Episode Summary
Listen in on a fun “teacher talk” group chat with three of my very own piano teacher friends: Joy Morin of ColorinMyPiano.com, Janna Williamson of JannaWilliamson.com, and Christina Whitlock of the Beyond Measure Podcast.
Items Mentioned
Post-It Note Reflection Printable (Christina Whitlock)
Episode #67 Cheers to the Best Advice I’ve Ever Received (Beyond Measure Podcast)
Determining Tuition Rates for Piano Teachers (Color in my Piano)
Flat Tuition Payments for Private Music Lessons (Chad Twedt)
Transcript
Amy: Hey, you guys. I’m back with another episode of Teacher Talk and cannot wait to introduce you to today’s guests. Yes, you heard me right. That was plural, not singular. But first, if you missed the first two Teacher Talk episodes, you’re definitely going to want to go back and check out episode number five to hear Ben Capelo, creator of the podcast All Keyed Up, as well as number 10 to hear lovely, a lovely episode with Karen Thixton, current president of Music Teachers National Association.
And now today, drum roll, please. I bring to you a special edition of teacher talk with three of my very own piano teacher, friends. Joy Morin of colorinmypiano.Com. Janna Williamson of JannaWilliamson.com and Christina Whitlock of the Beyond Measure Podcast. If you listened in on episode number 13 called How to Make Music Teacher Friends, I shared how each of these ladies became part of my own piano teacher life.
It was just two weeks ago, from the time this episode drops, that these friends were hunkered down at my house for the 2022 MTNA National Virtual Conference. I was quick to rope them into recording an episode together, of course. All I can say is that I am 100 percent convinced that you’re going to enjoy our little chat, as there was no shortage of piano teacher life conversations and laughter. Most of all, I hope you’ll walk away with a teacher heart full and a big smile on your face as I did.
Welcome to the Piano Pantry Podcast, where together we live life as independent music teachers. I’m your host, Amy Chaplin. In this space, we talk about all things teacher life related, from organizing our studios to getting dinner on the table and all that comes between. You’ll get loads of easily actionable tips on organizing and managing your studio while balancing life and home.
So I thought I would have everybody go around and just introduce yourselves to our listeners and tell us where you’re from and maybe just give us a little picture into what your studio is like right now.
Janna: Great. I’m Janna Williamson, and I live in the western suburbs of Chicago, so I’m the only one; no, I guess Joy is from Michigan, so I don’t live in Indiana with Amy and Christina. I currently have 18 private piano students ranging from age 5 to 18. My studio tends to hover around 20 or so. I also, play and do collaborative work as well, and I have four kids. So that’s my other big part of my life of how I spend my time.
Joy: My name is Joy Morin, and I live near Ann Arbor, Michigan, in a small town called Saline and we’ve been living there for about two years now. My studio is located out of my home, and I currently have somewhere between 25 and 30 students each week. My husband and I have a two-year-old daughter, so that keeps us busy, and we also are expecting baby number two at the end of the summer and then I’ll just mention the other thing, the other project always going on, is my blog. You might know me from colorinmypiano.com. So that’s just like a little snippet.
Amy: And we are all super enjoying time with baby Aria right now, too.
Joy: She’s very fun. She’s part of our entertainment. She sure is.
Christina: I’m Christina Whitlock. You may know me from my podcast, Beyond Measure. I also have a private studio in my home, which currently has 48 students. And that is too many for me right now. But I also have an adjunct position at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, and that’s where I teach the pedagogy course cycles and piano literature and all those kinds of fun things. And yeah, I also have two kids. So my daughters are five and eleven. Busy.
Amy: Good stuff. Now that you guys have shared with us a little bit about your studios, could you maybe give us a peek into your day to day schedule? Whether it’s just one day of the week or maybe an overall big picture?
Janna: Sure, I can start. I teach four days a week, so Monday through Thursday, and my kids are all currently in full-day school, so I have tried to put as many students prior to them coming home as possible, which is always a challenge, especially if you’re only teaching Pre college ages, which is what I do. I tend to start between 1:30 and 2, and then teach until about 5, so that then I have dinner and the evening with my kids.
