve gotten interviews for have mentioned that they’d like me to accompany the in the classroom, and I’ll likely be expected to prove I can if I move forward to teach a demo lesson. I wish I was better at piano myself, I definitely haven’t practiced enough to be good but I’m struggling to balance my schedule as it is let alone set aside time to become an accompanist. It sucks knowing that there are jobs I could likely do great at but won’t get purely because I’m not piano proficient. It’s my fault, I understand that, but it sucks knowing that I can do literally everything else- I can plunk multiple parts, lead warm ups, play chord progressions for pop songs fine, but I’ll likely never be good enough to accompany unless I pour all of my time into practicing.

Hi all,

Just curious if anyone’s ever had this happen. Student fractured their left thumb. He’s in pain, but rest of hand is fine so he says. I say, great! Skip the octave key, use your right hand to stabilize the saxophone, and only use your pointer middle and ring to press the first three keys down. Only play G’s A’s B’s and C’s. Anything above that don’t worry about it.

I then said “Let me know how it goes”

Never hear from him again. I just assumed all was hunky dory.

Basically, a day goes by, and principal calls me down to the office. The student made a complaint and said I forced them to play despite their finger being in pain, which I did not, or I feel I did not. If they had said it still wasn’t working, I would have just said let’s do mouth piece work instead, using non-dominant hand. Less fun, but hey, you can still participate and learn.

Now I get a passive aggressive email from mom stating that the doctor is faxing a note over because the vibrations from the saxophone on his pointer middle and ring finger will interfere with the healing process. I feel like that’s a bit of a stretch, but I’m no doctor so ok.

Just wondering if anyone else has ever had a situation like this, oh, and concert is tomorrow :l

I have a questions for the voice teachers in the group. I have a background in choral singing and have taken a few individual lessons here and there (none recently). I am now ready to take it to the next level and commit to regular voice lessons, hopefully for a year or more.

I’ve gotten recommendations for several well-qualified teachers. However, I’d really like to take a trial lesson, possibly with two or three of them, before committing to a regular program. I don’t doubt that they are well qualified, but I just feel more comfortable getting a feel for the person, and what the lesson is like, before committing.

Is this is something that is typically done for voice lessons? I am afraid of offending the teacher by implying I am questioning whether they are good enough for me. I actually had a negative experience with this about 10 years ago when I was considering voice lessons and wanted to do a trial. The teacher got very huffy and was citing all her qualifications, as if I was doubting her competence.

What makes this even harder is that I’m in a pretty small city, so I definitely don’t want to burn any bridges in the music community by offending someone. I may end up wanting to study with them at a future point, or god forbid even audition with them for a choral group!

Any advice you could give me on the etiquette of this situation would be much appreciated!

Hello!
I have a student who wants to sing Zombie by the Cranberries for talent show, but we need to obviously change the lyrics that mention weapons as we cannot sing in school. I work with K-12 students so not sure if it’s appropriate at all to sing but wanted to get some advice!

Does anyone have any suggestions?? Also, what is your rule of thumb for changing lyrics to make songs school appropriate?

Editing to add: I totally agree with what everyone is saying - this was kind of just a last ditch effort to see if there was a way as she really wants to do it but I’ll ask our principal. Thank you!! ☺️

TIA!!!

I've been teaching in a private music school for about half a year now, and I love my office/practice room. I've customized it to my liking, made it a safe place for my students, and it's cluttered with gifts that my students have given me, so whenever I have a rough time, I can smile reading the small letters they gave me, and I can encourage myself that I'm doing a good job teaching them.

However, I have one complaint: the location of my office.

For context, the music school I teach at is located in a strip mall, and right beside our building is an Indian restaurant. Personally, I love the smell of indian food, it smells delicious, but some of my young students complain about the curry smell being too strong, and I can't blame them for that.

The issue is I can't get rid of the smell at all. There are no windows in my room to air out the space, and, as music teachers know, closing the door while our students practice is a common courtesy to everyone else because of all the noise.

The most I can do to try and air out the space is leaving my door open when I have a break and pray that the breeze from the hallway clears out the smell, but the reality of my schedule is that I have students back-to-back. I can't spray air freshener or bring a candle, and I can't move offices because all employees are assigned to certain rooms depending on the students' instruments. So, I'm looking for suggestions. What can I do in this situation?

