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Episode Summary
Amy chats with Sally Eppert, an Indiana friend and colleague who was recently named the 2023 Indiana Music Teacher Association Teacher of the Year. Sally manages a large studio and four teachers – offering both group and private piano lessons, voice, and percussion.
Items Mentioned
Join the Piano Pantry Patreon community
Vibrant Music Teaching Podcast
Integrated Music Teaching Podcast
Music Lessons & Marketing with Dave Simon
Marketing Made Simple – StoryBrand.com
Transcript
Amy: Welcome to episode 90 of the Piano Pantry podcast. I’m your host, Amy Chaplin, a piano teacher who loves covering all things teacher life related from organizing your studios to getting dinner on the table and all that comes between. Today’s teacher talk features a chat between myself and a friend and fellow Indiana colleague who was recently named the 2023 Indiana Music Teacher Association Teacher of the Year.
I’ve been inspired over the years watching Sally as she managed a large, thriving studio, battled cancer, and came out on the other side without hardly missing a beat. Her passion for her students means she took action and adjusted course with grace and precision. She now supports a multi-teacher studio and works daily to inspire the next generation of teachers.
Before we jump in, I wanted to give a shout-out to Jackie Mrozek. I hope I’m saying your name right, Jackie. One of my Piano Pantry insiders for supporting the work that I do here on the podcast, which in turn supports lots of other teachers. If you would like to be an insider like Jackie, visit pianopantry.com/patreon for more details.
Sally Eppert has been teaching and performing since 1980, and currently maintains a full studio of group and private piano students, ranging from 6 to 76 years old. She enjoys teaching all kinds of students in genres of music. Sally is curious by nature and loves to learn from and network with teachers across the globe.
You’ll find her listening to podcasts and watching webinars about the latest new ideas in teaching piano and running a studio, as well as the most creative trends for the best teaching.
Amy: Well, Sally, thank you so much for joining me here on the Piano Pantry Podcast. I am actually really excited to have one of my Indiana colleagues here. It feels a little bit special and personal. Would you be able to share a little bit about yourself with the listeners? I know you, but they don’t. So we obviously know you’re from Indiana, but what’s your background? Like, how did you get to where you are today? And what does just your current situation look like?
Sally: Well, I’m Sally Eppert, and I am actually just right here in Fishers, Indiana, outside of Indianapolis. And I have been, this is my 40th year of teaching.
Amy: Oh my gosh, really. Congratulations. That, that’s a lot. That’s amazing.
Sally: No, that’s the thing. We’re going to have to do something. I don’t know what, but I’m from Terre Haute, and I grew up in Indiana. I went to school in Greencastle at DePauw, which is a great school. Everybody should go there. They have a great music department. And then, I got my master’s in Southern Method at Southern Methodist in Dallas.
I studied with Louise Bianchi, and it was really cool. I studied with David Karp also. That was just such a fun time. Since that time, I have been using the Music Pathways method, Discoveries, because I think that’s just such a great method. I also use Piano Adventures for supplemental material. I want the kids to learn, but I also want them to have fun.
Amy: How did you get your studio started? Did you, you know, have your independent studio? Did you work for a piano studio, like as a contractor or
Sally: oh yeah. That’s so interesting. So at SMU we taught groups and privates. Everybody had to be in a group. If you were gonna be at the, at that, at that conservatory, and there were like 350 kids, they were all in groups in privates.
When I got to Indianapolis, I was so sure that I was gonna do it, just I guess, of you. And then I realized financially. People weren’t going to do that. And so I pivoted to groups only. And it really was a model that worked really well. I would have four or five in a group, and I usually took them through the third year.
By that time they were usually doing early sonatinas, Bach minuets, early, you know, easy. Easy stuff. Then, we transitioned to duet lessons or private lessons. And so it just, it has worked really well in my studio to do that. I have always had a passion for teaching. I started, this is weird, I started lessons when I was 12.
Very late. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. When I was 13 in seventh grade, I told my parents I was going to teach piano. That’s what I was going to do. They were like, Oh yeah, yeah. That’s amazing to know. So early on and I have had some other side jobs to my husband through school, but I have always taught piano every year. I was not a wedding planner, so I went and taught piano. I mean,
Amy: yeah,
Sally: yeah. That’s not me.
Amy: So for your your entire 40 years of teaching, have you always done that setup where, you start students in group lessons? Has that been like a staple for you, or has that evolved or changed at all over the years?
Sally: You know, it has until 2019, the year before COVID, I got really sick, and I was diagnosed with leukemia, and I had to pivot again. Yeah, that’s the thing. And I actually had Michael Ridney, who was getting his doctorate at Ball State. He came, and he taught me for seven months. And I was so sick. I could hardly get up.