On two evenings, I have one or two lessons after a long dinner break. I do not go straight through. I know many people go straight through till seven or 7:30. I just can’t because I have to get my kids where they need to go. I’m a taxi driver, so right now, that’s working for me. Then, in the mornings, I practice, and I offer teacher consultations. Fridays are pretty much reserved for doing online work with other teachers, making videos, and those kinds of things. And I do not work on the weekends. I do occasionally play for church, so sometimes I play on Sunday mornings, but even that is infrequent. And of course there’s the occasional collaborative work on the weekend, but even that I try to do as little as I possibly can.
Joy: My day sounds somewhat similar to yours, I think, Janna. I have most of my teaching starting from maybe 3 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon. And then I like to try to be done by 6 or 6 30 if I can. I find I just lose a lot of energy by 7. And that’s also Aria’s bedtime, and I definitely like to be part of the bedtime routine in the evenings. Yeah, my husband watches Aria while I teach, and so it works really great. He works from 8 to 4, and then he can usually watch Aria if I do want to start at 3. Then he can just have her up in his home office upstairs for that hour transition there. That’s working for us for right now, and hopefully, we’ll continue to work that way. Yeah,
So during the day is like a flexible time. I’m watching Aria, and depending on her nap schedule, or just if she’s, if we’re doing something together, or if she’s entertaining herself with toys, I can potentially get random work done, writing a blog post, or doing, I always have numerous projects going, which don’t, I don’t know, sometimes they’re long term projects, sometimes they’re short things that I’m cranking out, but.
So that’s a peek at my days. It’s flexible from day to day, but I usually have some loose idea of what I want to get done through the week. So I have a couple of homeschooled students that I teach from 9 to 10 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Trying to think if there’s anything else. On Fridays, they are open, as Janna was describing. I have an adult student that I teach every other week, but otherwise, I try not to put students on Fridays if I can. So that gives me a larger block of time to work on projects if I want to.
Amy: I will fess up on the no teaching on Fridays thing. That is the best thing I’ve ever done, too. So I would encourage teachers, if you can do that, consider whether you can cut out a day of the week and maybe Squeeze it all into four days. So
Christina: I’m so jealous I could do it. I am. Oh my goodness, you guys, so for those of you who aren’t in the know, My husband spent a good chunk of the pandemic without a job because his position of 20 years was eliminated in budget cuts and that kind of thing. So this past Summer, I just loaded myself with as many students as I could because I was feeling the pressure of supporting the family.
I normally like to hover my student load around 30, but again, I’m currently at 48, and that includes things like I have a student who comes for an hour on Tuesday mornings from 6. 30 to 7. 30 a.m. But he’s a great kid, he’s a great kid and I also, I teach until 7. 30 every night. I play taxi for my kids to and from school, and they’re in different schools this year, so that’s a thing, and then I am at Taylor two days a week I’ve got a lot of adult students and homeschooled students through the mornings, and afternoons, and right now I’m just stressing you out talking about it. I know because I’m just like wall to wall and like Joy, I have a thousand creative projects constantly poking around my brain, and I’m desperately trying to birth them into the world – I’m just not getting them there, so I’m getting ready. My husband is in a much better position now, and I’m ready to finish this academic year and find some space.
Janna: Which brings us, but I think it’s important to know that there are seasons. I have had plenty of seasons where I’ve taught on the weekends. Because that’s what I had to do. And we all adjust from year to year. I feel like I’m in a luxurious position right now with the hours that I teach, and I do not take that for granted.
Amy: Yeah, the hard part is recognizing when you’ve hit your limit. Yeah. Ding ding. And being able to find that balance. Yeah. Which actually brings us to our next question. So, is there something that is currently working well for you in finding balance between work and home life. Anything, Joy?
Joy: I’ll kick it off on this one. I think one thing that helps me is, this is almost like a non answer to your question in a way, but I dislike calling it a work life balance. I read a random article, I think, that called it the work life blend, and I like that so much better, like just I think mentally reframing it that way. Helps me a lot so that I don’t feel like it’s necessarily competing for things, and I think what’s important to realize is that, there’s not like this perfect balance that just stays the same, knows, like Janna was just saying, there are seasons of life, and there’s things always changing in our lives, my husband got very busy at work with something going on that he had to plan with this event. And so I felt, I had to do a lot more home stuff than normal to, during that season. But I, but you know it’s temporary in some cases. And you get through it, so anyway, that’s my perspective is to maybe consider thinking of it as more of a blend than a balance.