I am in highschool and I'm considering becoming a middle school choir teacher. I have several years of experience in choir and (if it matters) I played flute for even longer. I also just started practicing piano. I'm curious about what steps I should take to become a music teacher and if anyone has tips I would be happy to hear them

Im stuck, do I increase my studio, I teach 4 nights a week, and pull income close to my public school salary. Does anyone do similar things and have advice

I'm a full time musician and guitar teacher and I teach at a few schools, but I'm looking to get more private students, so that I can make more per hour and set my own schedule. What are the best websites / platforms to get students (in-person and/or online). I've tried a few services that seemed to give so many fake leads that you had to pay for. I would pay for a few leads if they were real and actually connected, but it's frustrating to filter out the scams.

Can anyone recommend one of these services that have actually gotten you students? Such as Lessonface, Thumbtack, Nextdoor, etc.? Or is it better to just post in local community facebook groups?

I have been the elementary music teacher for my school for the past 6 years. I was quite surprised when I first took the job to learn that the kindergarten team of teachers directed their end of the year program without the music teacher, complete with singing about 9 songs for the community.

Apparently, one of the previous music teachers in my position refused to run the kindergarten program, so they decided back then to do it themselves and they’ve been doing it ever since, led by a teacher who has been teaching at our school for over 30 years.

I have gotten over this, mostly because it’s one less thing for me to do. I am still heavily involved in the process however, despite the fact that I am not technically “in charge of it.” This year for the program (and for the last several years) I have done the following:

- Taught the majority of the songs throughout the year in their regular music classes that they sang for the program.
- Spent the last several music classes rehearsing their songs with them, with choreography
- Downloaded practice tracks into a Google Drive file for all of the teachers to practice with in their classrooms
- Set up the risers and sound equipment for their concert (my fourth grade concert was the day before, but it was still set up for them and ready to go, regardless)
- Burned a CD for them to use for the program, this included the extra time of throwing some of the songs into audacity software to crop out the beginning and ending of the ones downloaded from YouTube)
- This year, I also showed them how to run the new sound system CD player and microphones.

There were no printed programs for the show last night (and never are for this program). At the end of their program however, the Kindergarten teacher in charge rattled off a list of names of the kindergarten teachers to thank them for their help. She even thanked the first grade teacher that simply watched kids walk down the hallway to their classrooms to prepare for the evening program, a task that took her maybe 10 minutes of her time max.

I was not acknowledged or thanked whatsoever this year, nor in any of the years previously that I have attended the kindergarten program. The lack of consideration is infuriating, but I’m not sure how to approach this without coming off as entitled or difficult to deal with. It just feels like a slap to the face for everything I’ve done for them and for our students.

How would you handle this situation? Do I just let it go?

I’m a musician. I’m proficient on 14 instruments. I like to play violin and viola when I visit my granddaughters. When I have band concerts, they like my clarinet or saxophone.

My older granddaughter is five. Starting kindergarten in the fall. I think she’s ready for some sort of music lessons. I figure since she’s so intrigued with my clarinet, she might like recorder (which I also play). I’d love to start her on some easy low-key lessons. But her mom is pretty against, well, anything. Doesn’t want her doing music, scouts, sports, even swimming lessons. But my granddaughter loves hearing me play my instruments, and pressing keys on clarinet and saxophone, bowing the violin.

My son is less resistant to music ideas, he just doesn’t want to “force” her. So how do I convince them that music lessons are appropriate and fun?

Running my own small guitar studio and honestly the admin side has become a second job.

Between managing schedules, rescheduling requests, chasing payments, and trying to figure out which students actually practiced this week, I feel like I spend more time on this stuff than on actual teaching.

The practice accountability thing is what gets me the most. Students show up, haven't touched the guitar all week, and there's no real system to track it or hold them accountable between lessons. I've tried just asking them but that obviously doesn't work.

For those of you running your own studios, how do you actually handle this stuff? Specifically curious about:

• How do you track whether students are practicing between lessons?
• What do you use for scheduling and dealing with last minute cancellations?
• Payments, do you automate this or still do it manually?
• How do you keep notes on each student's progress without it becoming a mess?

What's the one thing you wish you had a better system for? I feel like there has to be a better way than what I'm doing right now, I also heard about MyMusicStaff but I'm unsure about the price.

Hi, I was recently tasked with equipping and setting up a music class/studio in a school my company is renovating (which is very far from my usual job here, I make software for stage lights and screens), and I frankly have zero idea what equipment to get.

I was given a $50k budget for equipment and the school principal basically shrugged his shoulders and said buy whatever. There's no music teachers in school yet, so no one to ask for suggestions. I'm thinking a big digital mixer, sound system, PC with music software and blow the rest of the budget on the music instruments, basically.

If any music teachers are willing to give advice or chat, please tell me what would you love to see in a school music class?