But he didn’t know how to teach groups. Like, poor guy. He’s getting his doctorate, and he is teaching about seven people a week. Yeah, and I handed like 65 people.
Amy: Oh my goodness.
Sally: Yeah, it was such a learning curve for him.
Amy: So, did he keep the groups going for you? I mean, so he was kind of thrown into it, or did you alter that for him?
Sally: He was thrown into it, and then we moved some of the group kids so that they went to private, so just the first-year kids were a group. And I tried to help him as much as I could. But I was in the hospital for seven weeks and I couldn’t leave or else I would die.
Amy: Yeah, I remember that time. I mean, just seeing you on social media and stuff. And I remember you going through this.
Sally: On, in May of that year, I got the diagnosis on a Friday night. On Saturday, my husband and I looked at each other. We just were like, What the heck? Are you kidding me? We, I never even cried. I was like, we’re so astounded.
Amy: Yeah.
Sally: And then just this disease is the one I have is very acute. Like in within three weeks, I was so sick. Oh, my goodness. Because four weeks before that, I was totally well. So I always tell people you are well till you’re not.
Amy: And then all of a sudden,
Sally: you’re just, yeah. It’s just hectic. But during that time, the Sunday was Mother’s Day, and I praised God for Indiana Music Teachers Association because I had been a member, and because I had been going, and because I like meeting people, and I like finding out what other people’s ideas are. And I think that’s a really big part of teaching. If you are stuck in your little hole-in-the-wall office, with your one piano teaching, and you’re not finding out what other people are doing, you’re really missing out. But because of that, I was able to send out emails to eight different teachers who teach. And professors that teach and got in touch with like four different people who are just graduating.
Amy: They’re able to get, get connected to get someone in there for you.
Sally: Yeah. And if now I never, if I had not made those connections over the 25 years before, it never would have worked out.
Amy: So how did your families handle that transition? Were they, were they all open to having another teacher jump in, or did you, you know, lose very many? What did that look like?
Sally: At first, we didn’t lose anybody. I just, you know, how did the families handle COVID? I Sent him an email, you know, I can’t believe my luck. I have leukemia. I have to be at the hospital. Very sorry about that. But I have this great teacher coming in. He’s starting Monday. It’s going to be great. You know, I don’t give people a choice. I don’t give them a choice. When it was COVID, I pivoted on Saturday and sent out the email saying, you have the same lesson time. See you next week on Zoom.
Amy: Yeah.
Sally: Here’s your zoom there. Here’s your Zoom ID.
Amy: See you there. So, what was the timeline again? You said that you found out about your diagnosis right before COVID. So, did Michael have to do all the online teaching for you? Is that instead of, like, maybe he did some at your house, and then, or what? How did that, and where did that timeline hit?
Sally: Yes, I found out on May 19. Okay, so, so it was all, all in 19, and then I, I started back a little bit in January, one day a week, February, I was doing two days a week, and I was gonna keep two days a week in March when Covid hit. And then he was like, oh my gosh. He was also teaching at Ball State, and he was like, I don’t know what I’m going to do.
I was tired of the writing on the wall. I was like, okay, I hear you. You go ahead and go to Ball State and do your thing. And I will go ahead and take over here. I hear what you’re saying. So he worked for you for about a year or so, and then you ended up Like, after you’ve kind of been through the first year or so of your treatments, then you kind of took your studio back over.
Amy: Right. So, where, over the last few years, has everything taken a turn from there now?
Sally: Well, I feel very fortunate. I feel, but I also feel that you create your destiny with God. I feel faith; faith plays a part in how things play out. Cause I certainly didn’t cure myself with leukemia and the doctors sure helped that I had a 50 percent chance of living.
Amy: Yeah. I remember you just being so sick.
Sally: Oh man, I was really sick. And God really, I mean, that was a big deal.
Amy: Yeah.
Sally: It felt like my faith played a part. And I feel like that is a big part of my life. Now and then, and so now, let’s see, 23, we’re at 20, we’re at 23, probably in 20, we noticed my husband was having problems, and finally he got diagnosed in 21, and my husband has Alzheimer’s.
And so, it was important that I come up with a game plan. I have always been the doer in our family. Hopefully one, everybody, every family has a person who’s a planner and a doer. I don’t know. If you have two people who are the doers, it might be a problem. You know, so it was okay. You know, what do you do when now you’re minus one income?
Amy: Yeah.
Sally: Left a big hole. And I like my children, but I didn’t think they were going to support us. Nor did I expect them to or want them to. So, then my game plan pivoted, and I had always just seen myself Teaching by myself. I don’t know. I just started thinking I could teach with other people. I bet this is going to be super fun.
And it has been really super fun. I started off that year with this gal that just kind of started showing up at our church and she was really musical, Rachel McClellan. She’s so lovely. Still trying to get her to join IMTA, but she’s super lovely. She’s so talented, and she’s now our traditional music leader, and she teaches with me, and we just feed each other, feed our souls each other.