Amy: The end. That is perfect.
Christina: Amen, Joy. Now, I was just gonna say Ithat ‘ve heard Nicola Canton say the same thing, and I think what I loved is when she talked about it, she was saying that, like work and life, Like, when you talk about a balance, that implies they’re equal, and they’re not, right? Work should be a very I don’t, not very, but a smaller part of our life, than the life. We want to have a good time here on this planet, right? That’s something that I find. I’m obviously not. I’m not the one to talk to you about life balance right now. I’m just a hot mess over here. But I will say we have been teasing Amy because we’ve been like nibbling around her studio here as we’ve been staying with her.
Janna: Which is beautiful.
Christina: Oh my gosh. It is so beautiful. And we’ve been teasing because we all love our Post-It notes, right? And she’s got these adorable little stations of post-it notes all over each of her digital piano. Look, can we pause for one second?
Janna: There are stations of post-its. Yes!
Christina: And since I don’t ever keep my post its as organized as Amy in their own little stations, although maybe I should I have designed like a printable template that’s like a big like 8 by 10 or 8 and a half by 11. post it that guides me through what I need to do and remember for lessons for the following week, things that worked in my studio, things that didn’t, and I’m sure Amy could pop that in the show notes for us with this episode because it eliminates me having 14 post-it notes stuck all over my laptop stand, which is usually what happens. So there we go.
Amy: So I have to just chime in one little thing about the balance or non-balance, I should say. Not to rephrase that, but the blend! The blend of life. So one thing that I’ve done over the years is I, I have a terrible memory, and from year to year, things change, and you evolve and you change. And then, you might do something different in your life or in your studio, but then you forget about it. And I’m not a big journaler or a diary person, but I’ve always tried to, at least with my studio, schedule to make notes about things in the past. Like, why did I do this? Don’t forget, next year, don’t schedule Friday morning students because I just don’t like how that feels, or, and that’s been huge to me, to go back and see those notes again years later, and oh my gosh, yeah, I’ve already been there, done that! And you just forget. My little tip is to make notes about things that you’re experiencing and why.
Janna: Yeah, and the truth is that life changes. I have, my kids are older, and so we’re in a completely different season now than Joy is in, and you have to just constantly be willing to figure out what works in this time,e and I even know that because my boys play baseball, that the spring is the hardest season for the taxi driving, whereas other things tend to work out much better. So I just have to have that in mind and remember, from year to year, April and May are going to be the worst for our personal schedule. Yeah.
Amy: Our next question is, What is the best piece of advice someone has ever given you? Either teaching-related or otherwise. And I will start. This is just a phrase that I heard Michael Hyatt say years and years ago on a podcast, and it’s just always stuck with me. He also says that those who are closest to us should share our values, not necessarily our interests. And that’s always just really hit home with me as far as the people that are closest to me. So Yeah. Getting deep really quick, all of a sudden. So, what’s a good piece of advice someone has ever given to you?
Christina: Amy, I happen to have a podcast episode titled Cheers to the Best Advice I Ever Received as a Student. No. That’s episode 67, but I won’t actually talk about that one. But I think for me, the best advice as a teacher and as a student. A parent, for me, is always remembering that you can take what you liked about your upbringing, whether that’s your lesson experience as a child or your experience as a child in your family.
And you can take all those things and keep them, but whatever you didn’t like and you want to, work in a different direction, then that’s the joy of being the one in charge, right? You get to change that and flip it on a dime. And I think that’s really empowering. I’ve told a lot of young mothers about this when they’re pregnant with their first babies. You don’t have to worry about doing the things you didn’t like because you don’t have to do those things. I don’t know. I think that’s applicable as a teacher as well.
Janna: I struggle with the idea of the best advice I’ve ever received, so I’m having a hard time. A good piece of advice. I will say what I’ve told Christina, which is my wonderful graduate school teacher, Winston Choi right before I played my big master’s recital, looked at me and said, Trust the work you’ve already done, and it was so freeing at the moment because Instead of feeling like I had to micromanage every single moment of every single movement of every piece, I knew I had spent so much time in the practice room, and I knew I had worked out all those details, and I could be free to enjoy it.