Hey all,

Im currently an undergrad music ed major with my primary instrument being piano. I picked up a student over the summer who is going into kindergarten. I’ve never taught a child this young before. Literally can i get ANY advice? what do I start her on??? i really want this experience but i’m scared i’m going to screw her up or discourage them.

Anything helps!!!!

I teach high school music, and two of my classes are a beginner piano class. My classes are mixed grades but I have mostly seniors in both. This year I felt the best I've ever felt teaching this class; I had a good balance between working on written theory/understanding music reading and practicing the skills on the keyboard. By March these classes were the most "advanced" I'd ever had; they were much more self sufficient and were able to read notation and practice with improvement on their own without me needing to breathe down their neck constantly. The majority will sit and do nothing in class unless explicitly told otherwise, but once I realized that they're not going to do any work unless I almost physically herd them to their keyboards and/or tank their grades (which I HATE doing but they give me no choice) I could get them to stay pretty consistent playing basic songs with two or three chords in the left hand and more "complex" rhythms (eighth notes, dotted half notes,etc).

I decided to try and extend their learning and get them building major/minor chords, learning to read them in root/1st/2nd inversions, and play pop progressions i.e. "All of Me" by John Legend. We spent about three weeks learning to read and build chords in root, how to invert, and then how to read those inversions on sheet music. We completed worksheets and I showed them one by one how to place their hands on the keyboard for each chord and how the inversions help move to each chord without changing the entire position. It was going well...until it wasn't.

Admittedly, I gave them about a week where their only objective was to practice. They had options to play All of Me, or Memories by Maroon 5, or the standard 12 bar blues chord progression in C Major. Somewhere in that week of individual practice many of them seemed to completely forget how to do any of it. They're not stacking chords from bottom to top and acting like they have zero clue what they're looking at when looking at a chord, they ignore accidentals even though I've laid it out plainly for them, they'll try to play chords by bending their fingers and hands in crazy ways and them complaining that they can't play it...I'm at a loss. Music is not easy and it won't come naturally to everyone, but I feel like I've given them literally everything I could to learn and succeed and they've strangely either forgotten completely or are just not worried about actually doing it and are just trying to press buttons so I get off their back. I don't know if it's just the end of year or what, but I feel like I somehow destroyed all progress by trying to switch it up. None of them are going to go off to continue to play piano as far as I can tell, I know most of them are in the class because it's required to take an arts credit, but the rapid decline makes me feel like any progress this years was wasted. Just bummed.

So i have this client that i have had for two full quarters. We are now entering our third quarter despite me having fired him at the beginning of it.

First off he lied to me about having a 1 income household hence needing a discount. Pulled on my heaestrings and i fell for it. Come to see later that they are a double income family that run businesses and the wife works for an NGO with a reputable company and is always globe trotting. So no issues with paying there.

Now for the issue at hand. When they resumed for the 2nd quarter the guy justpicked a random date and decided that that would be when they were going to be available without asking about it's availability. Told him while Friday is kinder tricky because it is the weekend and from past experiences people tend to schedule othwr stuff and we will wind up doing alot of make up classes. He already had Saturday but for some reason he only wanted Friday.

Long story short it happend exactly as i had warned him with him being the worst offender. Whenever he missed classes he wouldnt offer another alternative for a make up clas or he would choose an impossible day.

On the day of the recital for the last quartwr he went away with his wife without letti g me know if his kids would be participating.

The last time he made pagment was February 20th. I was stuck doing make up classes u til April 30th.

I could see he was quite comfy and pleased with himself cos he disnt have to pay all those other months but at what cost? Thr kids missed a sig ificant chunk of classes.

So anyway when we resumed this quarter he now wanted me to tell him why we didnt do ABRSM exams for the kids end of last quarter. Ha also wanted me to start writing notes in a new notebook that he would purchase. Notes about what we learnt that day.

Mind you i already have A4 music books that i write teaching notea and homework directions for my students.

Do you teachers do this? I tried to explain to him that we didnt need another notebok and that would take alot of unnecessary time that should have gone i to me teaching the kids. He i sisted he needed for him to track the lessons. I told him he cohld do that from the music exercise book, his wife said she doesnt understand what is written there.

I told her precisely! Wjy do you need these notes if you dont understand what you are going to be reading?

Anyways i had alrwady fored tham cos the guy used to delay payments and i would have to follow up morw than 5timea and i was over it.

What would you guys do? They are becoming a nuisance to me and i am considering dropping them at the end of this quartwr especially because he said once we do the ABRSM exams they want to take a break till January the resume again for exams. I dont want to teach for exams only. Not to mention the atress this would put on me and the kids. There are other aspects of mhsic like technique that need to be developed in between exams. And also just being able to learn pieces and play for pleasure.

How would you handle this?