Now, I also have Brenna Green started out. Rachel started two years ago. Brenna started last year. So, this is her second year. Brenna has her master’s from Butler in piano teaching. You know, you can’t say piano pedagogy because no one knows what you’re talking about.
Amy: Right, the word.
Sally: Now I just kind of changed my vernacular.
Amy: Yeah. So you’re bringing in other teachers to teach for you.
Sally: Yes, with,
Amy: with you.
Sally: I, I think they’re with me.
Amy: Okay.
Sally: Brenna has taken on the group thing we’re, we’re working on getting that to be a viable option. We have a great room that has four Kauai CN29s.
Amy: And how many students does she teach at the same time, like at once? Is it, do you just do partner lessons or more than that?
Sally: We like, I like to have four or five. Okay. The thing is, if you have a partner lesson and one is sick, Oh, well, there that goes. And if you have four, then you can start to do singing. You can start to divide in two and do two parts, and they’ll be more, they’ll come out of their shells more when you do two parts, because two people can be on one part and two people on the other part, we, we play. Games, we Music Mind Games, Michiko Yurko, I think, I think those Music Mind Games are great.
Amy: Yeah.
Sally: We make up our games. Joy Morin, what’s her, what, Joy?
Amy: Yeah, Joy Morin, yep.
Sally: Morin, that’s what I thought. I should have come up with a list of those people. But we pull resources from everywhere. From you, we pull resources from you. I have. You know, 40 years. I have a whole closet of games.
Amy: So how many teachers are working with you now?
Sally: Well, I have, Rachel and Brenna have a full studio. Cameron wants to teach songwriting and composition because he has his master’s. But, he is also teaching piano, and he’s my administrative assistant.
Well, we figure out how to make money teaching composition. That’s my goal for him. Yeah. And then we have a percussion teacher who’s also doing administrative stuff. And we have a voice teacher who also does piano. Wow. You know, you have to get it all figured out.
Amy: Now, are you doing, are you actually doing direct teaching with students one on one right now, or are you kind of more coaching with and helping your new teachers?
Sally: I teach adults because they come on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Yeah.
Amy: Great.
Sally: But I love my adults. They’re, they’re very special.
Amy: I actually ran across two of your people, who I know because Cameron, who works with you, is from the town that I live in. It was just one of those moments where you see someone out of context, you know, and you. I saw him at NCKP, and he and Brenna both.
And I looked at them, and I was like, wait a minute, I know you, but I’ve never seen you at NCKP before. And I don’t know him, I don’t want to say as a colleague, but like I knew him as a kid growing up, you know, we went to church together. And so, him coming into this world, he was actually a self-taught pianist.
And then he went on to study music and composition and get his master’s and everything, which is wonderful. But it was just that we’ve never been in that world together. You know, so it was kind of fun seeing him at NCKP, and I love hearing about how you are supporting them and nurturing them as teachers.
Are there actually any particular resources that have impacted your outlook on teaching or your philosophy the most? Maybe there are books, people, organizations, podcasts, or anything like that that just kind of sticks out over the years.
Sally: I love podcasts. I am always sending my teachers podcasts. I am always sending my friends podcasts, oh my gosh.
Amy: Did you hear that, listeners? Share this podcast with your friends.
Sally: Oh yeah, yeah. I do share this podcast. And I share Christina Winlock’s podcast. I love both of those. And the Vibrant Music, Nicola Cantan, I really like hers. And there are two other ones: Integrated Music Teaching Podcast with Tim Topham. I belong to his top music that he changed the name. I was trying to think of what it was now. I love that resource.
And the Key Ideas with Leela Viss Leela Viss. And we know each other personally, and I just, her, her aura, her soul, she’s just such a beautiful person. We met, oh gosh, that must have been in 2006 or 2007. When we did, we did a thing together on improv and jazz music.
Amy: Yeah, Lila’s great.
Sally: And yeah, so those are the teaching ones, but the business ones, this whole business journey thing, like I was like, I’m going to hire teachers. And then I did. And then I’m like, Oh my gosh, Noah. Ooh, I gotta figure this out.
Amy: Yeah.
Sally: I gotta pay the teachers. Oh, it’s so fun to pay, I love paying the teachers.
Amy: Do you have any particular advice for anyone that’s looking to do something like this, with everything you’ve learned?