And I think that really goes to All of life experience, parenting, teaching, we have so much experience. And so we can trust that the information is in our brains. We can recall it. We’ve practiced these things before. In the moment, with a student, you may not know what to do, but you can trust that your instincts are going to lead you in a correct way of moving. And if it doesn’t go well, you can go back and reevaluate it, later. But I like just resting in; I have a lot of knowledge and experience. I can trust what I think I should do right now.
Amy: That reminds me of something that my pedagogy professor told me back in the day. And that was you can only know what you know in the moment. And a lot of times, I think when we learn new things about teaching and just anything in life in general, you can look back and go, oh man, if I knew then what I knew now, but what good does that do? We can only know what we know and do our best with that. And that’s okay. It’s okay. Yeah,
Janna: Experience is the best teacher, so if any younger teachers are listening to this, it’s okay if ten years from now you regret how you handled something 10 years previously. We all do. Oh my, oh goodness.
You guys shared such like deep, meaningful, like life advice, I feel like, when I was reading this question, I thought of something much more practical, but go for it. But I’ll share it anyway. A really good piece of advice that I got early in my. Somewhat early in my teaching.
I guess I had been teaching a little bit, but it was When I was getting ready, I was graduated from my master’s degree program and was, teaching for real, where it would be supporting my husband and I after school. So, a colleague of mine – Chad Tweed – advised me and sent me a copy of his story.
Studio policies document and highly recommended doing a flat rate tuition. And I just looked back to that and I just think that was one of the best decisions that I made, as a young teacher, I feel so glad that I didn’t try to make a goal of charging per lesson, that I think just.
It just streamlines everything and it’s not just a business decision, but I think it frees you up to just teach well. It incentivizes your students to try to commit and come to their weekly lessons rather than Oh, this birthday party opportunity sounds attractive, plus we’ll save some money by not going to our Vanna lesson this week, and just think of what a better service you can give to your students when you’re giving them a lot of lessons in a year and you’re also hopefully not dealing with as many rescheduled situations.
That’s a separate topic, but anyway, so for anyone who has if that’s not considered it, or maybe you’ve considered it but haven’t done it yet, definitely take a look at doing that. I may have a blog post that talks about how to set it up. I
Amy: was going to say, Joy, you do the entire year round, like when they sign up, they just sign up, and then it’s just like a continuous monthly. You don’t do summer like I do year like a tuition for the year, but then I do my summer separate and then it’s like a school year tuition. Yes. So it’s the same but just a little bit.
Joy: You can do it separate both ways, either. Either way, you can have summer be its own separate package in some way, or you can have it be a 12-year thing, so you’re getting 12 equally equal payments. I think both ways are excellent.
So definitely that.
Amy: And the cool thing about yours especially is that you can change from year to year. What weeks you’re taking off. You might be like, Hey, we’re gonna go away for this week, so I’m closed the first week of October this year. But next year, you may not.
Joy: Yes. Yeah, you already figure out how many lessons you want to give in a year, and you can give yourself flex weeks, and then some of the breaks are probably pre-scheduled, like Christmas break, for example. If you know you’re going to take two weeks, then those are already determined. But I give myself four flex weeks that I can use when I want to attend a conference like this one. I took a flex week to do this.
Or if my husband and I decide to take a vacation, those kinds of things. So it, I think, for a lot of teachers, when they first hear about it and how to figure it out, how to set it up, it sounds scary and like you’re going to be locked in and not have the flexibility that you’re used to be able to do things, but I very much think it gives you lots of flexibility actually.
Janna: I agree. We all do flat-rate tuition, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. So there’s, you can’t see us because this is audio, but we’re all nodding vigorously to Joy’s piece of advice.
Amy: Joy, you said you think you have a blog post. If she finds it, then we’ll pop a link in the show notes to that as well.
Joy: I’m pretty sure I do. Yeah.
Christina: I’ll just throw in that I have been consulting with several teachers recently on this very issue. Janna, I’m sure you’ve probably done it, and Amy also, if I’ve sung this song. It’s the praises of the system up and down the planet, but what’s so great about the fact that you started with it, Joy, is that you didn’t have to go through the learning curve of Changing to this flat rate policy.