Sally: Oh, my, my friend, this morning, she was like, you’re gonna have to write a book about that. Maybe you need a blog. I was like, oh, maybe I do. Because honestly, while Rachel was working for me the first year, I just did research for a year. And then Brenna came, and I was like, Well, this isn’t working. You guys can’t stay in my house. And the,n since last January, here we are. We are at the beginning of October. I have been trying to get a commercial space. And I think I have one. For three weeks, we’ve been trying to get the designer to write up the design. I handed her the design three weeks ago. But we still have to have it on AutoCAD. I’m like, I could have learned AutoCAD faster than you can draw this. No, but there, there are some really good books out there. And the ones I like are podcasts and 7-Figure Music School. And you do show notes. We can put these down.
Amy: Yeah, 7-Figure. Is that Daniel Patterson’s?
Sally: Yeah, Daniel Patterson, who’s here in Indy, and Nate Shaw, who’s, who’s out in Brooklyn. And then Music Lessons and Marketing with Dave Simon. And then the other really good one is TeacherZone with Chris Bates and Tyler Marlowe.
Amy: Okay.
Sally: Those are good. But I also really liked Marketing Made Simple. Yeah. That’s really good. Who’s that by? Yeah, well, it’s with Storybrand. There’s this group called Storybrand, and there are three of them that get out, out there, and do stuff. Yeah.
Amy: Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing all those. So, is there anything else that we haven’t covered today that you would like to share with the listeners?
Sally: Here is a little book. It’s just a tiny book. Have you heard of it?
Amy: I have heard of this. Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. I haven’t read it, but
Sally: this is a book that changed my life. It’s very easy to read. Picture.
Amy: Yep. Nice book to just hold even.
Sally: See, it’s just so little. Yeah. Every studio needs a copy of Steal Like an Artist.
Amy: Okay, well I will add that to the show notes for sure.
Sally: This is, this is, even if you don’t do anything else, go buy Steel Like an Artist. And what I do is when my kids, when my students get to about 7th grade, I have them read Steel Like an Artist. The premise of the book is this, and then I just ask, you know, even if they just read 10 pages, like, what did you think?
Because it’s this. In order to be good at something, art, poetry, writing, music, you have to copy what great people have done first. And then, you vary what they have done. You do a variation. And then, you can take your ideas from other people and combine them in a way that is your own. And until you have done these other things first, you, it’s hard for you to just make up your stuff.
So when someone tells you, we all know this, go home and make up a piece. We all know not to do that to a person. But this, I think this helps them feel better because there are a lot of school teachers who say you cannot copy off of someone. Copyright, oh don’t you dare, don’t plagiarize. And I tell my kids, plagiarize! That’s very good. Go do it.
Amy: That’s some good advice to leave us with there, Sally. Like I said, I’ll leave links to that and all the podcasts and everything that you mentioned today in the show notes. As we close out, Just so our listeners know, Sally was named our 2023 Indiana Music Teachers Association Teacher of the Year. I’m getting goosebumps just saying it.
So I’m curious, well, I’ll tell our listeners first, the way that we do it, we have a little tradition in our state, is when we announce it at our conference, we do it in kind of a very subtle way. So it’s slowly released. It’s not very obvious at first, it’s very we have very broad generalizations that we start with so that you can’t really figure it out until we get to the end, and little by little, you know, little drops of information are, are formed that eventually lead to who this person is. So yeah, I’m just curious when you knew,
Sally: okay, it’s when she said, and this person, Yeah. paid for two people to go to NCKP.
Amy: Okay. Yep.
Sally: And I was like, well, I don’t think anybody else would do that.
Amy: Yeah.
Sally: Nobody else would be that person.
Amy: Yes. That didn’t surprise me when I found out that you had sent Brenna and Cameron. I’m like, yep. That sounds like Sally.
Sally: Yeah. Well, I want my teachers to want to work here, and I want to support them, and I want to give them opportunities to be better teachers. And the training, and I can’t do that all.
Amy: Yeah, to learn and to find inspiration, and NCKP is a great place to do that for sure.
Sally: Yeah, and if I don’t do it for them, why…why they don’t have the money…
Amy: Yeah.
Sally: Nobody else is going to do it for them.
Amy: Supporting our next generation of teachers. That’s wonderful. Well, congratulations, Sally, on your award, and I just thank you so much for taking the time to be on the podcast today. It’s been lovely getting to chat with you.
Sally: Well, thank you, Miss Amy.
Amy: Today’s tiny tip was inspired by Sally, and that is to consider supporting another teacher’s attendance at a conference. Many conferences at the state and national levels will offer the option during registration to cover the entrance fee for a student. These fees are often at a significantly reduced rate compared to full conference registration, so it’s a great way to pay it forward and invest in our profession.
Like Sally. I would love it if you would share some of your favorite podcast episodes of this podcast with a friend. If you follow Piano Pantry on social media, all the episodes, including direct links to the show notes and transcripts, are published weekly. I would love for you to come say hello over on Instagram, where I spend most of my social media time.
You’ll find me there at Piano Pantry Amy. Thanks for being here. I’ll see you next week.