And it’s worth it. It’s worth the pains of changing. It really is. But how great that you just did it right from the get-go. And you didn’t have to deal with all the mindset shifts. Bravo to you. Bravo.
Janna: I feel lucky – thanks to my friend Chad.
Amy: He has a great blog, too called Cereboom. I’ll put the link in the show notes. Definitely check that blog out. So tell us about the non-teacher side of you guys. I want to get to know you a little bit outside of just your professional life.
So help us get to know you a little bit. Do you have any personal interests or hobbies that you would like to share?
Janna: Do we really have time for hobbies? That’s the real question. Just about, maybe three and a half years ago, my husband and I bought an old home. And very quickly, it’s 1903 American Foursquare with stained glass and wood everywhere. And very quickly, we had to figure out the special things that you need to know when your home is 116 years old or whatever it was when we moved in. And I found very quickly that I’ve always known I love beautiful things. I love going to art museums. Obviously, I love music. I love nature and beautiful things in nature, so this is just one more expression of beautiful things. And so I’ve read books and followed, You know, blogs and things about old homes, and it’s just one thing that I really enjoy looking at. And now,, whenever I go into a new area, I’m scouring the architecture for homes similar to mine or similar to other ones that I know.
Amy: Every time I watch one of your teaching videos, which are amazing by the way, you should check out Janda’s teaching videos your setting, just even your piano I can feel that aura of just a beautiful old home.
Janna: Yeah, it’s very warm; the wood makes it so warm and actually,y I need to do a tour because what you can’t see on the YouTube channel is Just off to my right is the stairwell, and we have seven foot stained glass windows, that are very prairie style The owner before us actually wrote to a stained glass expert and tried to figure out what firm had done the glass And we have the letter back from him and it says it could have been any firm in Chicago because there were, it was so prevalent in that day that they’re in so many homes but ours are quite unique just from the sheer size in our neighborhood there’s nothing that size. So they’re unique in that way. So I should do a little like tour, but my favorite. Student quote from this is, I have a student who’s graduating this year, and she is just a kick in the pants. She’s a very verbally expressive girl, and I am a total delight. And when we moved her lessons to this house, she walked in, and she looked around, and she goes, Miss Janna. It’s so aesthetically pleasing. And I said, thank you. I will never forget that compliment.
Amy: I think it can be really inspiring, though, to be in a place that just feels, like you said, Aesthetically pleasing.
Janna: Yeah and it, just the color and the wood, it makes it very warm. So I feel very warm and comforting there. It doesn’t have quite the amazing professional vibe maybe that Amy’s studio here has. Amy’s studio is so beautiful and clean, and professional. And because mine is blended with my home life, there are a few more things around. But it’s very comfortable and I love it. I feel in this season of life,
Joy: I don’t have a lot of time for personal hobbies, but before moving and before we had Aria I was into racquetball. That was my exercise. So that was really fun, and I’d love to get back into it again in the future. I’m just not sure when that will be. And then Amy reminded me of just a, I don’t know if it’s a hobby exactly, but just a quirky thing; I enjoy going to thrift stores and just seeing what kind of treasures I can find. It’s the sort of thing where, sometimes, you go and you just find nothing. And then other times you go and you find some really unique treasures for very little money, that you can bring home. So that’s just a fun little thing. It’s just kind of something that I grew up doing. Doing with my family, and that I continue to enjoy today.
Amy: And she gets some good stuff, I have to tell you. If you follow her blog, like recently she did this, these little toy piano, didn’t you get something like that? You did it! That was super fun and I was at her house a few years ago, and Joy had bought this really cool ginormous antique candlestick.
And I was like, I need that in my house. So I bought it from her. I was like, no, you cannot keep this. I need it. You never even knew that you needed that. So Joy is my thrift shop. Your personal thrift shopper. She super has some cool things. I remember you had this ginormous door that she had found, and just some really cool stuff, yeah, all about thrift shopping. I’m here to tell you.
Christina: You mentioned racquetball. Here’s a funny story. When I was in undergrad, about two weeks before my junior recital, I was playing racquetball with the guy I was dating, and somehow, that racquetball Slammed into my eyeball, and miraculously, I did not have a black eye.
But I was like, I should probably not play racquetball right before a performance. I was so worried I was going to have to walk out on stage. Life lessons learned.
Joy: You probably should have been wearing goggles.
Christina: The thing is, yeah, we really didn’t know how to play. It was pretty comical. I don’t know what on earth we were doing, but we felt like we were having a great time doing it until then.
Joy: It’s a fun game. Very fast-paced. You have to move quickly. It’s a good game. Yeah.
Amy: There are a lot of people around here who are big into pickleball. Pickleball is the thing.
Christina: I have an adult student who plays every day without fail. I’m really intense. And she’ll have her lessons right after Pickleball. And she’s so sweaty. She’s working at it. And she’s you have to come one of these days. I’ll keep you posted on the Pickleball.
Amy: I guess tied a little bit to this question is at the end of every episode, I always like to finish off with one silly or fun fact about myself. So this week, it’s a little bit more about you, girl. So do you have anything quirky or a food aversion that you can share with us?
Janna: I don’t know how quirky this is. We lived in Cambridge, UK, for one year while my husband did his master’s at the university there, and we did not own a car. And I had three, I had my three boys at that point. They were seven, four, and two, seven, four, and one. And so since we didn’t have a car, we rode bikes everywhere. And I pulled the four and one-year-old in a trailer for eight months. I have never had leg muscles. Like I had leg muscles. And the funny thing was we didn’t even have a full-length mirror in our house. So I remember going to H& M one time and like trying to buy some pants and looking in the mirror and thinking, Whose legs are those?
So I, it was a weird in shape in a strange way. I was not in pianistic shape that year. That is for sure. But my legs were in shape.
Christina: That is an amazing story.
Joy: Mine’s not really a story, but a fun fact that I came up with is that my sisters and I, three of us, all share the same middle name. Which is, I think, unusual. My middle name is Lynn.
Amy: Me too! Me too! Oh my goodness, wow!
Janna: Okay, mine is Lauren, so that’s all pretty close. That’s true. Aww, sisters! So weird.
Joy: Yeah, so yeah, my sister, so it’s Heather Lynn, and then I’m Joy Lynn, and then Susan Lynn. So that’s a fun bit.
Janna: Is it a family name?
Joy: No, I think my mom just liked it and then it worked as a middle. .
Christina: My mom, by tradition, was supposed to make my middle name Mae, M A E, and she hated, she’s Linda Mae, and she hated it and so she refused to give me, to make me Christina Mae, which sounds It’s funny. So she made me Christina Lynn, going against family tradition. My youngest daughter’s middle name is Lynn, so she’s in our club.
I was trying to think of a fun fact. I cannot, this is something I am incredibly self conscious about. I cannot roll my R’s, guys. I have tried since I was very young. My best friend since kindergarten, we used to spend hours on the phone, and she would be like, No, like this. And she would do it, and I would try to give up. She’s very persistent to this day. And I finally, like I, we were on the phone, and I would go like a lip trill, and she’d be like, you did it. But I do a lot of vocal work, and I have just always hated that I can’t get it. I can flip it, but I cannot roll those R’s. So – my big shame in life.
Janna: Oh, if that’s your biggest shame, I think you’re doing okay.
Christina: Oh, if only.
Amy: Oh, you guys are killing me. I think that kind of wraps up our episode. This has been super fun, you guys. Thank you for taking the time to hang out with me, both here on the podcast and at my house for the week.
Thank you for hosting us. Oh my goodness, Amy. Food in the hospitality. It’s been great.
Christina: Every meal, I’ve been like, I don’t want this to be over.
Janna: Yeah, and for anyone who reads Amy’s blog and hasn’t actually tasted any of it, we can now attest to the fact that it tastes as good as it looks..
Amy: I like to cook, and I like feeding my friends. Laughter.
The end. Do you have a smile on your face, teacher friends? I hope so. If anything, I hope you have felt the comforting arms of hearing from other teachers who are striving every day, just as you are, to live a healthy work-life blend. Oh, isn’t that just such a good way to think about it? I love it.
Let’s just ditch the word balance from now on. If you enjoyed this episode, would you give me a piano teacher high five by going over to Apple Podcasts and rating and reviewing this podcast so that Apple will know that people are enjoying it. They’re not mind readers, right? Also, you can find me online at PianoPantry.com, on Facebook at Piano Pantry, or on Instagram @amychaplinpiano. Hope to see you there. Have a great week.
